Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday visited the site of a train derailment, criticizing President Joe Biden’s administration’s handling of the railway disaster that spewed toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, 19 days earlier.
His trip to one of the most conservative regions of the deep-red state came with many of the hallmarks of a presidential visit, as Trump sought to contrast himself with Biden – who on Monday made a historic war zone trip to Ukraine’s capital.
As he visited Little Beaver Creek, an Ohio River tributary near the derailment site, Trump said he thinks it is “terrible” that Biden has not yet visited the site of the February 3 derailment.
“You are not forgotten,” Trump said as he stood alongside a small group of local officials, including Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, and first responders after a briefing at a fire station.
The former president’s Ohio trip came as the 2024 GOP presidential race begins to take shape, with intra-party rivals lining up to take on Trump. Other Republicans have also criticized Biden’s response to the derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
“During any time of crisis, go to your people immediately,” former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said Tuesday at a campaign stop in Iowa.
Amid the increasingly pitched battle between Democrats and Republicans over whether the government has done enough to help the Ohio town, Trump sought to take credit for the escalating federal response, saying Wednesday that the announcement of his visit “opened up the dam.”
He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s announcement last week that it was deploying teams to the area should have come “two weeks earlier, or at least a week earlier.”
Trump also said he had helped coordinate the delivery of thousands of water bottles to the area…
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