Recovered Audio Reveals Tragic Moment Trump Opened His Mouth
Investigators face daunting task of re-assembling shards of thought that scattered from president's face hole
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One advantage of reading transcripts is that one can pause to appreciate sublime stupidity. Pres. Donald Trump’s attempts today to address yesterday’s midair crash over the Potomac offer a telling example.
The jaw-dropping stupid that passed his jaw went beyond the obvious stupidity of suggesting he knew what the cause was. And then suggesting he knew other causes it was.
And it went beyond the obvious, predictable, cartoonish scapegoating of diversity initiatives. It was literally too much stupid coming too fast for even a genius air-traffic controller to warn him to pull up before he plunged into the gutter.
I made myself read his whole news conference today with three of his lackiest lackeys. So if anyone still believes that this man is in any way calculating or strategic in how he throws us off, if you want just a taste of how non-calculating this out-of-his-depth goon truly is, you’re invited to sample just a, well, sampling of the stupidity that came flying out of his face despite not being cleared for landing.
Collision Indecision
Here’s what Trump said: “An American Airlines regional jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew collided with an army Blackhawk helicopter.”
In other words, the other plane hit my helicopter.
This isn’t Reese’s Fucking Peanut Butter Cups™, motherfucker. No one got commercial chocolate in your military peanut butter.
Watch the video. The two lights just above the horizon. The bigger light is the one with 64 people. And all of their laptops.
The much smaller one is the military helicopter. They’re both moving to the right. Which means when they hit, it’s because the chopper caught up to the plane.
If you’re driving your car toward me and I’m driving away from you and you hit me on the back or the side, I didn’t collide with you. As even Trump says later, the chopper hit the plane.
And no one told the plane to do anything different. The military chopper was told multiple times, “Uh, hey, there, roger wilco, we’re reading your flight path as about to intersect with and hit a plane here, so we’re gonna go ahead and advise you not hit a plane. You copy there?” Or whatever the fuck.
Holy Shit the Crash Happened That Fast?
Here’s just two sentences that Trump crammed with so much stupidity it wouldn’t have fit in the overhead compartment.
“Both aircraft crashed instantly and were immediately submerged into the icy waters of the Potomac. Real tragedy.”
Let’s annofuckingtate that, shall we? Just so any MAGA-voters morons in the back can follow along.
“Both aircraft crashed…”
Really? Both of them? Are we sure it wasn’t just that one aircraft crashed in midair into nothing else? Do we need to get the Black Boxes to confirm this?
“…instantly…”
Oh, is that how long midair plane crashes happen now? Is there some new tech that presumably was innovated once you became president to make midair plane crashes happen instantly now instead of the interminably long time they used to take?
“…and were immediately submerged into the icy waters of the Potomac.”
Because the aircraft — both of them — were not ice-skating on the river at the time they both collided into each other, between the instant crash and the immediate submersion, a process had to unfold referred to by our remaining government scientists as “falling.”
“Real tragedy.”
Piercing insight.
Very Sorry
Here’s Trump apologizing for the U.S. military directly killing more Russians in one instant — instantly! — than the U.S. military has directly killed in Ukraine in three years:
“We have a Russia contingent of very talented people unfortunately were on that plane, very, very, very sorry about that.”
In the halls of diplomacy, there is no greater expression of national remorse than what chargés d'affaires typically refer to as “Les Trois Très.” The Triple-Very.
It’s Like the Best Mattress
Addressing those who lost loved ones on the passenger jet, Trump said:
“We're here for you to wipe away the tears and to offer you our devotion, our love and our support…”
If your first thought is to wonder how good that support is, Trump’s got you covered:
“…It's great support.”
Premature Exec Speculation
Trump addressed the big question on everyone’s minds: The cause of this awful crash.
“We do not know what led to this crash…”
And he acknowledged that it’s only human to entertain preliminary speculation.
“…but we have some very strong opinions and ideas…”
And he assured the world he wouldn’t irresponsibly start spewing them.
“…and I think we'll probably state those opinions now.”
He also announced new steps he’s taking. Like having someone in charge of the Federal Aviation Administration.
“I'm also immediately appointing an acting Commissioner to the FAA, Christopher Rochelieu.”
That’s one of the things he didn’t do during his first entire week, before the plane crash, because policing who’s going into bathrooms took precedence over policing America’s 45,000 daily flights.
According to Trump, Pres. Barack Obama lowered standards for air-traffic controllers. Bullshit, obviously, but stay with me. Then Trump came in and hired only the finest specimens of humanity.
Then Biden came in and reversed it all. Keep in mind, Trump is suggesting that there was massive turnover among air-traffic controllers in 2016. And then again in 2020.
And then, apparently, again last week. Trump’s macro for mouth-noises is so entrenched that he didn’t even realize he was taking responsibility for the crash by bragging about how good he’s made things in just a week. Because he couldn’t help claim that he executed massive change “last week” which is, apparently, “long before” the crash:
“[A]s you know, last week long before the crash, I signed an executive order restoring our highest standards for air traffic controllers and other important jobs throughout the country.”
He’s so stupid that he’s simultaneously saying:
Don’t blame me for not acting quicker, because I did something “long” ago. Ergo, he’s not at fault for not acting.
That whatever changes he did make should have been in place by now…because he made them “long” ago. Ergo, he is at fault for his actions not preventing the crash.
So, how high are Trump’s highest hiring standards for air-traffic controllers who’ll be communicating verbally with dozens of pilots a day? How well do they have to be able to speak? He left no doubt:
“We have to have our smartest people. It doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak…”
Trump Flies Straight into His Own Policies
Trump packed so many lies and bullshit into one single paragraph that CNN had to dedicate an entire article just to unfucking it. Gaze upon his works, ye mighty…
I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here's one. The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing. And then it says, FAA says, people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce and they want them in and they want them . They can be air traffic controllers. I don't think so. This was in January 14th, so that was a week before I entered office. They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program.
The true part? “This was in January 14th.” Untrue? That it was earlier this month.
It was 2024.
In fact, the hiring policy Trump’s talking about was already in place all the way back in 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013.
And in 2020, the FAA issued an Aviation Safety Workforce Plan for the ensuing decade that said the FAA’s Office of Aviation Safety would “continue to promote and support the hiring of people with disabilities and targeted disabilities.”
Historians have noted that 2020 came after the Obama presidency, but before Biden was sworn in. Hmmm!
And as of now it’ll be impossible to hire air-traffic controllers, because Trump seems to think that…
“you need a very special talent and a very special genius to be able to do it.”
Not only that, but Trump suggested all air-traffic controllers must be tall. Why? Because the “disabilities” included in FAA recruitment, Trump complained, included “dwarfism.” Presumably Elon Musk has sold all the chairs.
To Trump’s credit, he remembered who the previous FAA administrator was — before the FAA had none under him — and who therefore might be responsible for all this deadly diversity:
“I assume maybe this is the reason, the FAA, which is [sic] overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a real winner. That's the guy's a real winner. Do you know how badly everything's run since he's run this Department of Transportation? He's a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground and he's a disaster now. He's just got a good line of bullshit.”
Jealous much?
And the notion that Buttigieg was ever a crusader for diversity? I haven’t heard good or bad regarding his tenure at the FAA, but I spent a year digging into his mayoral record when he was running for president. Yikes.
If Trump Can Take Action When It’s Too Late, So Can the Lord Almighty
Here’s Trump trying to sound all religious ‘n’ shit:
“[W}e ask God to watch over those who have lost their lives.”
The point, my president dude, of a deity watching over people is to ensure that helicopters don’t kill them. Like, what exactly is the danger now? Is Trump asking God to make sure none of them go to Hell? Do they deserve to be damned and Trump just wants them pardoned? I am confused.
The Trump Investigation Begins
Trump announced he has already determined that the American Airlines pilot made no mistakes. None. How does he know?
“I've had the honor of hearing tapes. Tapes are scary, very scary tapes. You had a [sic] airliner coming in, American Airlines. He was doing everything right. He was on track. He was the same track as everybody else.”
When you are a plane, being on the same track as anybody else is not doing everything right. It’s the mega-opposite: Doing something wrong. Before you die.
So, it’s maybe the fault of the military chopper? The folks overseen by, um, the former Fox co-host Trump hired to do that? If so, has Trump’s investigation determined yet at what angle the chopper hit the plane?
“…an angle that was unbelievably bad…”
It’s not clear what the best angle is at which military choppers ought to crash into passenger jets, but perhaps Trump will work that out after having the honor of listening to the Black Very Genius Boxes.
The thing not to lose sight of, though, is that Trump has already determined who lost sight of what, and who’s at fault. Spoiler: It’s the dead person he was in charge of as commander-in-chief:
“You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter, I mean, because it was visual.”
On the plus side, Trump revealed that the helicopter-vertical-technology race has been won, and the winner is America’s Blackhawk helicopter:
“It had the ability to go up or down.”
Then there was this sentence, which was apparently composed by DeepSeek using subatomic physics, because the quantum entanglement is far beyond my meager skills to decipher. Or it’s a Yogi Berra quote.
“They shouldn't have been at the same height because if it was at the same height, you could have gone under it or over it .”
Got that? Don’t be at the same height. Because if you are, then you can be not.
Here’s the executive summary, delivered in classic didn’t-read-the-book style:
“So all of this is going to be studied, but it just seems to me from, a couple of words that I like to use, the words ‘common sense,’ some really bad things happened and some things happened that shouldn't have happened.”
“And so, in conclusion, I believe that Moby Dick is about a sea captain hunting a very, very, very white whale. Thank you.”
Of course, it has been almost two weeks, so Trump has managed to get at least a couple deputies in place to pitch in with the saying of stupid things.
Former Fox Co-Host and Naked Reality TV Star Are ON IT
Trump introduced new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, sworn in just hours before the crash, with the words every cabinet official wants to hear commemorating their public debut: “It's not your fault.”
You may recall Duffy from this hard-hitting TFN exposé, after his nomination last year. Spoiler: I found video of him naked on The Real World. That was his fault.
First words out of Duffy’s mouth now that he’s no longer in the real world? Hint: He understands the job!
“Thank you, Mr. President. And I would just note the President's leadership has been remarkable during this crisis.”
What does Duffy’s job not involve? History!
“That is the motto of your presidency, the best and the brightest.”
And what about America’s not-yet-fired Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth?
In just a few days he’s racked up an historic military record, already becoming the first secretary of Defense to have killed more Americans than foreign scary people.
Historically, sure, there are Defense secretaries (see Halberstam’s book) who have killed far more Americans. But they at least had a ratio that involved more foreign scary people dying.
But not Hegseth. The Trump administration isn’t hamstrung by your old ways and your rules, man! They’re here to disrupt! And Hegseth, too, understands the job completely:
“[T]hank you, Mr. President. Again, I want to echo what the transportation secretary said about your leadership [and its awesomeness].”
And then Hegseth said something strange. Strange even for an axe-throwing, woman-raping, Muslim-hating-tattoo-having, Fox-co-hosting secretary of Defense. He said the first thing they did after the crash was call the White House…to find out what happened.
“From the moment we found out about this, we were in contact with the White House trying to determine exactly what happened.”
Vance Exists, Too!
Getting teed up fourth, Actually Vice President JD Vance, who now has a solid two whole years of government experience, reminded everyone that hundreds of people “would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin.”
Which is true! It’s just that Vance wasn’t talking about them. He was talking about white people, history’s greatest victims, who got screwed over by changes in FAA hiring, which Kevin Drum unpacked/debullshitted here.
Trump’s Heart Goes Out to Whoever
When Trump was pressed on whether his guesses about what happened — and how they sync up exactly with the universe as he would like it to be — might be a tad premature, well…
Q: We don't yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed, and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control, and seemingly the member of the US military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter. Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?
Trump: No, I don't think so at all. I don't think—What are the names of the people? You mean the names of the people that are on the plane? You think that's going to make a difference?
I mean, to someone, probably.
And I don’t know which hard-hitting adversarial journalist posed this puzzler to Trump, but he got his answer!
Q: Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for being here. Based on your analysis [sic] so far, do you have a sense of who was at fault? If it was the plane, the helicopter, air traffic control, and can you assure people that it is safe to fly in and out of D.C.?
Trump: Well, I've given you the analysis and the analysis was, it was based on vision.
Also, diversity! How does he know? The way professional investigators always know after doing no investigating:
Q: I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.
Trump: Because I have common [sic] sense [sic].
He also had a surprise! He revealed that during his first term he was totally gonna rebuild the entire U.S. air-traffic system. But then didn’t. So he was totally gonna do it in his next term but then voting happened.
“I was going to rebuild the entire system and then we had an election that didn't turn out the way it should have.”
So, really it’s America’s fault. Which, fair.
After all, America did just elect a guy who spent four years as president and still doesn’t know what “continuity of government” refers to:
Q: …if you could clarify perhaps something that the Defense secretary said when he said that this helicopter went on a continuity of government mission?
Trump: I don't know what that refers to…
Ooh! Ooh! I do!
One reason those military choppers train so much where they train is that they’re anticipating needing to move VIPs around DC very quickly in case something terrible were to happen to the president. Hence, continuity of government missions. Presumably, Trump doesn’t give a shit about those because why would he care what happens when he’s dead and in Heaven telling Jesus how to god better?
So, which technical, government-y terms does Trump know?
“…but they were practicing. They do that. They call it practicing…
“…and it was a practice that worked out very, very badly.”
Yes. Yes, it did. Instantly.
I read the transcript. He was very, very, very much stupider than you describe. Does this mean that the 77 million humans (allegedly) who thought he was the strong leader they needed are even more stupider [sic]?
Renaming as Sikorski "White Hawk" coming in 5, 4, 3, 2,.....