The Claim

Rolled out new merit-based federal hiring plans, ensuring the government’s hiring decisions are based on merit only — including at the Federal Aviation Administration, where the Biden Administration specifically recruited individuals with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric issues.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Two things: (1) the administration rolled out new merit-based hiring plans for the federal government, and (2) the FAA under Biden specifically recruited people with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric issues, implying this was unsafe and that the new merit plans corrected it.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That the FAA hired people with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric problems as air traffic controllers, creating a safety threat. That the Biden administration created this disability recruitment policy. That “merit-based” hiring is a new concept this administration introduced. That federal hiring was not previously based on merit. That disability recruitment and merit hiring are incompatible.

What is conspicuously absent?

That the FAA disability hiring program predates Biden by more than a decade — the language cited on the FAA’s website existed since at least 2013, and was present throughout Trump’s entire first term (2017-2021). That in April 2019, the Trump administration’s own FAA launched a pilot program specifically to hire up to 20 people with disabilities as air traffic controllers. That the “targeted disabilities” list (including intellectual and psychiatric disabilities) is a government-wide classification under Schedule A hiring authority, derived from the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, not an FAA invention. That people with disabilities were hired across a wide range of FAA positions — primarily administrative and support roles — and all candidates, regardless of disability status, must meet position-specific qualification standards. That federal hiring has been governed by merit principles since the Pendleton Act of 1883 and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 — DEI programs operated alongside the merit system, not instead of it. That the “new” merit hiring plan includes politicized essay questions about patriotism and founding principles. That the FAA faces a severe air traffic controller shortage — about 3,000 controllers short, with over 40% of facilities understaffed — and the administration’s own government shutdown in 2025 cost the FAA up to 500 controller trainees.

Overlap with Item 221

This claim substantially overlaps with item 221, which covers the government-wide elimination of DEI and the purported “return to merit-based hiring.” The merit hiring plan portion is identical — EO 14170 and the OPM Merit Hiring Plan issued May 29, 2025 are the same policy action described in both items. What is new here is the specific FAA framing and the disability hiring accusation, which adds a misleading dimension not present in item 221. This is not pure padding — the FAA-specific claims require separate analysis — but the merit hiring portion is duplicative.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The administration did issue executive orders and a merit hiring plan reforming federal hiring processes. EO 14170, signed January 20, 2025, directed OPM to develop a merit-based hiring plan. The OPM Merit Hiring Plan was issued May 29, 2025, introducing skills-based testing, the Rule of Many (replacing the 150-year-old Rule of Three), two-page resume limits, and sub-80-day hiring timelines. It also introduced four essay questions for positions GS-05 and above about “patriotism,” “commitment to the Constitution,” the country’s “founding principles,” and government efficiency. The plan additionally bans the collection of workforce demographic data on race, sex, or national origin. This is the same action analyzed in item 221. ¹

The FAA disability hiring program existed for over a decade before Biden took office and was active throughout Trump’s entire first term. Archives of the FAA’s website show that the agency listed “targeted disabilities” — including “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism” — as recruitment categories since at least February 2013. This language was present on the FAA website throughout the Obama administration, throughout Trump’s entire first term (2017-2021), and through the Biden administration. Multiple independent fact checks confirmed this timeline. ²

In April 2019, the Trump administration’s own FAA launched a pilot program to hire people with disabilities as air traffic controllers. The FAA announced the “Aviation Development Program” on April 11, 2019 — during Trump’s first term — to “help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations.” The program enrolled up to 20 people with disabilities at 10 Air Route Traffic Control Centers. Participants were required to qualify under Schedule A Direct Hiring Authority and meet all standard air traffic controller qualification standards, including passing the Air Traffic Skills Assessment aptitude test. ³

Schedule A hiring authority for people with disabilities is a federal government-wide program rooted in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, not a Biden or Obama invention. Schedule A (5 CFR 213.3102(u)) provides non-competitive hiring authority for individuals with severe physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities across all federal agencies. The program was formalized under Executive Order 12125 (March 15, 1979) and strengthened by Obama’s EO 13548 (July 26, 2010), which set a goal of hiring 100,000 people with disabilities into the federal government over five years. This was a government-wide program covering all agencies, not specific to the FAA or to Biden. ⁴

People with disabilities were not hired as air traffic controllers through the general FAA disability recruitment program. The FAA employs tens of thousands of people across a wide range of positions — administrative, oversight, engineering, safety inspection, and support roles. The disability recruitment language applied to the FAA’s full range of positions. All candidates, regardless of disability status, must meet the specific qualification standards for each position. Air traffic controllers have among the most rigorous screening requirements in the federal government, including aptitude testing, medical examinations, security clearances, and multi-year academy and on-the-job training. No evidence exists that unqualified individuals were placed in controller positions through disability hiring. ⁵

The FAA faces a severe, long-standing air traffic controller shortage that predates all recent administrations. As of September 2024, the FAA employed 14,264 controllers — 3.9% fewer than in 2013 — while total flights increased 10% to 30.8 million annually. Over 40% of the FAA’s 290 terminal facilities were understaffed, with 118 facilities falling short of the 85% staffing goal. GAO reported in February 2026 that the shortage stems from the length and complexity of the training pipeline (2-6 years to certify a controller), high attrition at every stage, COVID-19 training interruptions, and repeated government shutdowns. The FAA has been increasing hiring every year since 2021 under both Biden and Trump. ⁶

The 2025 government shutdown cost the FAA up to 500 controller trainees, compounding the shortage. During the 43-day government shutdown beginning October 1, 2025, FAA training was disrupted and controllers worked without pay. The FAA lost an estimated 400-500 air traffic controller trainees who resigned because they could not afford to continue. NATCA warned the losses would “ripple for years.” Separately, DOGE attempted to fire air traffic controllers, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blocked the terminations. ⁷

Strong Inferences

The claim’s FAA framing is designed to create the false impression that Biden hired intellectually disabled people as air traffic controllers. The sentence structure — “including at the Federal Aviation Administration, where the Biden Administration specifically recruited individuals with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric issues” — juxtaposes the FAA (an agency most people associate exclusively with air traffic control) with disability categories that suggest cognitive impairment in safety-critical roles. This framing was used prominently in the immediate aftermath of the January 29, 2025 DCA mid-air collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67 people. PolitiFact rated Trump’s version of this claim as “False.” The White House’s own fact sheet stated Biden’s FAA “specifically recruited and hired individuals with severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric issues, and complete paralysis over other individuals” — which misrepresents a decades-old, multi-administration, government-wide program as a Biden-era safety threat. ⁸

The “merit-based” framing implies a novel concept, but federal merit-based hiring has been law since 1883. The federal merit system was established by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and codified in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. 2301). The Merit System Principles explicitly require that “recruitment should be from qualified individuals from appropriate sources in an endeavor to achieve a work force from all segments of society” and that “selection and advancement should be determined solely on the basis of relative ability, knowledge, and skills.” The OPM’s own post-reform guidance offers no documented instances of prior racial preferences, quotas, or deviation from merit principles in federal hiring. What the administration’s plan actually introduced that is new — the patriotism essay questions — is arguably a departure from merit in the direction of ideological screening. ⁹

What the Evidence Shows

This claim contains a real policy action wrapped in a demonstrably false accusation.

The merit hiring plan is real and is the same plan analyzed in item 221. It contains some genuinely useful bipartisan reforms — skills-based testing, the Rule of Many, shorter resumes, faster timelines. It also contains politicized essay questions about patriotism and founding principles that Government Executive characterized as mixing “bipartisan reforms” with a “politicized new test,” and it bans the collection of workforce demographic data. Whether this represents an improvement in merit depends on whether one considers ideological screening questions a merit criterion.

But the FAA-specific framing is where this claim crosses from misleading into false territory. The claim states that “the Biden Administration specifically recruited individuals with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric issues” at the FAA, implying this was (a) a Biden policy, (b) specific to the FAA, and (c) a safety risk. All three implications are wrong. The disability hiring program existed on the FAA’s website since at least 2013 — a decade before Biden took office. It was active throughout Trump’s entire first term. In fact, Trump’s own FAA went further than previous administrations by launching a 2019 pilot program specifically to place people with disabilities in air traffic control training. The “targeted disabilities” categories are a government-wide Schedule A classification derived from the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, used across all federal agencies. And all FAA candidates, regardless of disability status, must meet position-specific qualification standards — there is no evidence that unqualified individuals were placed in safety-critical roles.

The claim also ignores that the FAA’s actual crisis is a severe controller shortage — over 40% of facilities understaffed — that the administration’s own government shutdown worsened by driving out 400-500 trainees, and that DOGE attempted to fire controllers before being stopped by the Transportation Secretary.

The Bottom Line

Steel-man acknowledgment: The administration did roll out a merit hiring plan with some legitimate reforms (skills-based testing, Rule of Many, shorter resumes, faster timelines), and a president has the authority to set workforce hiring priorities. There is a real debate about whether certain DEI practices added bureaucratic overhead. Reforming FAA hiring to focus on competence and safety is a legitimate policy goal that most Americans would support.

But the claim’s most prominent assertion — that Biden “specifically recruited individuals with intellectual disabilities and psychiatric issues” at the FAA — is a gross misrepresentation. The disability recruitment program existed for over a decade across multiple administrations, including Trump’s first term. Trump’s own FAA launched a disability-to-controller pipeline program in 2019. The claim exploits public confusion between the FAA’s full workforce (administrative, engineering, support) and its air traffic controllers, weaponizes disability categories from a 1973 federal law as though they were a Biden-era safety threat, and does so in the context of a fatal plane crash. The merit hiring plan is real but duplicates item 221. The FAA-specific accusation is false.

Footnotes

1. White House, “Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service” (EO 14170), January 20, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reforming-the-federal-hiring-process-and-restoring-merit-to-government-service/; OPM, “Merit Hiring Plan,” May 29, 2025. https://www.opm.gov/chcoc/transmittals/2025/Merit%20Hiring%20Plan%205-29-2025%20FINAL.pdf; Government Executive, “OPM ‘merit’ hiring plan includes bipartisan reforms, politicized new test,” May 2025. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/05/opm-merit-hiring-plan-includes-bipartisan-reforms-politicized-new-test/405687/ ↩

2. Snopes, “FAA Policy About Hiring People with Intellectual Disabilities Has Existed for Over a Decade,” January 15, 2024. https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/01/15/faa-dei-initiatives/; Newsweek, “Trump Launched FAA Diversity Program to Hire People With Disabilities,” January 30, 2025. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-faa-diversity-hiring-airport-collision-disability-2023996; NPR, “People with intellectual disabilities do lots of jobs — but they don’t direct air traffic,” January 30, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5280368/intellectual-disabilities-air-traffic-controllers-faa-trump ↩

3. FAA, “FAA Provides Aviation Careers to People with Disabilities,” April 11, 2019. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-provides-aviation-careers-people-disabilities; Government Executive, “FAA employees with disabilities targeted by Trump’s anti-DEI push,” January 30, 2025. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/01/faa-employees-disabilities-targeted-trumps-anti-dei-push/402444/ ↩

4. EEOC, “The ABCs of Schedule A: Tips for Applicants with Disabilities on Getting Federal Jobs.” https://www.eeoc.gov/publications/abcs-schedule-tips-applicants-disabilities-getting-federal-jobs; Obama White House, “Executive Order 13548: Increasing Federal Employment of Individuals with Disabilities,” July 26, 2010. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-increasing-federal-employment-individuals-with-disabilities; 5 CFR 213.3102(u). ↩

5. NPR, “People with intellectual disabilities do lots of jobs — but they don’t direct air traffic,” January 30, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5280368/intellectual-disabilities-air-traffic-controllers-faa-trump; FAA, “FAA Provides Aviation Careers to People with Disabilities,” April 11, 2019. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-provides-aviation-careers-people-disabilities ↩

6. GAO, “Air Traffic Control Workforce: FAA Should Establish Goals and Better Assess Its Hiring Processes” (GAO-26-107320), February 2026. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-107320; USAFacts, “Is there a shortage of air traffic controllers?” December 2025. https://usafacts.org/articles/is-there-a-shortage-of-air-traffic-controllers/ ↩

7. Washington Examiner, “Shutdown fallout: FAA lost up to 500 air traffic controller trainees,” December 2025. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/travel/4362392/shutdown-faa-air-traffic-controller-trainees-quit-government-shutdown/; Fortune, “Musk’s DOGE team reportedly tried to fire air traffic controllers but was stopped by Transportation secretary,” March 8, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/03/08/elon-musk-doge-cuts-faa-air-traffic-controllers-layoffs-sean-duffy-plane-crashes/; Fortune, “FAA says nearly half of major air traffic control facilities experiencing staffing shortages,” November 1, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/11/01/faa-air-traffic-control-facilities-staffing-shortages-government-shutdown-flight-delays/ ↩

8. PolitiFact, “Trump faults DEI hiring in plane crash and falsely describes FAA policies under Obama, Biden,” January 31, 2025. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/jan/31/donald-trump/trump-faults-dei-hiring-in-plane-crash-and-falsely/; White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Ends DEI Madness and Restores Excellence and Safety Within the FAA,” January 21, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-ends-dei-madness-and-restores-excellence-and-safety-within-the-federal-aviation-administration/ ↩

9. Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, 5 U.S.C. 2301 (Merit System Principles); Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883; Government Executive, “OPM ‘merit’ hiring plan includes bipartisan reforms, politicized new test,” May 2025. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/05/opm-merit-hiring-plan-includes-bipartisan-reforms-politicized-new-test/405687/ ↩