John Rich Calls Out Nashville Reporter Who Seemingly Blamed DC Airplane Crash On President Trump: “Absolutely Disgusting Behavior”

January 30, 2025 - News
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John Rich Calls Out Nashville Reporter Who Seemingly Blamed DC Airplane Crash On President Trump: “Absolutely Disgusting Behavior”

John Rich Phil Williams

Just couldn’t help themselves.

A heartbreaking scene unfolded last night in Washington DC after a military helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas just outside of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, sending both aircraft into the Potomac River and presumably killing all 60 passengers and 4 crew on the airplane, as well as the 3 soldiers onboard the helicopter.

It’s obviously still way too early to say what went wrong, but in air traffic control audio from the time before the incident you can hear controllers ask the helicopter whether they can see the plane. After seemingly confirming that they have the Bombardier CRJ-700 in sight, the two aircraft collide just a few seconds later and erupt into a fireball before crashing into the icy river.

There’s been plenty of speculation about what happened, with many theorizing that the helicopter had their eyes on the wrong plane and never actually saw American Airlines flight 5342, which had been instructed to change runways just minutes before landing at DCA.

But as you can imagine, many others were quick to try to find a way to blame the new presidential administration.

CNN reporter Abby Phillip seemed to try to bait a former Department of Transportation official into blaming it on chaos caused by President Donald Trump and the changes he’s made at the beginning of his administration:

“We are just nine days out from a presidential transition and administrative transition. The FAA administrator resigned at the end of the Biden administration, so there is no permanent confirmed FAA administrator right now.”

But Mary Schiavo, who served as the Inspector General for the FAA under both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, quickly dismissed the suggestion that the transition played any part in the disaster:

“This is controlled airspace and, of course, air traffic controllers do not come and go with the change of political administration. You know, we have a fortunately a very, you know, highly trained career cadre of air traffic controllers and that’s important. So, the the politics of the situation should have had no impact whatsoever on the air traffic controllers.”

And CNN wasn’t the only one who quickly tried to blame President Trump.

A particular focus seemed to be the president’s recent hiring freeze, with many pointing to a Democrat report on Trump’s “dangerous” freeze of air traffic control hiring.

Of course the suggestion that the hiring freeze would have any effect on air traffic controllers 8 days into Trump’s administration is ridiculous on its face. According to the FAA:

“Entry-level applicants must complete required training courses and spend several months at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City…

After graduating the academy, individuals are placed in locations across the country and must gain 1-3 years on-the-job experience before becoming a certified professional controller.”

Yeah, it takes a little more than 8 days to hire and train air traffic controllers…thank God.

But that didn’t stop many from pointing the finger at Trump, including Congresswoman Norma Torres of California:

And another who seemingly sought to point fingers at the 47th president was Phil Williams, an investigative reporter for Newschannel 5 out of Nashville.

In a since-deleted tweet, Williams pointed to Trump’s recent buyout offer to federal employees while claiming that “more people will die.”

Now, there’s been no word on whether the buyout offer, which was meant to shrink the size of the federal workforce after Trump ordered all government employees to return to office full time, was even offered to air traffic controllers. The Office of Personnel Management said that some federal employees would be exempt from the offer, and that agencies can carve out exceptions for employees who are deemed necessary. (And it seems like air traffic controllers are already required to work from the office anyway).

But that lack of clarity didn’t stop “reporters” like Williams from claiming that Trump’s actions were somehow going to result in more deaths. And after receiving significant backlash, Williams deleted his original tweet while claiming that it “unfortunately was interpreted as blaming tonight’s tragedy on policies in Washington.”

Wonder why it was interpreted like that, Phil?

Of course anybody who lives in Nashville knows what a partisan hack Phil Williams is anyway, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that he would be quick to attack President Trump just 8 days into his new administration.

But country singer John Rich had some harsh words for the “investigative journalist,” calling on Newschannel 5 to terminate him for his disgusting tweet:

“Yep. [Newschannel 5] it’s time to terminate Phil. Wow. Absolutely disgusting behavior. He does NOT represent the people of Nashville.”

Many others felt the same (though Williams locked replies to his tweets, which is always what you do when you’re an unbiased journalist, right?)

Unfortunately, it’s entirely predictable that so many rushed to politicize this terrible tragedy in the hours before we even knew whether there were any survivors.

It’s just said that it’s coming from people in the media and in Congress.

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