NewsNation host Chris Cuomo criticized President Biden on Tuesday for not visiting East Palestine, Ohio, in the wake of a February train derailment, contrasting it with the president’s appearance on the picket lines with striking autoworkers in Michigan this week.
Biden declined to visit the town in the wake of the Feb. 3 crash, though Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg did.
As recently as early September, the president told reporters, “I haven’t had the occasion to go to East Palestine.”
“The president literally flew over this place on his way to Detroit, not saying it was wrong to go to Detroit. I’m saying he could have come here. I get the realities of politics,” Cuomo said in a broadcast recorded from the town that aired Tuesday night.
“Believe me, I grew up in it. But if you want people to know that you’re the president of everybody in this country, it shouldn’t matter if you think you’re gonna get their vote. What you should be getting is their trust.”
NewsNation and The Hill are both owned by Nexstar Media Group.
Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes following the derailment, which dumped several cars of toxic materials. One of the cars, containing the hazardous compound vinyl chloride, was the subject of a controlled burn to head off a potential explosion.
No one was killed or injured in the crash, but residents have expressed concerns about potential long-term health hazards associated with the spill. Vinyl chloride is associated with some conditions that could only be detectable in the long term, such as leukemia and liver cancer.
Last week, Biden issued an executive order directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to appoint a federal disaster recovery coordinator for cleanup efforts in the town. However, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has also called on him to issue an executive order declaring a major disaster, which residents and Cuomo echoed during the broadcast.
State lawmakers belonging to the nonpartisan National Caucus of Environmental Legislators also called for such a declaration in a letter Friday to Biden. Ohio State Rep. Mary Lightbody (D) and State Sen. Kent Smith (D) both signed the letter, joined by lawmakers from 20 other states.
“This community feels overlooked and left behind as they continue to deal with these impacts and the consequences of misguided early decisions in the cleanup effort,” they wrote. “We are concerned that so many highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals were released into the soil, water, and air, and recognize the need for concerted efforts to remove all immediate and persistent risks to people and the environment.”
Cuomo’s remarks came the same evening Ohio’s senators, JD Vance (R) and Sherrod Brown (D), wrote to the EPA asking the agency to study whether a public health emergency should be declared in the town.