Karine Jean-Pierre rejects claim Biden’s overdue East Palestine trip is a ‘political stunt’ and won’t say if he will drink the water a year after the toxic train derailment

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed claims that President Joe Biden’s trip to East Palestine, Ohio, is a “political stunt” and declined to say whether he will drink the water while lying on the ground .

“This is not about some political stunt,” she said during her press conference on Wednesday. “This is about this president being a president for everyone and standing up for this community. That’s what it’s about.’

“I’m not going to pull any political stunts over drinking water,” she added.

Biden will finally visit eastern Palestine a year after a train derailment devastated the Ohio community, the White House announced Wednesday. The president was criticized in the weeks after the harrowing incident for not visiting the scene of the toxic crash, where residents still fear for the safety of their drinking water and possible medical conditions a year after the accident.

“We felt the time was right,” Jean-Pierre said of the visit, scheduled for next month. She added that Biden was invited to visit by the mayor and community leaders.

“The president has always said he would go when it would be most helpful to the community,” she noted. “And given this invitation, obviously very recent, and the current status of the recovery, we felt the time was right.”

“We are working with them to determine the best time in February,” she said.

Donald Trump visited the site as did Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. The White House has insisted that the president make good on the promise he made to see the destruction, but for months would not say when Biden would make the trip.

Biden will go sometime in February, the White House now says, without giving a specific date.

The president has traveled to other disaster sites around the country in the months since a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials went off the tracks on February 3, 2023. The accident resulted in a days-long fire that released toxic fumes into the air. Hundreds of residents were evacuated.

In March, Biden told reporters that he would visit East Palestine “at some point.”

During his trip next month, he will meet with residents and survey the cleanup efforts.

Mayor Trent Conaway of East Palestine said this Fox news said the best time for Biden to visit would be in 2025 “when he’s on his book tour,” indicating he didn’t think the president would win a second term in the White House.

“The president is always welcome in our city,” he added. “That said, I don’t know what he would be doing here now.

Trump, who is leading the Republican presidential nomination, visited East Palestine shortly after the derailment. He said before his trip that the people of that city had been “abandoned.”

On Wednesday he was critical of Biden’s visit.

“With the world exploding around us, while the Middle East is on fire, Biden has finally decided to visit Eastern Palestine, Ohio, a year later, and just to develop some political credibility, because EVERYTHING what he has done has been such a DISASTER. I know those wonderful people, I was there when it mattered, and his reception will not be warm. Worst President in History!,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.

Trump won Ohio by 8 points in the 2020 election. The state, previously considered bellwether, has become increasingly red.

The White House repeatedly emphasized that the trip was not political.

“The president has always said he is a president for people who live in the red states, for people who live in the blue states,” Jean-Pierre noted. “He’s a president for everyone.”

Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, who accompanied Trump on his trip to the community, was a tough critic of Biden for not visiting.

“I think he doesn’t see this community as a Biden community, and that’s why he’s not doing anything for it,” Vance told Fox News in September. ‘It’s disgraceful behaviour. When you are the president, you serve the people, regardless of who they voted for. And East Palestine deserves much better from their government.”

The White House notes that within hours of the derailment, the Environmental Protection Agency had trained emergency response personnel on the ground in East Palestine to support state and local emergency and environmental responses. And that the Ministry of Transport was also there to support the efforts.

The small, mostly white, working-class town is still dealing with the fallout from the derailment and resulting chemical spill.

Hazardous chemicals leaking from the train included vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate and ethylene glycol monobutyl.

Residents reported headaches, rashes, sore throats, nausea and other medical problems in the aftermath. Federal authorities have tested the drinking water and say it is safe, but concerns about environmental contamination and long-term medical effects remain.

Norfolk Southern agreed to pay for the cleanup after pressure from the federal government.

The railroad plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the derailment, and reimburse the EPA for the tens of millions of dollars the agency has already spent.

The Justice Department is also suing Norfolk Southern, seeking sanctions under the Clean Water Act.