(PM.) During Wednesday night’s episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the show’s namesake called for Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio and Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania to resign, saying that the two signed off on the burning of chemicals from a Norfolk Southern train that derailed earlier this month in East Palestine, Ohio.
Speaking on the events leading up to and following the burning, Carlson said, “In the subsequent days, a lot of people have wondered out loud, was it really a wise decision to light thousands of gallons of vinyl chloride on fire releasing a World War One-era bioweapon into the air over a populated area. Was that a good call?”
“Was that a good call? And was it really safe two days later for people to go back to their homes, and if it was safe, how do we know that? Is anyone in charge actually monitoring with any accuracy the level of deadly chemicals in the air ground and water in and around East Palestine? Well, no, apparently nobody is,” Carlson added.
Carlson called it a “failure at all levels.”
“The first duty of government is to protect its citizens. So it’s bad,” Carlson said, adding that it is “very bad news” for politicians like Shapiro and DeWine, “who may have helped make this disaster much worse.”
“And both governors have now identified the villain here, not as themselves, oh, of course not, but as the railroad Norfolk Southern, both are considering lawsuits against the company,” Carlson said.
Carlson noted a letter that Shapiro sent to the White House, which stated in part that Norfolk Southern was “unwilling to explore or articulate alternative courses of action to their proposed vent and burn,” calling it “an amazingly brazen butt-covering.”
Shapiro, Carlson said, stated that it was obvious that there was a “safer overall approach for first responders, residents, and the environment.”
“For the record,” Carlson said, “we’re not defending Norfolk Southern here. We’re only pointing out that Norfolk Southern had the strong endorsement of Josh Shapiro and Mike DeWine when it sent those chemicals on fire and caused the mushroom cloud.”
Carlson said that “the Biden administration endorsed” the burning of chemicals as well.
“According to Pete Buttigieg, Biden officials were on the scene. Yet somehow they never said a word about the mushroom cloud until pictures of it evoked outrage on social media. And of course, they didn’t. They didn’t even notice.
“It had nothing to do with equity or climate change, East Palestine is a poor, white town that voted for Trump, so honestly, who cares? No one in the Biden ministration did care. And that’s an atrocity,” Carlson said.
