Ohio train crash crisis highlights need for safety net GOP seeks to cut

Smoke plumes, trains, stacks side by side, all on fire. At least 11 of the cars that derailed carried the carcinogen vinyl chloride, along with other chemicals used to make adhesives, plastics, and construction materials, all right in the middle of a town of nearly 5,000 people that borders Pennsylvania. On February 6th, emergency crews came to the scene of the derailment to try to get rid of those substances with a controlled release and burn. But if someone breathes in high levels of something like vinyl chloride, they might experience headaches, dizziness, and increased risk of developing certain types of cancer. To avoid those health risks, residents were evacuated from their homes while those chemicals burned. But even while they were away, East Palestine residents and reporters say they could see a mushroom cloud of smoke, one that released a strong, dizzying odor. By February 8th, authorities found the air quality in the area safe enough for residents to return.

So they did. And this is what they observed next. It doesn't smell safe. I'm taking my things and I'm out of here. Everyone else around here can call their own shots. Don't tell me it's safe. Something's going on.

It's a fish or a float. I mean, the correct. I feel about 80% safe. I have heard that they have got two dogs that actually drank out of there and died. Yeah, I have headaches. I mean, I, and then the other night when I was coming home from work, I was coming down through Hamilton. I could smell it clear down there.

Health-wise, cancer. I mean, is this going to be a big cancer cluster? In five to 10 years, why walk my daughter down the aisle? Will I see her get married? What's going to happen? Residents who have returned to the evacuation zone have reported headaches and rashes, respiratory issues and coughing. They've expressed their concern about whether the chemicals are now in the soil and drinking wells. When Governor Mike DeWine was asked in a press conference this week whether he would return to the crash site if he lived there, this was his answer. I think that I would be drinking the bottled water and I would be continuing to find out what the tests were showing as far as the air. I would be alert and concerned, but I think I would probably be back in my house. That is actually the resounding advice from state officials, by the way.

Just buy some bottled water when you get back home. But residents of East Palestine say many of them are on welfare. They rely on programs like SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, to get the food and the bottled water that they need. And in an emergency like this, those are exactly the sorts of programs you might expect to fall back on. The social safety net is meant to help low-income communities, particularly when they are facing heightened health risks and food scarcity. And that is why it is so surprising that as this crisis unfolds, Republicans in Washington are seriously suggesting slashing those very same programs so they can decrease the federal debt limit. House Republicans are considering adding stricter work requirements to the National Food Stamps Program and reducing aid to low-income adults without children.

That is all in addition to the impending reduction of monthly SNAP allotments by $82 on average, which starts next month. Republicans like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are incensed by what is happening in East Palestine, Ohio right now. And at the same time, they are sharpening their knives for a program that would help people by bottled water in an emergency just like this one. Joining us now is Congressman Ro Khanna, the Democrat from California, who sits on the House Agriculture and Oversight and Reform Committee. Congressman Khanna, thank you for being here tonight. I just. Thank you.

Thank you for covering it. Well, this is really important because I think we often don't see the connection between urging residents to buy bottled water in a moment of real vulnerability and then also cutting programs like food stamps, which are meant to help the most vulnerable among us. I mean, can Democrats make this argument? Because it seems like Republicans are trying to get some sort of mileage out of this. political mileage, if you will, out of this train crash in terms of their attacks on the Democratic governor at the state. Alex, what's sad is that this has turned into a political football. I mean, what's happening to the people in East Palestine is horrific. It's one of the largest environmental disaster.

These are working-class folks, almost 70% in poverty, as you pointed out. Many face de-industrialization, jobs going offshore. And what we want to do as a country is come together to support the programs you mentioned so that people have assistance, to support making sure that these railroads are safe, that we are holding corporate railroads accountable with safe laws and emergency breaks. And we. instead of throwing punches at each other in a partisan way, I mean, let's focus on the people there who are suffering. It seems like the Republican Party setting the train saga aside understands that it has a problem when it comes to their stance on social safety net problems. I mean, writ large, there is a debate about how public the GOP can be with their intention to slash social safety net programs.

You have Donald Trump out there saying, it's, you know, Rick Scott should not be talking about the slashing of social security and Medicare. We're not going to talk about the sunsetting of entitlement programs. It's a bad idea. Let's not do that. Bad news for Rick Scott of Florida. There will be no cuts. I mean, Trump seems to understand the reality of this.

He knows the people of East Palestine. They voted for him, I think, 71% of the residents there voted for Trump. And yet, you know, there's a parallel universe in which the party, especially in Washington, continues forward trying to do the very thing that they say they're not trying to do. Do you think that hypocrisy comes home to roost as they try and slash snap ahead of the passage of the Farm Bill? I do look, Alex, there's a reason Donald Trump won the presidency and Mitt Romney did it. What Donald Trump tried to do is he realized that the Republicans needed to win the working class. Well, you can't be a working class party when you're for cutting the very benefits to the working class. And now there are people in the Congress who are saying, slash Social Security, slash Medicare, slash the programs that would help people in East Palestine.

And I think you've got Donald Trump looking at this, saying they're committing political suicide. A lot of the policies that he rejected of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney to try to fashion a more working class constituency are ones that the extreme wing in the House and Senate aren't in agreement with. And that, I think, would be a political disaster for them in these battlegrounds state.

Alex Wagner