Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.) said earlier in the month that President Donald Trump was “the only president to have presided over as many plane crashes” during his first months of office. According to Fox News, data shows that more plane accidents occurred during the same period of time under Joe Biden.
“No president has had more planes crash in their first month in office than Donald Trump,” Swalwell posted Feb. 17 on X, a comment viewed over 7 million times.
A senior official of the Department of Transportation provided data that contradicts this data and indicates more plane accidents during Biden’s first weeks in office.
Swalwell posted in response to the crash of a small aircraft in Georgia, which left two people dead.
Between Biden’s Jan. 21 inauguration and Feb. 17, 2021, there were 55 U.S. aviation accidents, as opposed to 35 for Trump during that same time.
Worldwide, 91 aircraft accidents occurred during the same period as Biden’s and 50 in Trump’s initial weeks.
Steven Cheung, White House Communications Director, said that Eric Swalwell was a “habitual liar” and “fraud”. He continued to clown himself each day due to a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which has damaged his brain. “As an elected official, he should tell the truth for once, but, understandably, he’s incapable of that since he has Fang Fang on his mind all day.”
Swalwell said he meant commercial airliners even though his original post mentioned “planes”.
Swalwell stated, “There were two U.S. commercial aircraft crashes in which people have died or been seriously injured during Trump’s initial month. Please show me another president who had more incidents in his first month.”
In recent weeks, several Democrats blamed Trump for high-profile crashes, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who claimed that Trump’s FAA cuts were responsible for the Toronto crash. The crash resulted only in severe injuries, but there were no deaths.
Karoline Lavitt, White House Press Secretary at the Time, pointed out that “the crash unfortunately occurred in Canadian airspace and Canadian air traffic controllers were overseeing it.”
Then, she disputed Democratic attacks on Trump’s firing of FAA officials. Lavitt stated, “The facts are, neither Secretary Duffy nor this administration has let any air traffic controllers go. Leavitt said that Secretary Duffy had put a lot of emphasis on recruiting the most qualified air traffic controllers to join the FAA.”
