Last Updated on January 30, 2025
CNN commentator, Bakari Sellers, was forced to delete a post and issue an apology after irresponsibly blaming President Donald Trump for a deadly aircraft collision in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.
The CNN contributor politicized the deaths of the victims, claiming President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze led to the tragic plane crash. Sellers took to X in his attempt to make the spurious connection. He returned later to admit that he may have acted too hastily, as local emergency teams were still desperately searching for survivors and details were still emerging.
Wednesday’s horrific crash, confirmed by the Federal Aviation Administration, American Airlines, and the U.S. Army on Thursday, involved a commercial American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter. After colliding in mid-air, both aircraft crashed into the freezing waters of the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The American Airlines flight had 60 passengers and four crew members on board, while three Army personnel were aboard the helicopter. A large-scale rescue operation was launched immediately after the crash, but it has since been confirmed that there are no survivors.
About an hour after the collision was reported, Sellers shared a screenshot of a news release from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in which committee ranking member, Rick Larsen (D), claimed that the President’s recent hiring freeze posed a threat to aviation safety. Sellers shared the image with the caption “8 days ago”. Sellers has since deleted the post.
What Larsen and Sellers both failed to point out is that the hiring freeze has had no impact on the United States Military or the Federal Aviation Administration. A White House memo, which is publicly available online, details which departments are excluded from the freeze:
“This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety,” the memo states.
Beyond the omission of this important fact, Sellers’ argument is unsupported as there has been no reported shortage of Air Traffic Controllers working that day.
Journalist and author Tim Murtaugh mocked those blaming President Trump for the tragedy, in a post on X, questioning the logic of the argument. “Even if this were true (it’s not), how do they think an air traffic controller could be hired, trained, and on the job in just eight days? Pathetic and ghoulish to even make this claim as rescuers were still looking for survivors in the water,” he wrote.
Since the imposition of the hiring freeze and the moratorium on federal spending, partisan elements of the news media have not been subtle in their omission of key-facts. Despite repeated clarifications from Trump Administration officials, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and the President himself, Democrats and many media outlets have consistently exaggerated the breadth and impact of the freezes – leading to widespread confusion.
In the face of intense backlash, Sellers apologized, claiming to have acknowledged his reckless mistake. “I deleted the post because timing matters,” he said. “Politics at this point does not. I f***ed up, I own that.”
“I am very prayerful but I’m also frustrated, upset, and disturbed with where we are as a country,” he said. “I recognize, and I will do better,” but his final words—“The only thing that matters is rescuing the survivors and ensuring this never happens again”—felt like an attempt to redirect attention from his blatant misjudgment.
