Is there a right time to push policy after tragedy?

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A massive crash between a commercial airline jet and a military helicopter this week, which reportedly killed 67 people, drew a pointed response from President Donald Trump. He said the FAA’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies played a role in the collision. Was it appropriate for the president to focus on policy following a tragedy?

Trump also zeroed in on Americans’ anger when he visited SoCal following the recent wildfires. He criticized LA Mayor Karen Bass’ cautious approach to allowing citizens back into impacted neighborhoods. Residents have been pleading state officials for a clear action plan. Is the perceived lack of such a response emblematic of the gap in leadership that led to Trump’s re-election?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's time for left, right, and center. I'm David Green. We're doing the show from Washington, D.C. this week. I'm in studio with Sarah Isker, who is here on the right.
0:11.8	Moalethy is away this week, but we're grateful to have Jason Johnson on the left. Jason teaches politics and journalism at Morgan State University. He's an MSNBC political contributor and hosts the podcast A Word with Jason Johnson. It's nice to see you both face to face.
0:25.7	Good to see you guys. What a treat to have Jason here. Right. Right. Sadly, though, I mean, we're here in Washington at a pretty tragic moment.
0:37.3	Dozens of people died the other night here when an American Airlines regional jet
0:42.3	collided with an Army helicopter right near Ronald Reagan National Airport.
0:46.8	I'm sure all three of us have landed and taken off at that airport like a million times.
0:51.7	It just seems unthinkable.
0:58.6	And yeah, it really struck the city hard,
1:00.5	and I think people are still recovering from it.
1:06.9	It's 40 years ago, almost to the day of the 14th Street Bridge disaster, another airplane that hit one of those bridges over the Potomac while it was heading to Reagan. So for a lot of
1:15.4	people in D.C., this is eerily reminiscent and terrifying, you know, that cold water, it's icy,
1:22.0	the rescue teams we think of them. I have a wonderful friend who's a local reporter here in town, and her assignment this week was to be at the place that they are pulling the bodies out of the water. And she's a young mother. And most of the people who were on that plane were mothers and daughters coming from that ice skating event. So for everyone that this has touched, it is poignantly horrific.
1:50.4	Yeah.
1:51.8	As somebody who spends a lot of time on planes and who actually is very nervous about flying in general,
1:59.5	I'm just one of those people who's had to deal with it.
2:01.9	That's always very, very hard to see anything like this happen because it happens very rarely, right?
2:08.6	We all know mathematically it's more dangerous to get on $4.95 than it is to get on a flight.
2:13.2	But anything like this is really terrifying.
2:15.9	And it's been a while.
2:16.9	It's like a relatively safe period of time.
2:19.3	Yeah, 16 years since the last sort of commercial crash in the United States, both for the military and for the civilian people who've lost lies.
2:26.3	And just, you know, I say this sincerely.
	...

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