Joe Biden’s decision to name Pete Buttigieg as his Secretary of Transportation is looking like one of the biggest disasters of his time in office.
This growing scandal is another black mark on the administration.
And now Pete Buttigieg made a damning confession that has Joe Biden under fire.
Pete Buttigieg is still performing damage control after taking nearly two weeks to comment on a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio that spilled toxic chemicals in the air, ground and water.
But the Buttigieg public relations clean up effort is going about as well as the administration’s attempt to clean up the ecological disaster in East Palestine.
In an interview with Nexstar’s Reshad Hudson, Buttigieg admitted he was slow to react to the disaster.
“What’s your message to people who are concerned that the department was late to speak out on this issue?” Hudson asked Buttigieg.
At first Buttigieg tried to claim the administration leapt into action as soon as the trail derailed.
“Well, to be clear, our department was on the ground within hours helping with the response and the investigation,” Buttigieg began.
“Again, I respect the separate role of NTSB, but we have been on the ground literally from day one to make sure that we’re doing our part to support,” Buttigieg added.
But Buttigieg was forced to admit his response was far too slow.
“I do think that it’s important to speak out about that and I could have spoken out sooner and I’m making sure that we are focused on the actions that are gonna make a difference,” Buttigieg continued.
Buttigieg then appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America where Buttigieg tried to claim he hadn’t visited East Palestine because he wanted his trip to contain meaningful action.
“I am planning to go, and our folks were on the ground from the first hours,” Buttigieg stated. “I do wanna stress that the NTSB needs to be able to do its work independently, but when I go, the focus is gonna be on action.”
“When I go, it will be about action on rail safety, like the actions that we are calling on Congress to help us with. That we’re calling on industry to take and that we are undertaking ourselves as a department to help make sure that these kinds of things don’t happen in the future,” Buttigieg concluded.
But this raised another question.
If Buttigieg knew rail safety was an issue, why did he sit on his hands and do nothing about the problem for two years?
Buttigieg’s time in office has seen one disaster after another.
Buttigieg went AWOL on paternity leave during a nationwide supply chain crisis after he and his husband took home children.
Last December, Southwest Airlines melted down over a software error canceling thousands of flights.
And now one of the worst environmental disasters in history took place when Buttigieg apparently knew there was a rail safety issue in play but did nothing.
