On the same day Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited East Palestine on Thursday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre argued that "no one" called for then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to resign when chemical spills occurred under her watch.
The Biden administration has attempted to deflect blame from Buttigieg's slow reaction to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, calling the criticisms made against him "bad-faith attacks."
OHIO TRAIN DERAILMENT: REPUBLICANS AND TRUMP 'OWE EAST PALESTINE AN APOLOGY,' WHITE HOUSE SAYS
Jean-Pierre echoed similar criticisms to ones leveled against Chao by the hosts of Fox & Friends.
Steve Doocy said on the program earlier Thursday that Chao never visited the sites of fatal train accidents while she led the department during the Trump administration, though the problems with the leaders weren't exactly the same.
The critiques of Chao come as Buttigieg and the Biden administration have been battling to keep blame for the toxic crash in Ohio off themselves and pointed at former President Donald Trump.
Doocy and fellow host Brian Kilmeade argued that prior derailments cannot be compared because the derailments during the Trump administration did not involve hazardous materials that could "destroy a town."
"There was nothing that equated to this during the Trump administration," Kilmeade said, calling the Biden administration "tone deaf" to the residents experiencing side effects and previously unsafe drinking water.
Buttigieg has come under fire for the delay in his visit to East Palestine on Thursday. He attributed his delay to letting the National Transportation Safety Board take the reins and said his people had been there working with agencies since day one, but he admitted that he "could have spoken out sooner."
Before his visit, Buttigieg tried to pin the accident on Trump and Chao, who withdrew an Obama-era proposal that would have required faster brakes for trains carrying highly flammable materials, ended regular rail safety audits of railroads, and canceled a pending rule that would require trains to have at least two crew members.
The Biden administration, including Buttigieg, has used those actions to blame Trump and his aides for weakening rail safety, saying they "owe East Palestine an apology."
“Congressional Republicans and former Trump administration officials owe East Palestine an apology for selling them out to rail industry lobbyists when they dismantled Obama-Biden rail safety protections as well as EPA powers to rapidly contain spills,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates.
However, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said that regardless of whether the brakes proposal was in effect or not, the train that traveled through East Palestine would not have had those brakes anyway.
Homendy pleaded on Twitter that people stop spreading "misinformation" about the crash in Ohio.
"The ECP braking rule would've applied ONLY to HIGH HAZARD FLAMMABLE TRAINS. The train that derailed in East Palestine was a MIXED FREIGHT TRAIN containing only 3 placarded Class 3 flammable liquids cars," Homendy tweeted. "This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn't have had ECP brakes. Anything else is harmful — and adding pain to a community that’s been through enough."
On the other side, Trump seized the opportunity from the derailment to visit East Palestine and undercut President Joe Biden. The former president is donating thousands of bottles of water and cleaning supplies to aid the community.
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He slammed Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for not sending federal aid and took credit for Biden officials visiting the site.
"As soon as I announced that I'm going, he announced a team will go," Trump said of Biden prior to his visit. "This is good news because we got them to 'move.'"