00:00:14.620Look, I was trying to respect protocol.
00:00:15.960Normally, a secretary of transportation does not go to a derailment site, whether it's non-fatal or fatal.
00:00:22.300Normally, secretaries don't do that because you're trying to stay out of the way of the NTSB.
00:00:25.800and in the early days after that disaster uh it's funny i gave like a dozen interviews the
00:00:31.540national media weren't asking us about it we to be clear as a department we were responding right
00:00:35.680away we had people on the ground on day one paying a visit like going out you would have gone there
00:00:39.820the next day i would have gone there sooner and i'll tell you i'll tell you why even though it
00:00:43.640was a little bit outside of protocol the reason is the people of east palestine were victimized
00:00:49.000twice first they got hurt by the actual derailment and if you talk to people there i was talking to
00:00:55.300somebody actually recently who's there because she's trying to do some good work on railway
00:01:00.900safety reform. She said the cloud of black smoke when they decided to burn off the chemicals was
00:01:07.340so big you couldn't tell whether it was coming from the sky or coming from the ground. And in
00:01:13.040the early days, nobody was really paying attention. I mean, even J.D. Vance, who was the senator from
00:01:18.020Ohio, didn't go there for about 10 days. And I don't think that's because he's a bad guy. I'm
00:01:22.060just saying that's an indication of how it didn't get a lot of attention at first and then the
00:01:25.600attention increased and then they got victimized a second time by the information circus that started
00:01:31.340to surround them you started to see certain players especially online who found that they
00:01:36.720could take advantage of the confusion and the pain of the people on the ground and later on
00:01:42.660the Associated Press kind of analyzed the different accounts that were tweeting sometimes tweeting
00:01:47.340identical images and information about what was happening in East Palestine some were far
00:01:51.980left, some were far right, and some were linked to the Kremlin. All of them trying to take political0.87
00:01:57.760advantage. And it became a circus out there. Rudy Giuliani was there for some reason. It was a circus
00:02:02.180atmosphere. I think it could have been eliminated. I think it could have been eliminated if you would
00:02:06.060have gone a little bit earlier. Yeah, I think I could have got ahead of that information issue.
00:02:10.440But here's the other thing. And by the way, with that, and so here's a pattern. And again,
00:02:15.140feel free to push back. There seems to be a lack of urgency of going to issues like that. One of
00:02:20.740was you the other one was kamala harris with the border have you been to the border no but i've1.00
00:02:24.280also not been to paris that one comment she made and i think you know she's one of the worst
00:02:28.920candidates in the left uh i don't think she makes your party look at my opinion i can't say that
00:02:34.600about you i can't say that about a couple but i don't think she makes the party look good i think
00:02:39.200she is you know there's certain people you want on stage talking more more more more more because
00:02:44.100it hurts the party my opinion this is your friend i'm not you don't need to agree i'm just giving
00:02:48.380you my opinion, but I think there was a lack of urgency. There's issues with border taking your
00:02:53.060time. There's issues with the, you know, uh, taking your time. There's, there was a certain
00:02:59.400lack of urgency. You can, you can push back, but there was a lot of urgency about the response.
00:03:03.080Again, we had people there within hours. I did not have a lot of urgency about a photo op,
00:03:07.420but what I, what I realized was that being there became very important for this information
00:03:13.780situation that was terrorizing people in the community because they didn't know who to believe.
00:03:17.400Now, the other thing I'll say, and this is one of many experiences that was borderline radicalizing, seeing how Washington works, is the same week that the president went there and gave out cheeseburgers, President Trump, I went out there and laid out railway safety reforms that I thought would make a difference.
00:03:33.460and I put them in three categories things we were working on but I wanted to accelerate inside the
00:03:37.980department that we had the power to do things I thought industry should do better and I was going
00:03:42.640to pressure them to do and then the biggest category of all things that Congress needed to do
00:03:47.620and a bill was put together bipartisan Sherrod Brown Democrat of Ohio J.D. Vance then sent
00:03:55.360Democratic Senator from Ohio a railway safety act it was doing a lot of the things that I was calling
00:04:00.120for. And some of the same people who, including congressional Republicans who couldn't wait to
00:04:06.660try to exploit what happened to East Palestine for political purposes, to attack the administration,
00:04:10.640to attack me, they were nowhere to be found when I was trying to get votes for that Railway Safety
00:04:15.640Act. And to this day, it has not passed because in today's Washington, by the way, Democrats are
00:04:21.560all for it. Some Republicans are for it, some are not. But I believe that if it came to a vote,
00:04:27.020it would pass overwhelmingly but the railway industry lobby has so much power is that they've
00:04:32.500been able to stop it you said something when you said the i'm talking about east palestine i know
00:04:37.620no i know but in the there was a comment you said that maybe that's a different story i'm thinking
00:04:41.540about that you made but i don't remember race being much of an issue in the okay derailment
00:04:45.180handmade in portugal their craftsmanship is a way of life for those who move through life
00:04:52.040differently. From sunlit decks to nights that never need an occasion. Every detail is considered.
00:05:00.360Every step, effortless. Crafted from fine suede and built with builder technology,
00:05:07.300designed to move with you. Because true luxury isn't about being noticed,
00:05:12.960it's about how you feel when you arrive. The FLB Icon Loafer.