Recently, President Biden finally made plans to visit East Palestine, Ohio, nearly a year after the catastrophic train derailment devastated the local community. However, the town’s mayor, Trent Conaway, slammed the president for delaying a visit for so long, while suggesting Trump will win the upcoming election.
In an interview with Fox News, Conaway blatantly called for the president to hold off on his planned trip until the following year after Trump won in a rematch of the 2020 election. “The best time for Biden to visit would be February 2025 when he’s on his book tour,” the mayor said last month.
Conaway maintained his remarks, emphasizing his continual frustration with the Biden administration’s lack of leadership. “I 100% stand by the comment about the book tour. I think that’s the best time for him personally,” he said. “I think the best time for him to come would have been whenever this happened.”
Biden was criticized last year for spending numerous weekends on vacation while claiming his schedule was too “busy” to make a trip to East Palestine. “I haven’t had the occasion to go to East Palestine yet; there’s a lot going on here, and I just haven’t been able to break,” Biden stated. “I was thinking I’d go to East Palestine this week, but then I was reminded that I’ve literally got to go around the world. I’m going from Washington to India to Vietnam to… and so it’s going to be wild.”
In light of Biden’s refusal to personally travel to the site of the devastating derailment, former President Donald Trump made it a point to visit East Palestine on his own accord, bringing cases of water and other vital supplies for impacted residents.
The American Tribune reported last year on comments from Conaway stating the Biden administration didn’t care about East Palestine given its lack of a response to the disaster that unfolded in early 2023. In a Fox News interview, the mayor called it “the biggest slap in the face.”
“That was the biggest slap in the face that tells you right now he doesn’t care about us. So a great he can send every agency he wants to. But I found that out this morning and one of the briefings that he was in the Ukraine given billions of dollars away to people over there and not to us and I’m furious Presidents Day and our country Presidents Day in our country east. He’s over Ukraine so that tells you what kind of guy he is,” Conaway told Fox News host Jesse Watters.
The East Palestine mayor later followed up on those comments, maintaining that he stood by his position on the president not visiting the town. “I was real frustrated last night if you’re talking about the comments I made last night. I was very frustrated and I stand by those comments. But if [Biden] wants to come, he’s welcome.” Many praised Trump’s presence in Ohio following the accident, noting that it could seriously benefit his campaign, given the Biden administration’s lack of a response to the event.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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