7 erratic and shameless things Donald Trump did in the aftermath of the DC plane crash

On his eleventh day back in the White House, Donald Trump reminded everyone that he’s the last person you want to be in charge the day after a national tragedy

Donald Trump’s erratic and shameless behaviour somehow hit another new low yesterday.

Anyone hoping the convicted felon and US President would see the aftermath of a major air disaster a mile from his house as a time for solemn reflection will have been sorely disappointed.

Instead, he used it as an opportunity to attack and insult his political opponents and people with disabilities.

Here’s that – and a lot more things Donald Trump has done over the last 24 hours that you need to know about.

1. The whole press conference on the DC plane crash

The whole thing, all of it. It’s half an hour long, and a jaw-dropping watch.

If you don’t have that long – we did a breakdown of the most shocking moments here.

2. Signed a memo blaming diversity and Biden for the DC plane crash

Trump signed what must have been a fairly hastily prepared Presidential memorandum which noted the “damage done to aviation safety by the Biden administration’s DEI and woke policies”, and orders the administration to “actively undo all of that damage.” It also demands the FAA hire “only the most outstanding, capable people for the jobs they are being hired into.”

Trump added: “In other words, competence.”

3. Made this very classy comment about an air crash that happened less than 24 hours earlier

Asked if he was going to visit the site of the air crash that claimed the lives of more than 60 people in the Potomac River, The President of the United States said: “You tell me, what is the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?”

4. Confirmed he’s going to slap 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Saturday

“We will really have to do that because we have really big deficits with those countries,” he said. “Those tariffs may or may not rise with time.”

Aside from anything else, this is likely to have an immediate effect on US oil prices. The US gets about half of its crude oil from Canada. Then there’s lumber, which already has pretty hefty tariffs on it.

So…that’s petrol and food prices and housebuilding costs likely to rise. No big deal.

Why is he doing this? Well, he says it’s for “a number of reasons” – but they’re mainly aimed at getting Mexico to reduce the number of people entering the US illegally through the southern border, and getting Canada to crack down on fentanyl coming across the northern border.

It’s also about trade deficits, which Trump has an all-encompassing obsession with, despite them being pretty normal.

5. JD Vance dragged Rory Stewart on Twitter

Not Trump himself, but this was too weird to not include.

JD Vance, the Vice President of the United States, had a bit of a tiff with former Tory minister turned centrist dad podcaster Rory Stewart about Christian love and charity.

Christians, Vance argued, should have a hierarchy of love – with your family at the top, followed by your neighbour, your community, your fellow citizens and then the rest of the world.

He said it was “less Christian and more pagan tribal. We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus, and tell us in which order to love…”

Stewart branded this a “bizarre take” on the bible.

Vance, a Catholic convert, accused Stewart of believing he had an IQ of 130, “when it is really 110.” He added: “This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.”

Then Alistair Campbell, Stewart’s co-host on The Rest Is Politics, chimed in, praising Vance’s ability to “measure another’s IQ so instantly and confidently.”

He added: “I hope your big genius is not making you patronising towards people with an IQ of 110 – since that is 75 per cent of the US population. And perhaps even 1 or 2 of your voters”.

6. Didn’t put security on his broadcast email system

You remember that mass email system Trump was testing, and then used to offer redundancy to every government employee – several million people?

Well… it turns out the very stable geniuses who put it together didn’t bother to put much – if any – security measures in place… which meant pretty much anyone with an email address could send messages to thousands of people in entire departments.

All 13,000 staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, received a slew of emails – of varying levels of abusiveness.

One, sent to literally every employee, read: “Aren’t you tired of working for a complete C***?”

The security hole has since been patched.

7. Issued this order that could be straight out of Handmaid’s Tale

Trump’s newly minted Transport Secretary managed to find time between investigating a fatal plane crash to issue a definitely not bone chilling order directing staff to “give preference” on funding decisions to “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average”

It also blocks recipients of Department of Transport funding from imposing “mask mandates” and demands they comply with immigration enforcement officers, meaning Sanctuary Cities – where public officials aren’t allowed to ask about someone’s immigration status unless they’ve committed a crime – will have a problem.