The mayor of East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a major rail disaster and contamination in February, announced on Wednesday that former President Donald Trump has his full support for 2024 after he took time out to visit the town and President Joe Biden neglected to go at all.
At the annual Lincoln Day Dinner, Mayor Trent Conaway was acknowledged for his leadership during the unfortunate incident that resulted in darkened skies and widespread evacuations, as well as heavily contaminated water and soil. He appeared on stage with Donald Trump Jr. for the recognition.
In his remarks, Conaway took a verbal swipe at Biden for ignoring his constituents in their time of need.
“I would first like to thank Joe Biden and Hunter Biden – oh that’s right, they were busy,” said Conaway as the crowd laughed. Turning to Trump Jr. he said: “Your father and you really changed the way people saw us in town. People realized that we needed help. We’d been asking for help, and we had the EPA there and other agencies, but we truly got help after you… without you, this could have been a worse situation.”
WATCH:
BREAKING: @DonaldJTrumpJr just brought the Mayor of East Palestine, Trent Conaway, on stage at the packed Lincoln Day dinner in Columbiana, Ohio.
Mayor Conaway just called out Biden for not showing up and he also endorsed Trump for 2024!
Thank you for your leadership, Mayor! pic.twitter.com/qp5MnpBvnr
— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) April 27, 2023
Biden had committed to visiting East Palestine in the aftermath of the derailment, but he failed to fulfill his pledge. Instead, he dispatched Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who didn’t go for weeks afterward.
In contrast, President Trump personally visited the area and distributed cases of water to the impacted locals. A Newsweek poll revealed that 66 percent of Americans believed Biden should have made the trip.
Following the derailment incident, Congress conducted hearings where legislators listened to accounts that revealed the unpreparedness of first responders to manage the hazardous waste spillage. A representative of the National Transportation Safety Board urged senators to approve legislation that would enhance the communication of information to communities when hazardous materials are transported through their areas.
In response to lawmakers’ criticisms about the president’s insufficient actions and the lack of his personal visit, the White House defended itself by asserting that the administration had coordinated a response involving several agencies to address the calamity.
Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance traveled to the community in mid-February to survey the damage done by the horrific Norfolk Southern train derailment earlier in the month that spilled tons of toxic chemicals into the soil, waterways, and air.
At one point, Vance took a trip to a local stream where he made a “disgusting” discovery, all of which was captured on video. He took a stick and disturbed the bottom of the creek bed, which caused chemical bubbles to rise to the surface, denoting obvious waterway contamination.
“Local and state authorities previously evacuated all residents within one mile of the derailment and started a controlled burn of industrial chemicals present on the vehicle to decrease the risk of an explosion, which could have sent shrapnel throughout the small town,” The Daily Wire reported. “Vinyl chloride, a carcinogen used to manufacture PVC, was released from five train cars last week in the form of massive plumes of dark smoke visible throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.”
In the video footage posted to social media Thursday afternoon, the freshman Trump-backed senator stood next to the small creek near the town on the border with Pennsylvania and noted that there were “dead worms and dead fish” as he invited the camera operator to come in closer while he disturbed the creek bed with a stick, causing an oily sheen to spread on the water’s surface.
