Last week's horrific in-air collision at Washington, D.C.'s Reagan Airport has left the country

reeling. The crash, in which a commercial airliner collided with a military Black Hawk helicopter,

has quickly turned into a political spectacle. President Donald Trump immediately assigned

the blame to DEI programs,

claiming, without citing any evidence, that they had led to incompetent hiring practices.

I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.

Because I have common sense, okay? And unfortunately, a lot of people don't.

While Democratic lawmakers have been quick to suggest that Trump himself has exacerbated

existing pressures in the aviation industry by disbanding the aviation security advisory committee

and freezing the hiring of air traffic controllers who are already understaffed.

We just did a bill to try to bulk up the nation's air traffic controllers because we've

been short of air traffic controllers and now a Russ vote strategy is to traumatize the federal

workforce.

That lands particularly hard with me this morning.

All of this comes as the safety of flying has fallen under increased scrutiny in recent

years. But has flying actually become less safe? And why is aviation safety suddenly getting

dragged into the culture war? Veteran transportation safety reporter Matthew L. Wald

joins the show to discuss all of that and more. You're listening to the political scene.

I'm Tyler Foggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker.

Hey, Matt, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks, Tyler.

So you covered transportation safety at the New York Times for 20 years, right?

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