You knew it was coming. The moment a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, causing a major ecological disaster, the blame had to be shifted away from the current administration.

After all, it couldn’t possibly fall under the auspices of Pete Buttigieg, the current Transportation Secretary that has presided over the worst period of transportation-related crises in modern history. Instead, the left has found who is really to blame: Donald Trump.

Yes, the bad orange man caused that train to go off the tracks, spilling vinyl chloride onto the landscape, resulting in a nuclear-style mushroom cloud.

In the wake of the East Palestine derailment and its impact on hundreds of residents, we’re seeing lots of newfound or renewed (and welcome) interest in our work on rail safety, so I wanted to share more about what we’ve been doing in this area:

— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) February 14, 2023

And of course, I’m always ready to work with Congress on furthering (or in some cases, restoring) our capacity to address rail safety issues.

— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) February 14, 2023

Buttigieg’s claim immediately went viral, with leftists everywhere sharing a screenshot of an article noting the Trump administration’s rule change, which happened back in 2018.

No, he’s blaming trumps administration, being the republicans. pic.twitter.com/OK6r1SEneW

— Desperately seeking sanity (@cheriro08866746) February 15, 2023

The problem? The claim is completely irrelevant to what happened in Ohio. For starters, the train did not have braking issues. Rather, it derailed because of a broken axle. Further, the train was not carrying oil, which is what the Trump-era regulation rollback specifically pertained to.

Also, and while it’s been a bit of an open question at times, hasn’t Joe Biden been president for the last two years? If that regulation was so effective and great, why didn’t Buttigieg try to reinstate it, even if it led to a court battle? He’s bringing up a completely unrelated regulation as a way to put Trump in the middle of the situation when he’s been in charge for the last two years. How does that square?

Besides, wouldn’t it make more sense for Buttigieg to deflect blame by noting the government can’t be responsible for axles breaking on trains? He can’t do that, though, because he and his party have built a facade that asserts the government can fix absolutely everything. If he were to say “look, there are some things the DOT just can’t prevent, and train parts breaking in freak accidents is one of them,” he would be undermining the left’s savior complex, and we just can’t have that.

In the end, the deflection to the Trump administration is simply dishonest. Even if this accident in Ohio pertained to brakes and oil tankers, that still wouldn’t prove that a lack of regulation caused the crash. Sometimes, things just break, and Big Daddy government can’t solve every issue.