Republicans continue to criticize President Biden for not visiting East Palestine, Ohio, where a train carrying toxic substances is Cancer causing chemicals Derailed Feb. 3.
Biden has yet to make a trip to the area, sending Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and federal officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency in his stead to the scene of the disaster.
Biden visit to Ukraine last week was “the biggest slap in the face,” East Palestine Republican Mayor Trent Conaway told Fox News. “That’s telling you right now that he doesn’t care about us,” Conaway added, saying he was “furious” that the president in Ukraine was “giving away millions of dollars to people over there, not to us.”
“My message to the Republicans in Congress: you can either be the party of Ukraine and the globalists, or you can be the party of East Palestine and the working people of America,” the senator said. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican wrote on Friday.
On the same day, Biden said he had no plans to visit the village, but stressed that he was in close contact with elected officials in the region.
“The idea that we’re not engaged is just not there,” Biden said. “Initially, there was no request that I come out, even before I went to Kyiv. I’m following this very closely. We’re doing everything we can.”
Good Friday House Republicans official investigation launched how the Department of Transportation is handling a disaster.
Biden’s decision to avoid the site contrasts somewhat with his reputation as “chief comforter.” Biden’s experience “formed an empathic sensibility that allows him to connect deeply with other Americans through shared grief and pain.” according to 2021 study Dan P. McAdams of Northwestern University.
But disaster response is about more than the president’s personal appearance at the scene, the Biden administration insists. The president has received several briefings on the disaster over the past few weeks, sent senior officials to the city, including the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and spoke with the governors of Ohio and neighboring Pennsylvania during a visit to Eastern Europe this week. White House officials said. Note
“I think to offer help, to offer help, is to do it directly,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “When you see the federal government on the ground providing the necessary assistance, it does it directly. They do it at the direction of the president.”
Republican criticism of Biden’s response to the disaster and refusal to visit East Palestine intensified after former President Trump stopped in the village on Wednesday to hand out Trump-branded water and campaign hats to residents. Trump, who is running for president, has criticized the government’s response to the disaster, which he described as “indifference and betrayal.”
As president, Trump sought Deregulation of the freight rail industryand repealed several Obama-era security protocols.
Republicans learned much of their criticism of the administration’s response to the disaster. Buttigieg, who visited the site on Thursday, the day after Trump. Earlier this month Sept. Marco Rubio (Republican from Florida) wrote to Biden Minister of Transport resignation. “The circumstances leading up to the crash point to a clear lack of oversight and require the involvement of our nation’s top transport official,” he said.
Buttigieg, who admitted he “could have told” the crash earlier, accused Republicans of taking “political advantage of this situation.”
Fox News devoted considerable airtime to this issue. “It’s just terrible because they deserve better,” said former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. left the Democratic Party in October, told the network Thursday. “They deserve people like Secretary Buttigieg, President Biden and others to wake up and think, ‘What can I do for these people who are resentful, afraid and worried about their children and their future?’ And, unfortunately, they don’t get it.”
The public has long expected presidents to play a direct role in responding to major disasters. “Disaster management has a place in the White House and in the personal legacy of every president,” write the authors. 2012 study concluded on this. “Disaster management is slowly beginning to account for an increasing share of [the] image of the president.
But presidents have tended to stay away in the immediate aftermath of a disaster to prevent their presence and the immense security they need from distracting local officials and first responders.
It has been more than three weeks since a Norfolk Southern 38-car freight train derailed near Ohio City. According to preliminary data, the accident happened “100% preventable”.
After the train derailed, the company carried out a controlled burning of chemicals on board to prevent a massive explosion. More than 40,000 aquatic animals died in the waters near the crash site, officials from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources said.
The President was to spend the weekend at his personal home in Delaware. On Tuesday, he will travel to Virginia to give a speech on affordable healthcare. But so far there are no plans to visit East Palestine on his public schedule.