To ask Trump supporters how they defend this?

It's in the Wall Street Journal, Evening Standard, The Independent etc etc

He also hasn't offered any condolences at all.

His first speech about the whole thing was to blame diversity, curious how he will blame people of colour/minorities now it's been shown all pilots and air controllers are white American men.

Where did you get the swimming comment news from?

news.sky.com/video/trump-on-washington-plane-crash-site-visit-you-want-me-to-go-swimming-13300170

I think the real problem is that he immediately blamed a plane crash on the FAA hiring too many minorities.

I am not a Trump supporter, neither I do want to defend him, but my DH has his speech about this tragic crash on, I can hear it all and Trump has not made any jokes, not mentioned any swimming, but actually his speech was about the poor people that lost their life, that they would investigate and avoid a repetition, then that things are better when he is President and something about people being recruited with several types of disabilities as air controllers, which he disagrees with. That is the polemic bit, I would say....
Where did you get the swimming comment news from?
The media has become an untrustworthy pile of shit, to be honest. One cannot longer trust one's shadow...

I'm not a trump supporter, but he didn't "con" anyone into anything.
The other party pretty much gifted him the presidency.

I make no claims at all. You'd be better off spending your time examining your own motives for correcting my grammar.

yes me too. I was replying to someone else though, not you.

Not to mention, for someone who claims not to be ignorant of world affairs, after three years of war there you still dont know that it’s just Ukraine, not ‘the Ukraine’?

The latter is offensive to Ukrainians, by the way.

Of course American politics has worldwide ramifications, but there’s nothing I can do to change any of it, so why dwell?

During the presidential election last year, I made a conscious decision not to follow the ins and outs as I had done in 2016 and 2020, and I was much happier for it.

I agree. It's not "American politics" it is global, with an impact on the UK economy, society and politics as well. Not to mention the Ukraine, Palestine etc

How can you be so ignorant as to think these things do not relate to and affect each other.

I don't know, I've not seen the conference so i don't know if he was asked the question once and that was his answer or if it was the same repeated question over and over when he said no, he wouldn't go to the site of the water, as some kind of point scoring from some journalist. You'll know though, you're the one who saw it.

This about sums it up for me. Although I feel you're being too generous

But it isn’t their loved one in that river, and until it is, they won’t care.

The problem is it's pretty obvious when visiting the "site" he didn't mean deep sea diving in an icy lake.

He needs to learn that sometimes silence is golden.

I think it's very similar to a cult - so no, unfortunately, I don't think anything he says or does will change his fans' perception.

It's about the literal words that came out of his mouth. Do you think they're appropriate for the situation?
No, they’re not. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘statesmanlike’ and comports himself with all the dignity, tact and sensitivity of the crass specimen he is. I have a (probably vain) hope that one day he will go too far and the scales will finally fall from the eyes of his supporters and apologists.

How embarrassing for your children.

People said that about other tyrants

He is a caricature of himself. Barely one week in and he's raising hell.

If this pace keeps up the eye rolling of many will end up in the top of their skulls. He will overdo it so often that it will appear normal, and thus dismissed as either the talk of a messiah, or the ramblings of a nutcase.

It certainly reminds me of the fat boy in N K. Stuffing his face while the population kneels in adoration and starves. The Emperor's clothes will fall off soon enough in Trump's case though, but as to who will care? That is the question.

I don't think many care really. The big test is money in people's pockets. If that happens Trump can do the splits naked and insult everyone on the planet and will still be praised or at best ignored.

I’m struggling to find the right words for this but I think your mistake is superimposing your own way of thinking onto people who are very different from you.

You’re assuming that his strong supporters feel the need to justify the things that he says, because, that’s what you would do in the same situation - and if you couldn’t find a way to justify it, you’d drop your support of that person.

But these people don’t believe they need to be able to justify everything he says to be able to continue supporting him.

There’s no silver bullet here - you seem to be stuck in the 2016 way of thinking that eventually he’ll say something so vile that nobody will be able to support him anymore. But that’s unfortunately not the world we live in.

His supporters like the fact that he pisses off the politically correct liberal elites that they hate - even if they would never actually be so crass themselves. They believe (rightly or wrongly, probably the latter) that his policy programme will benefit them and they’re not going to give that up over a few insults.

Oh, he's vile, but you'd expect nothing better. Air Traffic Control recruiting the 'mentally impaired'? Pots and kettles spring to mind. And sadly, you're stuck with him for the next 4 years. And beyond if he can swing it.