President Trump’s remarks, suggesting that diversity in hiring and other Biden administration policies somehow caused the disaster, reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens.

President Trump blamed diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration and his two Democratic predecessors for the midair collision over the Potomac River on Wednesday night, saying that standards for air traffic controllers had been too lax.

Mr. Trump cited no evidence that diversity programs had anything to do with the fatal accident, which killed 67 people, and even admitted when pressed that the investigation had only just begun.

Moments later, he blamed the pilots of the Army helicopter that appeared to fly into a passenger jet while it was on final approach to Reagan National Airport, across the river from the capital. But he quickly returned to the theme that diversity goals that he said were created by President Barack Obama and President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had created unsafe skies, implying that those moves had to have contributed to the disaster.