After having waited weeks to finally show up, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s visit to East Palestine, Ohio, didn’t go very well, as he faced a barrage of questions from the media regarding the slow response of the administration and his failure to come sooner. Based on his poor response to the questions, he was not prepared to handle the criticism.

“What I tried to do was balance two things,” Buttigieg tried to explain to reporters during a painfully cringeworthy news conference. “My desire to be involved and engaged and 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 added, “I’ll do some thinking about whether I got that balance right.”

But, if there was any moment that stands out as cringeworthy, it was when he was trying to argue that the situation in East Palestine had become politicized. “There’s no question that there have been enormous amounts of both information and misinformation injected into this situation, none of which is to the benefit of the community. When it comes to that misinformation… so, I think… sorry, I lost my train of thought.”

He lost his train of thought. Real nice, Pete. Real nice.

Here are some of the highlights of the brutal press conference.

Then, to make matters worse, after getting slaughtered by the media, Buttigieg bailed and left the dirty work to his press secretary.