Buttigieg Responds To Train Derailment Criticism: It’s Not About ‘Who Looks Good Or Who Looks Bad’

After facing severe criticism for neglecting the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, for three weeks, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Sunday that it’s not about “who looks good or who looks bad.”

The train derailment occurred on February 3 when dozens of rail cars, including 11 that had been carrying toxic chemicals, derailed in a town near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

“There has been so much information, and frankly so much misinformation thrown at this community and thrown at this situation that a lot them are asking who they can even trust,” Buttigieg claimed. 

“It’s so important to continue to make sure that they can get good, accurate information about the things they care about most, which isn’t national politics or who looks good or who looks bad, it’s continuing to know that their air, water, and soil are going to be safe, that their homes are going to be safe,” Buttigieg continued. 

“That’s what anybody would want to know in this situation,” he added. “You could feel a sense of fatigue with all of the kind of politics swirling around their community.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on the administration’s poor response to the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio: it’s not about “Who looks good or who looks bad”

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— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 27, 2023