Pete Buttigieg: ‘Lesson Learned’ Should Have Spoke Out ‘Sooner’ on How ‘Strongly I Felt’ about East Palestine, Ohio

Joe Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was confronted over not speaking out sooner about the train derailment in East Palestine Ohio by CBS News.

The journalist asked him, “Do you wish you would’ve spoke out sooner?” asking him about the Ohio train derailment and subsequent release of toxic chemicals as he did not speak about it until a few days after it took place.

Buttigieg half-heartily answered, “yes, I was focused on just making sure that our folks on the ground were all set but could have spoken sooner about how strongly I felt about his incident, that’s a lesson learned for me.”

“Do you wish you would’ve spoken out sooner [on the Ohio train disaster]?”

PETE BUTTIGIEG: “[I] could have spoken sooner about how strongly I felt about this incident.” pic.twitter.com/pi6aCkz8jI

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 21, 2023

The Biden Administration has almost virtually ignored the disaster in East Palestine. When Buttigieg did finally share about the incident the decided to point the finger at former President Donald Trump and tried to dump the blame for the derailment on him.

Trump announced he was going to visit East Palestine while the federal government up until then was telling residents that the incident didn’t qualify for FEMA. After Trump’s announcement, however, the stance was changed and it was announced that FEMA would be on its way to assist East Palestine.

The derailment happened at the beginning of February and a couple of days after the derailment it was determined by Norfolk Southern that the chemicals in some of the cars needed to be released in order to avoid an explosion. Vinyl chloride was released into the air, black clouds covered the area, and residents were told to leave and that they would be reimbursed for hotels.

Only a couple of days after this happened, residents were told they could return. Animals and livestock have perished because of the release of vinyl chloride. Just recently the CEO of Norfolk Southern visited the town telling the mayor he would help them.

The residents are concerned about their health and safety and feel they have been ignored, it seems that things are finally in motion for them to receive assistance.