On the evening of February 3, 2023, a freight train loaded with toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, sending a large plume of black smoke billowing above homes for weeks, causing residents near the site to worry about long-term health effects.
A year later, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, 39, met with struggling residents and told reporters he called on Biden to fund long-term health screening for residents of his neighborhood.
“When you talk to people, they want to recover from this disaster and they’re still concerned about chemical contamination. They want to be sure that 10 years from now, if something happens to their children or to themselves, they’ll be able to trace it back to this accident,” Vance’s official website said. “The only way to do that is to do the health standards testing that we’ve been talking about, and we’ve been trying to pressure the Biden Administration to do something about it, but they haven’t budged.”
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Vance, a native of Middletown, Ohio, who now lives in Cincinnati, was in East Palestine for the first time less than two weeks after a Norfolk Southern train derailment spilled hazardous materials onto land and nearby waters. He implored Biden to “stop blaming Donald Trump” for the train derailment.
“Stop blaming Donald Trump, who hasn’t even been president for three years, and use the power of the federal government to do what’s necessary to help the people of this community,” Vance told Fox News’ Louis Tomlinson at the time.
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“The fact that these chemicals are still seeping into the ground is an affront to the people who live in eastern Palestine,” Vance said in a social media video he posted as he walked alongside a creek, showing viewers footage of the chemicals clearly visible to the naked eye.
Vance visited the site again in March, and in late August told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that residents of eastern Palestine felt “abandoned” and “forgotten” by President Biden.
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“More than 100 days ago, Joe Biden promised to visit eastern Palestine, and now he has broken that promise,” Vance said.
“Donald Trump showed up in East Palestine, Joe Biden never showed up, and he hasn’t shown up anywhere else,” Vance said of villages in Ohio and Hawaii in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires that have killed nearly 100 people.
Biden arrived in eastern Palestine more than a year after the toxic spill.
Vance’s swift response to the train derailment and his advocacy for local residents earned him a front-row seat in the news for months. On February 22, 2023, President Trump joined Vance and other Ohio lawmakers in shaking hands with local residents and distributing water, food and other supplies to those in desperate need of essentials.
Ohio train derailment: JD Vance urges Biden to ‘stop blaming Donald Trump’ during visit to Eastern Palestine
Vance was a vocal critic of Trump during his presidency from 2016 to 2020 as he campaigned for the 2022 election.
Vance, now a staunch supporter of Trump, was formally announced by Trump as his 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The former president announced the decision in a post on Truth Social just days after a gunman opened fire on him at a rally, attempting to assassinate him.
“After lengthy deliberation and consideration, and taking into account many other incredible talents, I have determined that the person best qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio,” Trump wrote.
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