CNN analyst Bakari Sellers admitted he “f***ed up” when he blamed President Donald Trump for the plane crash outside Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport involving an Army helicopter and American Airlines plane before he deleted the post on Wednesday night.
Sellers initially took to X after the crash and posted a screenshot of a partial headline from a statement from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Democrats.
His post read, “8 days ago,” and he included only part of the statement, which read, “Trump’s Dangerous Freeze of Air Traffic Control Hiring.”
The entire head read, “Ranking Members Larsen, Cohen Statements on Trump’s Dangerous Freeze of Air Traffic Control Hiring,” the Free Beacon noted.
You deleted the post because dozens of Americans are currently being fished out of the Potomac, and rather than have reverence for the victims, you chose to dishonestly (and despicably) blame @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/djduf7OqE3
— Chet Cannon (@Chet_Cannon) January 30, 2025
A short time later, Sellers deleted the post and explained why.
“I deleted the post because timing matters,” the CNN analyst wrote. “Politics at this point does not. I f***ed up, I own that.”
“I am very prayerful but I’m also very frustrated, upset, and disturbed with where we are as a country,” he added. “I recognize, and I will do better.”
“The only thing that matters is rescuing the survivors, and ensuring this never happens again,” Sellers continued.
The reaction was swift on social media, with one person after another blasting the CNN analyst for the “despicable” and “horrid” original post he had made.
“You deleted the post because dozens of Americans are currently being fished out of the Potomac, and rather than have reverence for the victims, you chose to dishonestly (and despicably) blame @realDonaldTrump,” one person wrote.
Another added, “Unreal. @Bakari_Sellers is a pathetic example of what happens when your religion is politics. A plane crash & your first response is to blame your political enemy. This is pagan neo-Gnosticism. A hiring freeze 8 days ago isn’t why a Black Hawk pilot failed to visually separate.”
While a third person wrote, “They are fishing corpses out of the Potomac, families are praying their loved ones miraculously survived, we haven’t the faintest clue yet what caused the crash, and Bakari is already frantically (and publicly!) looking for a way to blame it on Trump. What a broken human being.”
Related: Transportation Sec Says American Airlines, Helicopter Crash Was ‘Absolutely’ Preventable
