[EMERGENCY EPISODE] ITM: The Washington D.C. Plane Crash

Liam: 00:00:03

With reaction and insights to the biggest stories and breaking news from the USA and a little bit of history thrown in, this Is America, A history in the Making.

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Welcome to this emergency episode of America, A History in the Making.

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It's just me, Liam, and I wanted to jump on because the point of these episodes is to respond and discuss key events and things that are happening in America right now.

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And I think it's really important to acknowledge the unfolding story of the plane crash that happened in Washington, D.C.

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overnight just a matter of hours ago.

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As I'm recording this now, the current story as we know it is that an American Airlines flight collided in midair with a Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River.

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The plane went down, and As I speak, 19 of the 60 bodies that were on board that plane have been recovered.

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As far as we know, no one is alive, but they're still on that recovery exercise to try and get everyone out of the wreckage.

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Now, the reason that I feel it's very important to do this episode and talk about this is because we talk a lot on the podcast about politics and in particular, the political division that exists within America.

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And I think there's a real risk here with stories like this that they can be intensely politicized and we lose sight of the real tragedy that's actually occurred here.

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So allow me first just to read out the post that Donald Trump actually put on Truth Social from himself in response to what's just happened.

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So he.

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He posted, and I quote, the airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport.

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The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time.

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It is a capital letters clear night.

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The lights on the plane were blazing.

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Why didn't the helicopter go up or down or turn?

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Why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane?

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This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented.

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Capital letters, not good with a bunch of exclamation marks.

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Now, we're hardly big supporters of Trump on this podcast, and I think there's a lot of issues here around the way that he puts his messaging out there.

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I think in moments like this, perhaps a more formal and scripted approach is probably more tactful.

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That said, the sentiment of his post is something that I think we can all perhaps agree with here.

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Anyone that has seen the footage leading up to the crash, certainly it appears to be a very preventable accident.

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And there will be a lot of questions asked.

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There will be, I would hope, a lot of investigations following what's happening right now to understand exactly what happened and how.

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But here's why I want to talk about this on this episode, because this is where it gets very political.

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You know, we've spoken before about Trump's power, the fact that he will be the most powerful president in history following various Supreme Court rulings that give him more immunity from criminal activity than any other president has had, if it's in the name of national security.

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Now, critics, and there will be critics and people that pick this apart will say that looking at the footage and looking at how the helicopter appeared to go straight towards the plane and easily could have diverted.

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And also considering that helicopters do have a height restriction within a certain radius of the airport that they were allegedly breaching when they collided with the plane.

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Now, critics of Trump may conspiracy theorize here that perhaps this wasn't an accident, that perhaps, maybe even Trump had something to do with it, that there were reasons why they wanted to bring that plane down.

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Maybe there were people on the plane that he didn't want.

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And maybe that will all come out.

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Now, please acknowledge this is me hypothesizing what some people might start to theorise after this.

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Now, it doesn't really help that just a week ago, as reported in the HuffPost and many other news outlets, Donald Trump sent a memo to members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee saying that as part of, and I quote, a commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritise our national security, these advisory committees were essentially being eliminated.

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Now, it doesn't actually get rid of all of these people and all of these advisory committees, but what it does do is severely limit their ability to conduct investigations over aviation incidents such as this, which happened merely seven days later.

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So, you know, I'm saying this because to sort of illustrate how there are many factors here at play that can all feed into this conspiracy theory that maybe Trump was involved, that maybe Trump was responsible.

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Now, I'm not a supporter of Trump.

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You know this.

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I'm a very big critic of him and his policies and his.

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His entire personality.

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But I'm also an optimist.

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And I do not want to believe, nor will I, and buy into the theory that Trump is responsible for this in any way until there is concrete evidence to suggest that, because, frankly, the scale of this tragedy seems abhorrent to think that someone deliberately orchestrated this for any reason whatsoever, let alone a president.

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So let's just.

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Let's just table that for a little while, shall we?

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Now, there will obviously be counter arguments coming from the right about this.

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And over the next few days, as there are calls for investigations which the Democrats have already called for, this will become a very politicized issue.

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And how exactly this plays out and how this is resolved and the conclusions that are found are anyone's guess.

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And this is going to take time and no doubt be the cause of endless conversation.

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But I think what's really important here right now, today, as, as, as this rescue mission is still underway and as we're reeling from this tragedy, is to really focus on the fact that there are 60 people on that plane that we potentially have to assume after being, you know, after, after a mid air collision and falling into a freezing river and, and, and hours later still not being recovered, we, we probably have to assume they're not going to be found alive at this point.

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It's an incredibly horrible event.

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And I think it's times like these when you know, whether you're a podcaster like me, whether you're a politician, just a staunchly political on either side, I think we have to put that just to one side every now and then.

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And this is one of those moments.

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So this episode I guess isn't really much of a discussion.

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It isn't really much of a, of a debate about the news so much as me pleading to all of you listeners and anyone else to just think that sometimes actually those discussions don't need to happen just yet, that there's a time and a place to think about all of this.

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And right now I think we have to focus on the recovery.

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And that's it really.

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So we're going to, no doubt over the months and years that follow this incident, talk about Trump and his administration and even the direction, actions that have come out of this event and what that might mean.

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But today is not the day to do that.

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So my thoughts, and I'm sure anyone that's, that's involved in this podcast right now are thinking about the loss of life and the, the just the, the tragedy of the situation.

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I urge you to do the same.

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And we will, no doubt in time, when it's appropriate, have those discussions that need to be had.

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Thank you everyone for listening and as always, we'll be back with bonus episodes this Saturday and our main episodes of the podcast every Tuesday.

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Thank you for continuing to listen and follow support in the show.

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Really appreciated.

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So until next time, goodbye.

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Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.