On Tuesday night, NewsNation continued its commitment to real journalism by holding a town hall with primetime host Chris Cuomo in East Palestine, Ohio on continued fallout from the February 3 toxic train derailment. Put aside whatever one might think about Cuomo and his past for a moment and what’s left was a true example of what journalism should be.
In this case, it’s keeping the spotlight on the lack of answers from all levers of government power and the economic, health, and societal impact its had on residents, something few in the media of all stripes have done.
Cuomo opened by appealing to the whole country and the fact that most of America has, more likely than not, already forgotten about East Palestine. He added that such an environmental disaster could have happened anywhere (click “expand”):
We are in East Palestine. Now, if you look around, you may be surprised everybody in this room probably looks a lot like you. That’s because we’re not in the Middle East. We are in middle America. This is East Palestine, Ohio, not Palestine. And I can’t tell you how many people in the media and around my life were surprised that we were going to the Middle East when I said we’re going to East Palestine. Why? Because this place has become all but a secret to so many of us. And yet, the people in this room are just like the people where you live, just like the people you love and you know, and there, but for the grace, you could be in the situation that they are in now. Hopefully you know what that situation is, if not. A couple of 100 yards, maybe from where we are right now here in East Palestine at McKims, there was a train derailment in February, okay? That train was carrying 115,000 100, the 16,000 120,000 depending on who you ask gallons of toxic chemicals, all right? When it derailed, those chemicals became a stability issue. Those chemicals were burned and created what was like and you tell me if I’m getting it wrong, like a volcanic eruption? A plume of toxic chemicals in this community? Why? Depends who you ask, was it rash? Was it right? Depends who you ask. But that’s only one of the questions here. It happened, okay? It happened.
And if you Google, vinyl chloride — Google vinyl chloride, and you tell me if you would want a plume of it ignited where you live, where your kids play, where they go to school, your community? Would you want to be there as they were doing the remediation and trucks are going by and air sensors all day, every day? If you were told it was okay, would you want that checked? These are the questions that these people are dealing with, okay. It’s not checking that everybody wants to feel like they hit the lottery here. They just want their lives back. And that’s what brings us here, that fear, that concern, the unknown, the desperation. This is doing the job. East Palestine could be so many places in America. And yet again, it is all but a secret. So, tonight, let’s expose the secrets. Let’s ask the questions and hear the concerns and then you can make the judgments about what you would want done in your world in your life. If you were feeling and seeing and smelling the same things that they are.
Cuomo then went into a voice-over segment on the timeline of events, starting with the Norfolk Southern train derailment that sent nearly 120,000 gallons of vinyl chloride into the air with it only taking days for government officials to insist residents were safe to return home.
But, as Cuomo noted, it seemed improbable (click “expand”):
CUOMO: Yet, many were showing symptoms of a potential vinyl fluoride exposure.
JESSICA CONARD [on NewsNation’s Morning in America, date N/A]: Kids with nosebleeds adults with nosebleeds chemical burns.
RICH MCHUGH [on NewsNation’s Cuomo, 02/20/23]: I see a big emphasis around the train tracks and, like, all the cleaning there, but I don’t see an emphasis on helping people.
CUOMO: And authorities seem more aggressive with people asking questions than with getting answers for the people of East Palestine.
[POLICE ARGUING WITH EVAN LAMBERT]
CUOMO: NewsNation reporter Evan Lambert expose the ugliness when he was arrested for doing his job at a live press conference by Ohio governor Mike DeWine. Despite evidence of people reporting symptoms, government continued to reassure.
GOVERNOR MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): I have eight kids. We have 26 grandkids. So if any of them lives here, you know, I would tell them I’m from the water.
CUOMO: Really? Then why all the dead fish?
MCHUGH [on NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas Reports, 06/23/23]: The vinyl chloride that was in those tankers might have ended up in their system.
EPA RESPONSE COORDINATOR MARK DURNO [on NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas Reports, 06/23/23]: Oh, there’s a potential they were exposed. I’m not saying that. I’m saying right now we don’t exposure pathway.
CUOMO: East Palestine’s residents weren’t buying it.
KAYLA MILLER: I want to know if I will see my kids graduate. They will be able to have kids.
CHRISSY FERGUSON [on NewsNation’s Morning in America, 05/17/23]: Am I making my family sick?
CUOMO: They continue to speak out and we listened and listened.
Cuomo ended with the simple fact that “President Biden has still not come” despite smirking and smiling on March 2 that he would “be out there at some point.”
In contrast, Cuomo responded by painting East Palestine as “like a lot of small places in America” that seem “easy to forget” though, “as you drive through here and you talk to the people, they know that they’ve been forgot and what matters to them, they will never forget.”
Throughout the hour, Cuomo called on longtime investigative reporter Rich McHugh, who said at one point that residents were “so confused about the messages” from agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and thus “not sure who to trust.”
“I’ve been here now 10, maybe 11 times — and you’d think that, by now, the problems would be dissipating and people’s issues would be kind of be going away. Instead, they seem to be compounding and...I guarantee you everybody in this room has more questions today about their health and what they’re going to do with their house then they did on February 3 or even two months after the derailment,” he added.
Later, McHugh acknowledged the “overall lack of transparency going on here” and, for example, one woman who lived near the derailment site still couldn’t have her home tested by the EPA.
“You’re either in the business of trying to get to the bottom of something or you’re part of a narrative and, it’s my — my opinion, after talking with everybody in this room, that it’s the latter,” he said.
Despite having an hour, Cuomo told viewers that officials from the White House to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on down to the state level were invited to participate, but no one agreed.
Cuomo gave plenty of time to residents, ranging from community activist Jessica Conard to a woman named Lori whose daughter required medication to prevent vomiting at home to Shelby Walker, who said she was on an inhaler and wished her home had burned down so she could move somewhere else.
He also spoke with residents battling second and third-degree burns, lesions, slurred speech, and toxic chemicals in their basement.
Resident Rick Tsai has taken it upon himself to videotape the lack of cleanup in local waterways and, even months later, a simple poking of the sediment in the water will cause it to turn into a plethora of colors (click “expand”):
TSAI: So, I been filming in those creeks multiple times a week for eight months now. My friend Randy DeHaven does as well. I was under the bridge that they’re remodeling the day before and I poked a stick and chemicals are coming out and said when they knock this bridge down, they’re going to release all kind of chemicals. When they knocked the bridge down, massive amounts of chemicals were in the creek. We filmed it. We released a video and the EPA and the ODNR came down the next day. No evidence of chemicals. We can’t smell. Since we can’t smell it, we’re not testing. I was so furious. I stopped and got a newspaper with imploded saying that there were no chemicals in the creek along with all these dead fish. We’re walking through the creek with the newspaper filming all the chemicals. So, either the EPA is the most that — they’ve hired the most inept buffoons or there’s something nefarious going on here. So, you know what I think. [APPLAUSE]
(....)
TSAI: Also, Chris — Chris, a large majority of us are on wells around that creek. And that’s really what we’re concerned about.
CUOMO: Yeah, you’re just you’re going to be drawn off on the all the water sources in there because as we all know, dirt is permeable, right?
Cuomo turned back to Biden to close out the hour, challenging him to sign “an emergency declaration” from months back that’s still “on his desk.”
And yet, Biden not only hasn’t moved, but he flew over Ohio on Tuesday “on his way to Detroit”:
[H]e could have come here. He chose not to to go to San Francisco to raise money. I get the realities of politics. Believe me, I grew up in it. But if you want people to know that you’re the President of everybody in this country, it shouldn’t matter if you think you’re gonna get their vote. What you should be getting is their trust.
To see the relevant transcript from September 27, click here.
