C'MON, FOR PETE'S SAKE!
Awkward Ohio 'balancing' act
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wasted little time Thursday sticking his foot in his mouth as he visited the Ohio village where a train carrying hazardous materials derailed nearly three weeks ago — telling reporters he was trying to strike a “balance” by not showing up sooner.
“What I tried to do was balance two things,” Buttigieg, 41, said during an awkward news conference in East Palestine. “My desire to be involved and engaged and on the ground, which is how I am generally wired to act, and my desire to follow the norm of transportation secretaries, allowing [the National Transportation Safety Board] to really lead the initial stages of the public-facing work.
“I’ll do some thinking about whether I got that balance right,” added Buttigieg, who didn’t make any public statement on the disaster until Feb. 13.
When asked about that delay, the former South Bend, Ind. mayor admitted he waited too long to weigh in — saying, “I felt strongly about this and could have expressed that sooner” — but insisting that he didn’t want discussions about “process” to distract from “fundamental questions of rail safety regulation and accountability.”
Buttigieg occasionally appeared overwhelmed by the onslaught of questions — at one point saying, “I lost my train of thought” while answering a query.
Earlier in the day, a Department of Transportation press rep declined to answer reporter questions until they stopped recording video of her.
“Why did it take you an entire two-and-a-half weeks to actually get here to respond to East Palestine?” Turning Point USA’s Savanah Hernandez asked Buttigieg as he entered an event.
“Will you apologize to the residents of this city for the slow response?” she asked as he walked away. “Do you have any apology?”
DOT spokesperson Kerry Arndt initially told Hernandez she could ask questions, but then said, “I don’t want to be on camera.”
After Hernandez repeated her question about why it took Buttigieg so long to visit, Arndt said, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to do this on camera,” before recognizing another reporter. Before that journalist could finish his question, Arndt repeated: “I’m happy to talk to you guys off camera.”
When Hernandez asked Arndt why she didn’t want to be filmed, she answered, “I think that is a little aggressive. That’s why.”
Buttigieg’s arrival in East Palestine came one day after a visit from former President Donald Trump, who was greeted by throngs of residents in pouring rain.
The reception for Buttigieg was decidedly more muted, with little fanfare around the village of just under 5,000 residents. Trump won nearly 72% of the region’s vote in the 2020 election.