Stated on January 30, 2025 in a press briefing:

“I changed the Obama policy (on hiring air traffic controllers) ... And then Biden came in and he changed it.”

As he speculated about the Jan. 29 air crash’s cause, Trump said "I changed the Obama policy (on hiring air traffic controllers) ... And then Biden came in and he changed it."

The White House said he was referring to two separate policies.

The first was a push to hire more people with disabilities that started under Obama. Trump didn’t end the initiative — he expanded the effort by announcing a program aimed at hiring 20 people with disabilities to be air traffic controllers. All air traffic controllers had to pass medical, security and skills tests, regardless of any disability.

The second involved an Obama-era hiring assessment that critics said prioritized diversity over qualifications. Trump was wrong to say that Biden reinstated it — he did not. The assessment has not been in place since 2018, when Trump ended it. But even under that practice, training standards did not change.

Trump conflated policies, obfuscated about his role in them and misled about what they did.

Investigators are still piecing together what led to the crash, a process that could take months. Trump’s leap to connect these policies to what unfolded over the Potomac has no basis.



False.