Take a wild guess as to who’s providing “Trump Water” to residents of East Palestine, Ohio. And take a wild guess as to who’s told everyone about it.
Well, you probably don’t need 45 guesses to figure out the answers. The answer to both questions was the 45th U.S. President and current Mar-A-Lao resident Donald Trump. On February 22, Trump visited the Eastern Ohio site of the massive train and environmental accident that I’ve described for Forbes. This was one day before U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was scheduled to visit the town in person for the first time since the Norfolk Southern train derailed on February 3. And in addition to a fresh supply of red “Make American Great Again” hats and lots of references to himself, Trump did bring some other things: namely bottled water, cleaning supplies, and Goya beans. In a speech given alongside local officials, Trump declared, “We’re bringing in thousands of bottles of water, Trump Water, actually. Most of it, uh, some of it, we had to go to a much lesser quality of water,” as you can see in the video tweeted by journalist Aaron Rupar:
Bottled water was probably a welcome stopgap sight for East Palestine residents who have been clamoring for more attention from authorities. The whole train wreck of the situation has left many questions about the water quality there quite questionable. The derailment and subsequent fire and “controlled release” of hazardous materials have resulted in billow and billows of dangerous chemicals like vinyl chloride going into the air and potentially into the land and water in the surrounding Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania area. It’s still not clear what the longer term effects of all this pollution may be. So you can understand why the residents might be skeptical about drinking the tap water there.
Now, it’s not clear what would make Trump Water different from other types of water. For example, is it somehow wetter than other types of water? And it’s not clear how many of the bottles provided by Trump actually had Trump’s name on it or perhaps something like an image of him with lasers coming out of his eyes.
Nevertheless, a number of East Palestine residents thanked Trump for his visit and the supplies that he brought. He, in turn, couldn’t quite keep his delivery bottled up and added, “You want to get those Trump bottles more than anybody else.”
Trump also spent some time mixing with the East Palestine residents as the following tweet from The Associated Press showed:
His visit included a stop at, surprise, surprise, a local McDonald’s, where he ordered food for first responders. During his visit, Trump not surprisingly criticized the Biden Administration for not doing more for East Palestine because that’s what politicians do. For example, he told East Palestine residents, “In too many cases, your goodness and perseverance were met with indifference and betrayal.” Various residents did thank Trump for visiting and not “forgetting” about them.
Meanwhile, various other politicians have been doing their usual “let’s figure point the heck out this problem” thing from a distance. For example, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) called Buttigieg “m.i.a. on the derailment,” which presumable meant “missing in action” rather than “Miami International Airport.” Buttigieg, in turn, fired back accusing Rubio of signing a 2021 letter that “supports waivers that would reduce visual track inspections,” as you can see in the Twitter exchange below:
Others have blamed the East Palestine crash on the Trump Administration for rescinding rail safety protections that the Obama Administration had put in place. For example, The Lincoln Project called Trump’s visit “purely political theatre and a sad attempt to mask his failures as a President” in the following tweet:
One things for sure, there’s been plenty of blame to go around for the current mess in East Palestine. While bottled water, cleaning supplies, and beans do help East Palestine residents in the short term, they can only provide so much relief. They are far from enough to compensate for the lack of railroad safety regulations that could have prevented the derailment in the first place. At the same time, Trump wouldn’t have had the opportunity to swoop in on Wednesday had there been more attention paid to the East Palestine residents during the nearly three weeks since the train went off its tracks.
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