HYGO News After Biden Said He Hadn't Had 'Occasion' To Visit East Palestine, Jean-Pierre Insists He Still Will
After Biden Said He Hadn’t Had “Occasion” To Visit East Palestine, Jean-Pierre Insists He Still Will
On September 5, 2023, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy pressed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on President Biden’s failure to visit East Palestine, Ohio, more than seven months after a catastrophic Norfolk Southern train derailment had upended the community. Biden had said over the Labor Day weekend that he simply had not had the “occasion” to visit. Doocy’s questions about Biden’s vacation schedule reduced Jean-Pierre to repeating a single robotic talking point: “The president will go to East Palestine.”
The Exchange
Doocy opened by referencing Biden’s own words from the holiday weekend. The president had told reporters that he had not been able to “break” from his schedule to visit East Palestine. Doocy turned this claim into a pointed question.
“The derailment was on Feb. 3. President Biden has not had a break since Feb. 3?” Doocy asked.
Jean-Pierre did not answer the question. Instead, she offered a promise: “The president will go to East Palestine. He promised that he would and he will.”
Doocy followed up with a question that put a fine point on the absurdity of Biden’s claim: “So he was not on a break when he was in Lake Tahoe?”
The question was devastating because the answer was obvious. Biden had just returned from a vacation at Lake Tahoe. Before that, he had spent extended time at his beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He had spent virtually the entire month of August between the two vacation locations. The idea that he had not had the “occasion” to visit a disaster site in Ohio — a state that is closer to Washington, D.C., than either Lake Tahoe or Rehoboth Beach — was difficult to take seriously.
Jean-Pierre repeated her talking point: “I will say this again. The president is going to go to East Palestine as he has said that he is committed to do.”
When pressed further about what the community needed, Jean-Pierre deflected: “What else do they need from the federal government?” before again promising a visit without a date: “The president is going to go to East Palestine. I don’t have a time or date to announce at this time, but he will go.”
The East Palestine Derailment
The disaster that prompted the exchange had occurred on February 3, 2023, when a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, a small town of approximately 4,800 people near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. The derailment released vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, and other toxic chemicals. To prevent an uncontrolled explosion, officials conducted a controlled burn of the vinyl chloride, sending a massive plume of black smoke into the sky that was visible for miles.
Residents reported headaches, nausea, rashes, and burning sensations in their eyes and throats. Fish died in nearby creeks. The Environmental Protection Agency and state agencies began cleanup operations, but residents expressed fear about long-term health effects and the safety of their drinking water. The disaster drew comparisons to some of the worst environmental incidents in American history and raised urgent questions about rail safety regulations, the transport of hazardous materials, and the adequacy of the federal response.
The Visit That Didn’t Happen
While Biden did not visit East Palestine, former President Trump traveled to the town on February 22, 2023 — less than three weeks after the derailment. Trump delivered supplies of bottled water and met with residents, turning the visit into a sharp political contrast. The optics were damaging for Biden: the former president was on the ground in a disaster zone while the sitting president was nowhere to be seen.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose department had direct jurisdiction over rail safety, also faced criticism for his delayed response. Buttigieg did not visit East Palestine until February 23, twenty days after the derailment, and only after significant political pressure. EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited earlier, on February 16, but Biden himself remained absent.
The White House initially defended Biden’s absence by pointing to the federal resources that had been deployed to the site. FEMA assistance, EPA cleanup operations, and coordination with Norfolk Southern on remediation were cited as evidence that the administration was engaged. But for residents who felt abandoned, the absence of the president himself sent a message that East Palestine was not a priority.
Biden’s Vacation Schedule
Doocy’s line of questioning was particularly effective because Biden’s vacation schedule had been a persistent source of criticism throughout his presidency. By September 2023, Biden had spent more days on vacation or at personal residences than any modern president at the same point in their term. His frequent trips to Rehoboth Beach and Wilmington, Delaware, were notable not only for their frequency but for the lack of visitor logs maintained at these locations — unlike the White House, where visitor records are publicly available.
The Lake Tahoe trip that Doocy referenced was part of Biden’s August 2023 vacation, during which the president spent time in both Rehoboth Beach and the Lake Tahoe area. The trip to Lake Tahoe coincided with the devastating Maui wildfires that killed over 100 people in Lahaina, Hawaii. Biden was criticized for his initial response to the Maui disaster as well, with his “no comment” reply when asked about the rising death toll becoming another viral moment of perceived presidential indifference.
The pattern was consistent: when disaster struck, Biden was often somewhere else, and the White House response was to promise future engagement without committing to specific timelines.
Jean-Pierre’s Broken Record
Jean-Pierre’s handling of the Doocy exchange was characteristic of her broader approach to difficult questions. Rather than explaining why the president had not visited, offering context about scheduling constraints, or even acknowledging that seven months was an unusually long time to delay a disaster visit, she simply repeated the same sentence in different formulations:
“The president will go to East Palestine.”
“The president is going to go to East Palestine as he has said that he is committed to do.”
“The president is going to go to East Palestine. I don’t have a time or date to announce at this time, but he will go.”
The repetition accomplished nothing beyond highlighting the absence of a substantive answer. A more effective communicator might have pointed to specific federal actions taken in East Palestine, provided a general timeline for a presidential visit, or explained what logistical factors were affecting the schedule. Instead, Jean-Pierre’s robotic insistence that a visit would eventually happen — without any supporting details — only reinforced the perception that the White House had no actual plan to get Biden to Ohio.
The Broader Context of the Briefing
The East Palestine exchange was part of a September 5 briefing that included several contentious moments between Doocy and Jean-Pierre. In the same briefing, Doocy asked about a Wall Street Journal poll showing two-thirds of Democrats thought Biden was too old to run again. Jean-Pierre responded by citing Biden’s “wisdom” and “experience.”
Doocy also asked why White House staffers treated Biden “like a baby,” referencing reports that staff had walked back Biden’s statements multiple times — including what appeared to be a call for regime change in Russia. Jean-Pierre dismissed the characterization as “ridiculous.”
The series of exchanges illustrated the dynamic that had come to define Doocy’s interactions with Jean-Pierre: he would ask direct questions based on publicly available facts, and she would respond with talking points that did not address the substance of what was being asked. The East Palestine exchange was among the most vivid examples of this pattern, with a simple factual question about vacation time met with nothing but an empty promise repeated three times.
Key Takeaways
- On September 5, 2023, Peter Doocy asked KJP why Biden had not visited East Palestine, Ohio, more than seven months after the February 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment, after Biden said he had not had the “occasion” to visit.
- Doocy pointed out that Biden had vacationed at Lake Tahoe and Rehoboth Beach during the seven months since the derailment, undermining the claim that Biden had not had a “break” to visit.
- Jean-Pierre repeated “The president will go to East Palestine” three times in different formulations without providing a date or addressing why the visit had not yet occurred.
- Former President Trump had visited East Palestine on February 22, 2023 — less than three weeks after the derailment — creating a sharp political contrast with Biden’s prolonged absence.
- The exchange was part of a broader briefing in which Doocy also pressed Jean-Pierre on polls showing two-thirds of Democrats thought Biden was too old and reports that staff treated Biden “like a baby.”