Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Thursday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” it was “ironic” former President Trump visited East Palestine, OH, in the aftermath of a train derailment that caused hazardous materials to leak into the environment because he took “down regulations.”
Reid asked, “You know, the sort of theatrics of Donald Trump being in Palestine were odd, but this is a community that voted overwhelmingly for him. The county that Palestine is in voted 71/29 for Donald Trump. I want you to reflect on the irony. In 2016, it was 68/26. This is a Trump county. What do you make of the fact he went there despite the fact the regulations he rolled back were partly responsible for this tragedy?”
Buttigieg said, “It was definitely an ironic thing to do. You take down regulations, you water down regulations, you weaken the power of the administration to deal with freight railroad companies, and then you show up wanting to be a great friend of the people who have been impacted by a rail disaster.”
He continued, “You know, this is somebody who, as far as I know, never went to a derailment site when one of those happens on his watch. And there were thousands — even ones with fatalities. Never even sent his Transportation Secretary to go. Now that it’s campaign season, I guess things are different. We were there to work. We were there to get things done.”
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