Behar Blames East Palestine Trump Voters For Train Derailment

Conservative critics of ABC’s “The View” have long denounced some of the objectionable statements by the daytime talk show’s far-left co-hosts. This week, however, Joy Behar attracted more backlash than usual when she appeared to blame residents of East Palestine, Ohio, for the train derailment that dumped toxic chemicals into their community.

Despite the fact that the train crash occurred under President Joe Biden’s watch and his federal agencies were slow to respond to the environmental disaster, Behar claimed that it was actually former President Donald Trump — and his supporters in East Palestine — who are to blame.

“I don’t know why they would ever vote for him,” she said, claiming that Trump “placed someone with deep ties to the chemical industry in charge of the [Environmental Protection Agency’s] Chemical Safety Office.”

Chastising countless families now worried about the short- and long-term health effects of exposure to the leaked toxins, Behar added: “That’s who you voted for in that district — Donald Trump, who reduces all safety. He did.”

Her remarks came after a broader attack on the GOP, which she claimed is “obsessed with this notion of the free market” and opposed to spending money on potentially life-saving regulations.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, the show’s token conservative co-host, was quick to shift the focus to the Biden administration’s “unforced error” in waiting so long to arrange a visit to the town by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

She went on to note that Norfolk Southern Railway represents “a very powerful lobby” in D.C. and “gives as much to Democrats as Republicans.”

Co-host Sunny Hostin also used the tragedy to score political points, asserting that the derailment was “Donald Trump’s fault.”

Behar’s rhetoric received the most criticism, though, and even the far-left news outlet The Young Turks determined that she went too far by blaming Trump and his supporters.

Leftists in the media have been parroting the same talking points being used by Buttigieg and others in the Biden administration who hope to unload the responsibility onto Trump and the GOP in general.

The Transportation Department chief sat down for an MSNBC interview this week and managed to disparage Trump for visiting the scene of the disaster this week.

“It was definitely an ironic thing to do,” Buttigieg claimed. “You take down regulations, you water down regulations, you weaken the power of the administration to deal with freight railroad companies, and then you show up wanting to be a great friend of the people who have been impacted by a rail disaster.”