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- Pete Buttigieg said he could have expressed concern "sooner" for East Palestine, Ohio, after a train derailed.
- He visited the community on Thursday, a day after former President Donald Trump.
- He said he'll "do some thinking" on whether it was a mistake to wait to visit.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he could have expressed concern "sooner" for the residents of East Palestine, Ohio, after waiting 10 days to publicly address the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals.
His comments on Thursday came during his first visit to the site, a day after former President Donald Trump visited the community and criticized Buttigieg for not yet visiting.
Asked on Thursday whether it was a mistake to have held off on visiting the community, Buttigieg said he'll "do some thinking" on that.
"What I tried to do was balance two things — my desire to be involved and engaged in on the ground, which is how I am generally wired to act and my desire to follow the norm of transportation secretaries allowing NTSB to really lead the initial stages of the public facing work," he told reporters. "I'll do some thinking about whether I got that balance right. But I think the most important thing is, first of all, making sure that the residents here have what they need."
He expressed his concerns in a tweet on February 13, but he acknowledged on Thursday that was too long.
"I felt strongly about this and could have expressed that sooner," he said. "Again, I was taking pains to respect the role that I have and the role that I don't have, but that should not have stopped me from weighing in about how I felt about what was happening to this community."
Buttigieg has been under fire from the right and some on the left for his response to the situation, which has left some residents with symptoms they fear are tied to the toxic vinyl chloride gas that was released to prevent a massive explosion.
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and J.D. Vance of Ohio called for Buttigieg's resignation while former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a longtime ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders, told Insider that Buttigieg should be fired.
"He's in over his head," she said in an interview.
Buttigieg went on offense against Trump on Thursday, saying he could support the Biden administration in reversing deregulation "that happened under his watch."
The Trump administration rescinded a rule requiring better brakes on high-hazard cargo trains after government analyses found the cost wasn't justified. The law said the costs couldn't exceed the rule's benefits, a transportation spokesperson noted at the time. It's unclear whether this rule would have applied to the Norfolk Southern train, but
"I heard him say he had nothing to do with it, even though it was in his administration," Buttigieg said Thursday.
Buttigieg acknowledged earlier in the week that he could have spoken out sooner about the derailment.
"I was focused on just making sure that our folks on the ground were all set, but could have spoken sooner about how strongly I felt about this incident, and that's a lesson learned for me," Buttigieg said on CBS Tuesday.