President Donald Trump Thursday blamed the deadly crash of American Airlines Flight 5342 on former President Joe Biden and supposed Democratic diversity, equality and inclusion policies.

Without providing any evidence, Trump harshly attacked Biden, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other Democratic officials for supposedly lowering standards for air traffic controllers, which he suggested could have led to the collision between the plane and an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport.

“I put safety first. They put politics at a level know one has ever seen,” Trump said.

Trump claimed, without offering proof, that he imposed higher standards for air traffic controllers in his first term and that those standards were eased by Buttigieg and Biden in the name of creating a more diverse workforce.

“You can’t have regular people doing that job,” Trump said about air traffic controllers. “For some jobs, they have to be at the highest level of genius.”

Pressed by reporters, Trump admitted that he didn’t know the controller was to blame much less that so-called DEI policies played any role in either the person’s hiring or the crash, which killed all 67 people on the two aircraft.

“It just could have been,” he said. “It’s called common sense.”

Buttigieg quickly hit back at Trump, who used an expletive to describe his stewardship of the Department of Transportation.

“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” Buttigieg posted on X shortly after the president’s White House news conference.

He noted that during his term, America “had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights.”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s blame game “turns your stomach.”

“It’s one thing for internet pundits to spew off conspiracy theories, it’s another for the president of the United States,” Schumer said at the Capitol.

Biden ignored Trump’s partisan jabs in a tweet: “Jill and I are praying for the families of the victims who tragically lost their lives in the plane and helicopter crash near (Reagan National Airport).”

In the rambling 40-minute press conference, Trump started by striking a somber note of mourning and called on Americans to unite to grieve the victims.

But he quickly shifted into attack mode, alternately pointed fingers at Democrats, air traffic controllers handling the flight and the unnamed Army pilot of the doomed helicopter.

He offered several conflicting theories about what could have caused the crash.

At first, Trump seemed to jump to the conclusion that the air traffic controller failed to keep a military Black Hawk helicopter from colliding with the American flight that was on approach for landing at Reagan National Airport.

He suggested the controller should have acted to keep the two aircrafts at different altitudes.

He later mused the helicopter pilot must have erred by flying towards the airplane, especially since it was a clear night and there were no adverse weather conditions.

However, it is worth noting that there were windy conditions in D.C Wednesday, with gusts up to 50 mph.

Minutes later, Trump admitted he investigation is still in its earliest stages and no one really knows who if anyone is to blame.

“We do not know what led to this crash,” he said. “But we have some strong opinions.”

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