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00:00Thank you very much.
00:18I speak to you this morning in an hour of anguish for our nation.
00:25Just before 9 p.m. last night, an American Airlines regional jet carrying 60 passengers
00:30and four crew collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three military service
00:36members over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., while on final approach to Reagan National
00:43Airport.
00:44Both aircraft crashed instantly and were immediately submerged into the icy waters of the Potomac.
00:51Real tragedy.
00:52The massive search and rescue mission was underway throughout the night, leveraging
00:57every asset at our disposal.
00:59And I have to say, the local, state, federal, military, including the United States Coast
01:05Guard in particular, they've done a phenomenal job.
01:09So quick, so fast, it was mobilized immediately.
01:14The work has now shifted to a recovery mission.
01:19Sadly, there are no survivors.
01:23This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation's capital and in our nation's history
01:29and a tragedy of terrible proportions.
01:33As one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly.
01:40And we are a country of — really, we are in mourning.
01:45This has really shaken a lot of people, including people, very sadly, from other nations who
01:50were on the flight.
01:52For the family members back in Wichita, Kansas, here in Washington, D.C., and throughout the
01:57United States, and in Russia — we have a Russia contingent, some very talented people.
02:04Unfortunately, we're on that plane.
02:06Very, very, very sorry about that.
02:09Whose loved ones were aboard the passenger jet, we can only begin to imagine the agony
02:14that you're all feeling.
02:17Nothing worse.
02:18On behalf of the First Lady, myself, and 340 million Americans, our hearts are shattered
02:23alongside yours, and our prayers are with you now.
02:27And in the days to come, we'll be working very, very diligently in the days to come.
02:32We're here for you to wipe away the tears and to offer you our devotion, our love, and
02:37our support.
02:38There's great support.
02:40In moments like this, the differences between Americans fade to nothing compared to the
02:45bonds of affection and loyalty that unite us all, both as Americans and even as nations.
02:52We are one family, and today we are all heartbroken.
02:56We're all searching for answers.
02:59That icy, icy Potomac — was it cold, cold night, cold water — we're all overcome
03:07with the grief for many who have so tragically perished, who will no longer be with us.
03:13Together, we take solace in the knowledge that their journey ended not in the cold waters
03:17of the Potomac, but in the warm embrace of a loving God.
03:22We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas,
03:28and I think we'll probably state those opinions now.
03:31Because over the years, I've watched as things like this happen, and they say, well, we're
03:35always investigating.
03:36And then the investigation, three years later, they announce that we think we have some pretty
03:41good ideas.
03:42But we'll find out how this disaster occurred, and we'll ensure that nothing like this ever
03:48happens again.
03:49The FAA and the NTSB and the U.S. military will be carrying out a systematic and comprehensive
03:56investigation on our new Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, his second day on the job.
04:04When that happened, it's a rough one.
04:09We'll be working tirelessly.
04:10He's a great gentleman.
04:11The whole group is — these are great people, and they are working tirelessly to figure
04:17out exactly what happened.
04:19We will state certain opinions, however.
04:21I'm also immediately appointing an acting commissioner to the FAA, Christopher Rochelot,
04:28a 22-year veteran of the agency, highly respected.
04:32Christopher, thank you very much.
04:35Appreciate it.
04:36We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system.
04:40I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary.
04:47You remember that.
04:49Only the highest aptitude — they have to be the highest intellect and psychologically
04:56superior people — were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers.
05:03That was not so prior to getting there.
05:05When I arrived in 2016, I made that change very early on because I always felt this was
05:11a job that — and other jobs, too — but this was a job that had to be superior intelligence.
05:17And we didn't really have that, and we had it.
05:22And then, when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever
05:29before.
05:31I put safety first.
05:33Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first.
05:36And they put politics at a level that nobody has ever seen, because this was the lowest
05:44level.
05:45Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse.
05:50So as you know, last week, long before the crash, I signed an executive order restoring
05:55our highest standards for air traffic controllers and other important jobs throughout the country.
06:00So it was very interesting.
06:02About a week ago, almost upon entering office, I signed something, last week, that was an
06:12executive order very powerful on restoring the highest standards of air traffic controllers
06:17and others, by the way.
06:20And my administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety.
06:24We have to have our smartest people.
06:26It doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are.
06:30It matters intellect, talent.
06:32The word talent.
06:33They have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses.
06:37You can't have regular people doing that job.
06:40They won't be able to do it.
06:43But we'll restore faith in American air travel.
06:45I'll have more to say about that.
06:47I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office
06:55and here's one, the FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual
07:03and psychiatric disabilities.
07:07That is amazing.
07:08And then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment
07:15of the workforce and they want them in and they want them, they can be air traffic controllers.
07:20I don't think so.
07:22This was in January 14th.
07:25So that was a week before I entered office.
07:28They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program.
07:35Then another article, the Federal Aviation Administration.
07:39This was before I got to office recently, second term.
07:45The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric
07:53problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative
07:58spelled out on the agency's website.
08:02Can you imagine?
08:03These are people that are, I mean, actually their lives are shortened because of the stress
08:10that they have.
08:12Brilliant people have to be in those positions and their lives are actually shortened, very
08:17substantially shortened because of the stress where you have many, many planes coming into
08:22one target and you need a very special talent and a very special genius to be able to do
08:29it.
08:31Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the federal government as a matter of
08:34policy has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring.
08:39The FAA's website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis,
08:47complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism
08:54all qualify for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring
09:03into a little spot, a little dot on the map, a little runway.
09:09The initiative is part of the FAA's diversity and inclusion hiring plan.
09:14Think of that.
09:15The initiative is part of the FAA's diversity and inclusion hiring plan, which says diversity
09:20is integral to achieving FAA's mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel.
09:26I don't think so.
09:27I don't think so.
09:28I think it's just the opposite.
09:29The FAA website shows that the agency's guidance on diversity hiring were last updated on March
09:3723rd of 22.
09:38They wanted to make it even more so.
09:41And then I came in, and I assume maybe this is the reason.
09:45The FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a real winner, that guy's a real
09:52winner.
09:53Do you know how badly everything's run since he's run the Department of Transportation?
09:57He's a disaster.
09:58He's a disaster as a mayor.
10:01He ran his city into the ground, and he's a disaster now.
10:05He's just got a good line of bullshit.
10:09The Department of Transportation, his government agency charged with regulating civil aviation.
10:14Well, he runs it, 45,000 people, and he's run it right into the ground with his diversity.
10:22So I had to say that it's terrible.
10:26Then it's a group within the FAA, another story, determined that the workforce was too
10:31white, that they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and
10:39to change it immediately.
10:42This was in the Obama administration just prior to my getting there.
10:47And we took care of African Americans, Hispanic Americans.
10:50We took care of everybody at levels that nobody's ever seen before.
10:54It's one of the reasons I won.
10:56But they actually came out with a directive, too white.
11:00And we want the people that are competent.
11:04But now we mourn and we pray, and we'd like to ask all Americans to join me in a moment
11:09of silence as we ask God to watch over those who have lost their lives and bring comfort
11:14to the loved ones.
11:16And I just want to say God bless everyone in this room.
11:20This has been a terrible, very short period of time.
11:25We'll get to the bottom of it.
11:27So we all saw the same thing.
11:30You've seen it many times.
11:31I've had the honor of hearing tapes.
11:35Tapes are scary, very scary tapes.
11:40You had a airliner coming in, American Airlines.
11:45He was doing everything right.
11:47He was on track.
11:48He was the same track as everybody else that came in.
11:50It's probably the same track as they've had for 25 years or more.
11:54He's coming in the path.
11:57And for some reason, he had a helicopter that was at the same height, obviously, when they
12:06hit, but pretty much the same height and going at an angle that was unbelievably bad.
12:14When the air traffic controller said, do you see, you know, he's talking about, do you
12:19see him?
12:20But there was very little time left when that was stated.
12:24And then also he said, follow him in.
12:26And then almost immediately after that, you know, seconds after that, there was the crash
12:32that took place.
12:33Well, you follow him in.
12:35That means like everything's fine.
12:36Follow him in.
12:40You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter, I mean, because it was
12:46visual.
12:47It was a very clear night.
12:50It was cold, but clear and clear as you could be.
12:54The American Airlines plane had lights blazing.
12:59They had all their landing lights on.
13:01I could see it from the Kennedy Center tape.
13:03We had a tape up on the Kennedy Center.
13:06That seems to be the primary.
13:07That's why I'm sure we'll see other tapes because it's such a an area where there are
13:12a lot of cameras, a lot of cameras looking up into the air, into space.
13:17So we'll probably see many other shots of it before too much time goes by.
13:22But we had a situation where you had a helicopter that had the ability to stop.
13:29I have helicopters.
13:31You can stop a helicopter very quickly.
13:34It had the ability to go up or down.
13:35It had the ability to turn.
13:39And the turn it made was not the correct turn, obviously.
13:44And it did somewhat the opposite of what it was told.
13:48We don't know that that would have been the difference because the timing was so tight
13:52it was so it was so little there was so little time to think.
13:57But what you did have is you had vision.
14:00The helicopter had vision of the plane because you had vision of it all the way.
14:05Perfect vision of it all the way from at Kennedy Center where the tape was taken.
14:10And for some reason, there weren't adjustments made again.
14:14You could have slowed down the helicopter substantially.
14:17You could have stopped the helicopter.
14:18You could have gone up.
14:19You could have gone down.
14:20You could have gone straight up, straight down.
14:22You could have turned.
14:23You could have done a million different maneuvers.
14:26For some reason, it just kept going and then made a slight turn at the very end.
14:35And it was by that time it was too late.
14:39They shouldn't have been at the same height because if it was at the same height, you
14:43could have gone under it or over it.
14:45And nobody realized or they didn't say that it's at the same height.
14:50At the same height, it still wouldn't have been great, but you would have missed it by
14:54quite a bit.
14:55It could have been 1,000 feet higher.
14:56It could have been 200 feet lower.
14:59But it was exactly at the same height and somebody should have been able to point that
15:02out.
15:03So all of this is going to be studied.
15:05But it just seems to me from a couple of words that I like to use, the words common sense,
15:13some really bad things happened and some things happened that shouldn't have happened.
15:20You had a helicopter going in identical direction.
15:24You had a helicopter that was at the exact same height as somebody going in essentially
15:29the opposite direction.
15:31You had a plane that was following a track, which is a track that every other plane followed.
15:37And I don't imagine, I know I've heard today that they might have been following the preceding
15:41plane, which was pretty close, but not that close, the preceding plane.
15:46But you wouldn't have even been able to see that because of the direction that the helicopter
15:49was coming in at.
15:51So you had a confluence of bad decisions that were made.
15:58And you have people that lost their lives, violently lost their lives.
16:06We're going to take a few questions.
16:07I'd like to ask our new Secretary of Transportation to say a few words.
16:12Sean Duffy, great gentleman, just started.
16:15It's not your fault.
16:18And I know you agree with me very strongly on intellect and even psychological well-being
16:24of the air traffic control.
16:25Such an important position.
16:27And I think I can't emphasize stronger, I changed it when I first ran in 2016.
16:34I changed it.
16:35We had the highest standard that you could have.
16:38And then they changed it back.
16:41That was Biden to a standard you just, I read it to you.
16:45That was from one of your papers.
16:47One of the people in this room actually wrote that.
16:51And then I changed it back a few days ago.
16:55And unfortunately, that was, we'll see.
17:01We don't know that necessarily it's even the controller's fault.
17:04But one thing we do know, there was a lot of vision and people should have been able
17:07to see that, you know, at what point do you stop?
17:10At what point do you say, wow, that plane's getting a little bit close.
17:13So this is a tragedy that should not have happened.
17:17Please.
17:18Thank you, Mr. President.
17:21And I would just note the President's leadership has been remarkable during this crisis.
17:27We have had a whole of government response, local, state, federal.
17:32And when you see that kind of cooperation, it begins with the leadership in this body.
17:38So thank you for that, Mr. President.
17:40You make our jobs a lot easier.
17:43You made an important point that when we deal with safety, we can only accept the best
17:49and the brightest in positions of safety that impact the lives of our loved ones, our family
17:56members.
17:57And I think you make a really important point on that, Mr. President.
17:59That is the motto of your presidency, the best and the brightest, the most intelligent
18:04coming into these spaces.
18:05I want to take a moment and extend my condolences to the families of the loved ones.
18:12We commit to them that we are going to get to the bottom of this investigation, not in
18:17three years, not in four years, but as quickly as possible with the NTSB, who is here today,
18:22as well as the FAA.
18:24What happened yesterday shouldn't have happened.
18:27It should not have happened.
18:29And when Americans take off in airplanes, they should expect to land at their destination.
18:36That didn't happen yesterday.
18:37That's unacceptable.
18:39And so we will not accept excuses.
18:42We will not accept passing the buck.
18:46We are going to take responsibility at the Department of Transportation and the FAA to
18:51make sure we have the reforms that have been dictated by President Trump in place to make
18:56sure that these mistakes do not happen again.
18:59And again, I want to thank you for your leadership, Mr. President.
19:02And I appreciate the confidence you placed in me.
19:07Pete, would you like to say something?
19:12Well, thank you, Mr. President.
19:14Again, I want to echo what the Transportation Secretary said about your leadership.
19:18From the moment we found out about this, we were in contact with the White House trying
19:22to determine exactly what happened.
19:24I would echo it as well.
19:25No excuses.
19:26We're going to get to the bottom of this.
19:29We first and foremost, from the Defense Department, want to pass our condolences to the 64 souls
19:35and their families that were affected by this.
19:38Never should happen.
19:40And certainly the three service members, the three soldiers, the young captain, staff sergeant,
19:46and the CW2 chief warrant officer, on a routine annual retraining of night flights on a standard
19:53corridor for a continuity of government mission.
19:57The military does dangerous things.
19:59It does routine things on a regular basis.
20:02Tragically, last night, a mistake was made.
20:05And I think the President is right.
20:07There was some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating
20:12at the DOD and Army level.
20:15Army CID is on the ground investigating.
20:17Top-tier aviation assets inside the DOD are investigating, sir, to get to the bottom of
20:22it so that it does not happen again, because it's absolutely unacceptable.
20:26But I want to echo what the Transportation Secretary and you, Mr. President, said, because
20:31it pertains to the DOD as well.
20:34We will have the best and brightest in every position possible.
20:37As you said in your inaugural, it is colorblind and merit-based.
20:42The best leaders possible, whether it's flying Blackhawks and flying airplanes, leading platoons,
20:48or in government.
20:49The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department, and we need the best and brightest, whether
20:56it's in our air traffic control, or whether it's in our generals, or whether it's throughout
21:01government.
21:02So thank you for your leadership and courage on that, sir, and we'll stand by you on it.
21:06Thank you very much.
21:07J.D., please.
21:08Well, thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership.
21:13I just want to reemphasize something the President said, and you've heard from the Secretary
21:17of Transportation and of Defense.
21:19There really was a whole-of-government response.
21:20We were all on the phone.
21:21We were all communicating yesterday, trying to get to the bottom of this immediately,
21:25but also try to communicate with the American people about what happened.
21:29Something the President said that I think bears reemphasizing, which is that when you
21:33don't have the best standards in who you're hiring, it means, on the one hand, you're
21:38not getting the best people in government, but on the other hand, it puts stresses on
21:42the people who are already there.
21:44And I think that is a core part of what President Trump is going to bring and has already brought
21:48to Washington, D.C., is we want to hire the best people because we want the best people
21:53at air traffic control, and we want to make sure we have enough people at air traffic
21:56control who are actually competent to do the job.
21:59If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds
22:04of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers,
22:07but they were turned away because of the color of their skin.
22:10That policy ends under Donald Trump's leadership because safety is the first priority of our
22:15aviation industry.
22:16Thank you, Mr. President.
22:19Mr. President, on DEI and the claims that you've made, are you saying this crash was
22:23somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring?
22:27And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?
22:30It just could have been.
22:31We have a high standard.
22:32We've had a much higher standard than anybody else.
22:36And there are things where you have to go by brainpower.
22:38You have to go by psychological quality.
22:43And psychological quality is a very important element of it.
22:46These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use, and they were terminated by
22:50Biden.
22:52And Biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite.
22:55So we don't know.
22:56But we do know that you had two planes at the same level.
22:59You had a helicopter and a plane.
23:01That shouldn't have happened.
23:03And we'll see.
23:04We're going to look into that.
23:05We're going to see.
23:06But certainly, for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the
23:11sharpest.
23:12We want somebody that's psychologically superior.
23:16And that's what we're going to have.
23:17Yeah.
23:18Yeah, please.
23:19Go ahead.
23:20Mr. President, you mentioned at the top of the briefing that there were several Russian
23:24nationals on the flight.
23:26Yes.
23:27Will the U.S.
23:28government be willing to facilitate the transfer of their remains, considering the fact there
23:34is no direct air travel between the two countries?
23:37We've already been in contact with Russia, and the answer is yes, we will facilitate.
23:40Yes.
23:41Mr. President.
23:42Please, go ahead.
23:43Thank you, Mr. President.
23:44The situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is getting worse, even though President
23:53John Lorenzo has been mediating the conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic
23:58of the Congo because he wants to bring peace and stability.
24:01The situation is really bad right now.
24:04I want to hear from you, Mr. President, if you have any plan in the future to bring peace
24:09in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
24:10Well, you're asking me a question about Rwanda, and it is a very serious problem, I agree.
24:13But I don't think it's appropriate right now.
24:14I'd have to talk about it.
24:15But it is a very serious problem.
24:16Mr. President.
24:17Mr. President.
24:18We don't even yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed, and you are blaming
24:22Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control and, seemingly, the member of the
24:27U.S. military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter.
24:30Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?
24:32No, I don't think so at all.
24:33I don't think we're the names of the people.
24:35You mean the names of the people that are on the plane?
24:39You think that's going to make a difference?
24:40Does it comfort their families?
24:41We are a group of people that have lost their lives.
24:45If you want a list of the names, we can give you that.
24:47We'll be giving that very soon.
24:48We're in coordination with American Airlines.
24:51We're in coordination very strongly, obviously, with the military.
24:54But I think that's not a very smart question.
24:56I'm surprised coming from you.
24:58Please.
24:59Please.
25:00Thank you, President Trump.
25:01Thank you for being here.
25:02Based on your analysis so far, do you have a sense of who was at fault, if it was the
25:07plane, the helicopter, air traffic control?
25:10And can you assure people that it is safe to fly in and out of D.C.?
25:13Well, I've given you the analysis, and the analysis was based on vision.
25:19You had a lot of people that saw what was happening.
25:23You had some people that knew what was happening.
25:26There was some warnings, but the warnings were given very, very late.
25:29You know, those warnings were given very late.
25:31It was almost as they were given a few seconds later there was the crash.
25:35It should have been brought up earlier.
25:39But the people in the helicopter should have seen where they were going.
25:45I can't imagine people with 20-20 vision not seeing, you know, what's happening up there.
25:54Again, they shouldn't have been at the same height.
25:57You're going in reverse directions or sideway directions.
26:01Obviously, you want to be at different heights.
26:03I see it all the time when I'm flying.
26:05You have planes going in the opposite.
26:07They're always lower.
26:08We're higher.
26:10So if somehow there's a screw-up, there's not going to be a tragedy.
26:15It'll be close.
26:16But, you know, there's never going to be a tragedy if you're at a different elevation.
26:19For whatever reason, they were at the same elevation.
26:22And also, from the American Airlines Center, he's along the track that every plane is along.
26:28You say, what was the helicopter doing in that track?
26:33It's very sad.
26:34But visually, somebody should have been able to see and taken that helicopter out of play.
26:40And they should have been at a different height.
26:42All right?
26:43The Press Thank you, sir.
26:44You mentioned the Russians that were on board that plane.
26:48What other nationalities were on board that passenger jet?
26:50The President There were a couple of others.
26:51We're going to be announcing it in about an hour.
26:53We have some very specific information.
26:57We're calling the countries.
26:58We've spoken to most of them.
26:59But there were some other countries represented.
27:01The Press Have you spoken to President Putin?
27:04The President I have not, no.
27:07Not about this.
27:08The Press On your executive order, you've already issued an executive order.
27:11You say we'll restore aviation safety.
27:13This crash happened after that.
27:16Was the executive order successful?
27:17And what more do you need to change to keep people safe?
27:19The President Well, you know, we issued it three days ago,
27:22and we were in the process of making those changes.
27:24This is something that should have been done a long time ago.
27:30My original order should have never been changed,
27:32and I think maybe you wouldn't have had this problem.
27:34Maybe.
27:36Yeah, please, go ahead.
27:37The Press Thank you.
27:38We see, like, everyday life that very often those diversity hires
27:43cause sometimes issues, as you just mentioned.
27:46So, what plan do you have?
27:49Are we going to see some fire?
27:50Are you going to fire some of those diversity hires in the federal government?
27:54What plan do you have?
27:55The President I would say the answer is yes.
27:57If we find that people aren't mentally competent,
28:00you see the language.
28:02The language is put out by them.
28:04And if you see that — I'm not going to bore you by reading it again,
28:09but these are not people that should be doing this particular job.
28:12They'd be very good for certain jobs,
28:14but not people that should be doing this particular job.
28:19The Press Mr. President, you have today blamed the diversity elements,
28:23but then told us that you weren't sure that the controllers made any mistake.
28:29You then said perhaps the helicopter pilots were the ones who made the mistake.
28:34The President It's all under investigation.
28:36The Press I understand that.
28:37That's why I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now
28:41that diversity had something to do with this crash.
28:44The President Because I have common sense, okay?
28:46And, unfortunately, a lot of people don't.
28:50We want brilliant people doing this.
28:52This is a major chess game at the highest level.
28:55When you have 60 planes coming in during a short period of time,
29:00and they're all coming in different directions,
29:02and you're dealing with very high-level computer work and very complex computers.
29:09And one of the other things I will tell you is that the systems that were built —
29:13I was going to rebuild the entire system,
29:16and then we had an election that didn't turn out the way it should have.
29:19But they didn't build the systems properly.
29:22They spent a lot of money renovating a system,
29:25spending much more money than they would have spent
29:27if they bought a new system for air traffic controllers,
29:30meaning the computerized systems.
29:32There are certain companies that do a very good job.
29:35They didn't use those companies.
29:36They used companies that should not have been doing it.
29:39No, I think it's very important to understand that for some jobs —
29:43and not only this, but air traffic controllers —
29:46they have to be at the highest level of genius.
29:50Okay.
29:53I want to ask you about the ice skaters in a moment
29:55because the U.S. ice skating community was affected.
29:57But first, if I can, the cited FAA text that you read is re-implication
30:00that this policy is new or that it stems from efforts
30:03that began under President Biden or the Transportation Secretary.
30:06Pete Buttigieg is demonstrably false.
30:08It's been on the FAA's website.
30:09Who said that, you?
30:10No, it's on the website, the FAA's website.
30:12It was there in 2013.
30:13It was there for the entirety —
30:14Take a look at what I read.
30:15It was there for the entirety of your administration, too.
30:17So my question is, why didn't you change the policy
30:20during your first administration?
30:21I did change it.
30:22I changed the Obama policy.
30:24And we had a very good policy.
30:25And then Biden came in and he changed it.
30:28And then when I came in two days, three days ago,
30:30I signed a new order bringing it to the highest level of intelligence.
30:34Okay.
30:36Please.
30:39Welcome back to the — I'm sorry.
30:41You mentioned that a vision was probably the problem
30:45that was an issue in this crash.
30:47There's been some reports that one of the pilots in the helicopter
30:50may have been using night vision equipment.
30:52Was there any indication of that?
30:53I heard that.
30:54We don't know.
30:55We're going to know that pretty soon.
30:56It may change your viewpoint if you do have the night vision.
31:00So it's very possible that could have happened.
31:03That would be — that would be maybe a reason
31:05why you wouldn't actually see as well as on a clear night.
31:08You can see sometimes better without it.
31:11I have a couple more.
31:13Mr. President, is it helpful to have your Secretary of Transportation confirmed?
31:17And does this intensify your interest in getting other nominees confirmed quickly?
31:21Go ahead.
31:22What?
31:23Is it helpful to have your Secretary of Transportation confirmed?
31:25And does this intensify your interest in getting other nominees confirmed quickly as well?
31:29Well, sure.
31:30We want fast confirmations.
31:31And the Democrats, as you know, are doing everything they can to delay them.
31:36They've taken too long.
31:39We're struggling to get very good people that everybody knows are going to be confirmed.
31:43But we're struggling to get them out faster.
31:46We want them out faster.
31:47It's a good question, actually.
31:50We've been pushing Sean.
31:52Everyone knows Sean for a long time.
31:54He got many, many Democrat votes.
31:56But they want to take as long as they can.
31:58They ask questions like some of the questions that Peter would ask
32:02that were totally irrelevant and not very good questions.
32:05But they want to just keep it going.
32:07They want to keep it going as long as possible.
32:09I was very honored, actually, that you got so many Democrat votes.
32:13That was really good.
32:14That was really good.
32:15When are you planning to meet with the families?
32:22And second question, is it your impression that military training was done during that time?
32:27The what?
32:28The training that the helicopter was involved in.
32:31Is it anything you can tell us about that?
32:33You don't know.
32:34These are the things that will come up with the investigation.
32:36You don't know.
32:37But the helicopter obviously was in the wrong place at the wrong time,
32:41and a tragedy occurred.
32:43Please.
32:44Thank you, Mr. President.
32:45I've got a question about the office.
32:46No, go ahead.
32:47Thank you, Mr. President.
32:49You've been critical of the current regulations,
32:52and you've called for big reforms at FAA.
32:56I'm curious, sir, what is your message?
32:58Well, I made the reforms, actually.
32:59What is your message?
33:00Three days ago, I made the reforms.
33:01Yes, sir.
33:02What is your message, then, to the American public in the weeks and months ahead?
33:04Should they feel hesitant to fly?
33:07And if you could clarify, perhaps, something that the Defense Secretary said
33:11when he said that this helicopter went on a continuity of government mission.
33:16I don't know what that refers to, but they were practicing.
33:22They do that.
33:23They call it practicing, and that's something that should be done.
33:29It's only continuity in the sense that we want to have very good people,
33:32and that has to be in continuity, and that's what they refer to.
33:36But it was basically practice, and it was a practice that worked out very, very badly.
33:41Okay?
33:42Mr. President, on his question, the first question,
33:49should people be hesitant to fly right now?
33:52No, not at all.
33:53I do not hesitate to fly.
33:55This is something that it's been many years that something like this has happened.
34:00And the collision is just something that we don't expect ever to happen again.
34:07We are going to have the highest-level people.
34:10We've already hired some of the people that you've already hired for that position.
34:14Long before we knew about this, I mean, long before, from the time I came in,
34:18we started going out and getting the best people because I said it's not appropriate what they're doing.
34:24I think it's a tremendous mistake.
34:26You know, they like to do things and they like to take them too far,
34:29and this is sometimes what ends up happening.
34:31Now, with that, I'm not blaming the controller.
34:35I'm saying there are things that you could question, like the height of the helicopter
34:39and the height of the plane being at the same level and going in opposite directions.
34:42It's not a positive.
34:44But, no, we're already hiring people.
34:47Flying is very safe.
34:48We have the safest flying anywhere in the world, and we'll keep it that way.
34:51Thank you all very much.
34:54Thank you very much, everybody.