Trump blamed former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s policies related to diversity for the crash on Wednesday, in which 67 people died after an American Airlines plane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed near Reagan National Airport. Kelly, a former Navy pilot, assessed that the crash was a “tragic and sad accident,” adding that it is rarely “one thing” that causes such an accident to happen.

“I’ve been involved in accident investigations, particularly like with space shuttle Columbia, you know, as an example, that we lost in 2003,” Kelly said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “And, to say that it has to do with the person’s color of their skin or their gender, I think that’s just poor leadership. And especially at a time where any president is supposed to be the consoler in chief and not the person that’s going to try to divide us as a country, especially when you don’t have the appropriate information, and he clearly does not have the information in this case. This is too early in the investigation.”

Kelly concluded that the National Transportation Safety Board would conduct a “thorough” investigation into this crash, and the cause of it would eventually be discovered.

Vice President JD Vance defended Trump’s comments, arguing that the president “wasn’t blaming anybody.” Rather, Trump was instead pointing to how diversity policies caused the Federal Aviation Administration to turn down qualified candidates, which has led “our air traffic controllers to be short-staffed.” 

On Saturday, the NTSB revealed that the pilot of the plane may have seen the incoming danger and attempted to move the plane upward to avoid the crash. The NTSB also revealed that, based on flight data, the Black Hawk helicopter was more than 100 feet above its designated height, and that it was not to exceed 200 feet in the route it was approved to take.