Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said on Sunday that President Trump’s comments about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices in relation to a recent plane crash were made to avoid “tough questions.”

“I gotta say, the president weighing in while bodies were still being recovered, blaming this on DEI, and when pressed, he has no evidence to suggest it, was absolutely stomach-turning. … I’ll tell ya, I had a suspicion about why he did that, why race-bait at a moment like this, I think the president didn’t wanna be asked tough questions,” Kaine told CNN’s Jake Tapper. 

On Wednesday, near Reagan Washington National Airport, an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight crashed into each other. The following day, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it had recovered the flight data recorders, also known as black boxes, from the aircraft involved in the crash.

“NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane involved in yesterday’s mid-air collision at DCA,” the NTSB said on the social platform X. “The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation.”

On Friday, Trump doubled down on claims that Wednesday’s crash resulted from DEI hiring policies from prior administrations.

“This is just one reason why our Country WAS going to hell!!!” Trump said Friday on Truth Social.

Kaine said Sunday that he believes “the President was nervous that he was gonna be asked questions about his own administration’s policies that were deemphasizing air safety, and so he decided to have everybody chase down a rabbit hole of his DEI allegations with no evidence.”

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.