More than one year after a train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, Joe Biden finally traveled to the blue-collar town decimated by the disaster. But far from giving Biden some much-needed good PR, the visit turned into a disaster of its own for the embattled president.
On February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern train carrying vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, and other toxic chemicals crashed right in the heart of East Palestine, a town of about 5,000 on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Poisonous gases quickly filled the air and chemicals poured into local waterways.
It took both President Biden and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg days to even mention the catastrophe. Nearly a month later, on March 2, Biden said he would visit East Palestine “at some point” – after he had just returned from a trip halfway around the world to Ukraine.
On February 16, 2024, 378 days after the derailment, Biden finally made good on that vague promise. But if the president was expecting a warm welcome and gratitude from East Palestine residents, many of whom face concerns about long-term health impacts from the spill, he left sorely disappointed.
“If we were a blue state, Biden would’ve been here initially,” one East Palestine resident told The Washington Post. “But down here in blue-collar America, it seems that’s always the way it is – we’re forgotten.”
“After one year, we are still suffering, we are still living in a nightmare,” Edwin Wang, another resident of the town, told a local news station. Wang, a business owner, explained that Biden’s EPA had commandeered his property to use to reconstruct the crash site, shutting down his operations for over a year.
“A one-year interruption for us is fatal,” Wang said, explaining that Biden has done nothing to ensure that business owners are compensated for their losses.
“Biden visiting East Palestine at this point is pure politics,” Ohio Republican Senator J.D. Vance posted on X. “What is he actually going to do for the people on the ground? That’s what matters, not political stunts.”
“Too late, President Biden,” Ohio GOP Congressman Jim Jordan added. “Ohioans deserve better.”
In a video shared on X by Real America’s News reporter Ben Bergquam, East Palestine residents can be seen waving Trump flags as Biden’s motorcade rolls through the town. One man holds a sign which reads, “too little, too late.” Some can even be heard chanting “Let’s go Brandon” – the humorous chant that has come to be synonymous with opposition to Biden.
Notably, former President Donald Trump visited the site of the disaster just a few weeks after it occurred last year and called out Biden for failing to come. Trump also organized truckloads of supplies for East Palestine residents and bought lunch for first responders at a local McDonalds.
The visit clearly lifted the spirits of the town and may have even helped force the Biden administration to take some action to help residents. Shortly after Trump’s visit last year, East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway endorsed Trump for his 2024 bid, saying, “Once [Trump] showed up, stuff started to really get moving.”
In a series of posts on its “Trump War Room” account on Friday, the 2024 Trump campaign also slammed Biden for taking so long to visit East Palestine.
“Here are a few things Biden DID have time for while he was not visiting East Palestine,” one post reads, going on to cite stories showing that Biden spent 37 percent of 2023 on vacation, held a meeting with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, sat down for a one-on-one meeting with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, hosted a “pride” event at the White House where other transgender influencers paraded around topless, and posted videos on TikTok about the Super Bowl – all before making the 229-mile trip to East Palestine.
The Trump campaign also noted that Biden denied Ohio’s request for disaster assistance, still a point of contention for many people affected by the derailment. Just prior to Biden’s visit, more than 200 East Palestine residents also signed a letter to Biden again requesting that the president issue a major disaster declaration to unlock more federal funds and assistance, saying that the administration has failed to live up to its promises.
Perhaps even worse for Biden, the 81-year-old president once again appeared lost and confused during his public events on Friday. While Conaway was giving remarks, Biden could be seen in the background fumbling through his jacket, and then struggled to finish his own remarks.
Biden also opened his speech with a bald-faced lie, claiming that his administration was “on the ground within hours” after the disaster and promising to “not [go] home no matter what until this job is done.”
With his poll numbers sinking and serious questions arising about his fitness for office, Biden seems desperate for any sort of opportunity to portray himself as presidential and a viable leader for the American people. But if that was his intention in Ohio last week, it was another dismal failure.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.
