Vice President JD Vance doubled down President Donald Trump's blaming the Biden administration's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in leaving U.S. air traffic control staffing short after a pair of deadly aviation crashes in the past week.
"[Trump] was being very explicit about the fact that DEI policies have led our air traffic controllers to be very short staffed: That is a scandal," Vance said in a televised interview that aired Sunday morning. "Thankfully it is a scandal that the president has stopped.
"So, there are two big issues here: No. 1, most importantly, again, you’ve got to have the right people in air traffic control. Air traffic control is short-staffed. And I think the elimination of DEI hires and DEI policies will allow us actually to hire the air traffic controllers that we need."
Like Trump, Vance made sure to start with "incredibly heartbreaking" condolences for the lost lives in the air crashes in week two of the Trump administration, lamenting the "human tragedy."
"Our hearts go out to everybody who was affected by it," Vance said, noting he has spoken with families of victims.
"But but I do think that we also have to do a better job at the policy so that we make sure that aviation is as safe as it possibly can. Now, we haven't had an aviation accident like this in about 15, 20 years. We want to make sure that we try to never have an aviation accident like this again, or at least make them as minimal as possible. And that does, I think, mean that we have to talk about the policies now."
Both the Obama and Biden administrations put too much emphasis on DEI policies that have impacted air traffic control staffing, Vance added.
"Here’s the specific way in which I think the policies of the last administration and the Obama administration contributed to where we are: We have a massive shortage of air traffic controllers," Vance continued. "And in fact, there have been a number of lawsuits from people who would like to become air traffic controllers against the Obama and Biden administrations, who basically said, We were told, not even to apply because of the color of our skin, because they were white people who wanted to be air traffic controllers. And under the regime of the Biden administration, they weren't welcome.
"Well, what does that mean? No. 1, it means that we don’t have the best and the brightest sometimes in these positions. But even more importantly than that, even when we do get really good people, they're going to be way overstressed because they're working long hours because air traffic controllers are short-staffed."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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