Vance says East Palestine residents feel ‘abandoned and forgotten’ as Biden still hasn’t visited
Asher Notheis
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Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) criticized President Joe Biden for not visiting East Palestine, Ohio, more than six months after a train derailment left residents worried about contaminated water.
Vance claimed on Tuesday that the people of East Palestine feel “abandoned and forgotten” in the wake of the February incident. Biden stated on March 2 that he would visit East Palestine “at some point.”
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“I was there just a couple weeks ago, and let me tell you, people feel abandoned and forgotten because their own government, their own president, who promised to show up didn’t show up and they really feel it,” Vance said on Fox News’s Hannity. “When you compare what is happening in East Palestine and Maui, you see a guy, who promised, he ran for president saying that he would bring decency and empathy back to the Oval Office. Well, Donald Trump showed up in East Palestine and Joe Biden never did and he has not showed up anywhere else either.”
JD Vance Hannity (8/30/2023)
Vance’s comment on Biden not showing “anywhere else” comes a little more than a week after Biden visited Maui, Hawaii, where wildfires have killed over 100 people and devastated several communities.
The Ohio senator added that he believes that Biden does not care about the people of East Palestine, calling Biden “a guy who ran for president to be called Mr. President.” Vance also said that the government is not helping residents when it should be conducting indoor air quality testing and cleaning up East Palestine’s creeks and waters.
Despite this, Vance described the local residents of East Palestine as “one of the strongest” groups of people he has ever met, and he believes they will come back “stronger than ever.”
Earlier this month, Vance wrote an op-ed in which he claimed that the president has “ignored Ohio’s pleas for help.” He also criticized clean-up efforts overseen by officials with the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming that “thousands of tons of chemical soil remain in East Palestine.
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“I’m growing angrier by the day as improvements are not made,” Vance wrote. “No one can expect the people of East Palestine to return to normal until the hazardous waste in their backyard is gone for good.”
Former President Donald Trump, who is running for president again in 2024, visited East Palestine on Feb. 22, stating he would provide water bottles and cleaning supplies to residents. During his visit, Trump was asked if he had a message to Biden, to which Trump replied, “Get over here.”