Given his delay in visiting the site, Buttigieg had more information on the cause of the derailment than just the initial accounts. However, he falsely claimed that “we’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation,” and cited “the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015.”
This false claim was picked up by various pundits and politicians, including figures like Joy Behar on the The View. That included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) …
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy took the opposite approach and stated the facts dispassionately and without a political spin. She stated that the rule raised by Buttigieg would have applied only to trains classified as high-hazard flammable trains: “This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes.”
Homendy sounded more like a cabinet member than Buttigieg when she declared “Enough with the politics on this. I don’t understand why this has gotten so political. This is a community that is suffering. This is not about politics.” Homendy added that anyone who says otherwise is “spreading misinformation.”
[Again we see the same case of projection in the Left. They are quick to accuse others of spreading misinformation while they themselves demagogue issues and tragedies. It is a strategy concocted to avoid accountability for the failure of their policies and personnel. And the mainstream media is all too happy to aid and abet that strategy. — Ed]
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