Jeanine Pirro ‘Fact Checks’ Jessica Tarlov by Wrongly Claiming Congress Repealed Train Safety Rule Instead of Trump Admin

Co-hosts of Fox News’s The Five, Jessica Tarlov and Jeanine Pirro touched on the ongoing debate regarding who is to blame for the Ohio train derailment that led to the release of toxic chemicals near East Palestine. During a discussion Friday, Tarlov accurately noted that the Trump administration rescinded a rule requiring trains to upgrade their brakes. Pirro jumped in, declaring Congress repealed that rule, when in fact it was his Department of Transportation.

The exchange began with Tarlov weighing in on the scale of the disaster after Jesse Watters offered a lengthy monologue, in which he took aim at Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

It’s a “big deal in Ohio, and we weren’t paying enough attention to it. And people are frightened. I saw a grandfather who takes care of his three granddaughters who was interviewed last night. The kids were covered in rashes until a couple of days ago, showed all of the pictures of it,” Tarlov noted, adding:

That’s irrefutable evidence that something is not right. Is it going to cause cancer? I have absolutely no idea. But you know that you don’t want to be there.

And so for people to judge his point about the thousand derailments, I do think it is important to talk about this as a safety problem. It became a big issue in 2014. There was a crash similar to this in New Jersey where there were toxic chemicals on board and the Obama administration put forward a new rule that they wanted to get passed for regulating trains to upgrade the brake systems if it had petroleum on it, as well as toxic chemicals. And that got watered down to remove the toxic chemicals part of it, which I think is the most important component.

“And then Norfolk Southern and other railroad industry honchos, and you talked about this yesterday Jesse, lobbied government and in 2017, during the Trump administration, were able to pull back a rule that would have upgraded civil war era brake systems. Civil War era,” Tarlov said.

“Well, that was Congress that actually…” jumped in Pirro.

“I said during the Trump years, though. That’s irrelevant…” Tarlov replied, as Pirro repeated, “Congress did though.”

“Yeah, ok. Trump is perfect!” declared Tarlov, quickly moving on.

“The point is the brake systems need to be upgraded. We know that this is a problem. It has been a problem for some time and this will continue to happen. And I think that’s what Pete Buttigieg was talking about,” Tarlov concluded.

Notably, the Obama-era rule Tarlov was talking about was indeed repealed in 2017 by the Trump administration. The Hill reported this week, “the Trump administration in 2017 repealed a 2015 rule that would require some trains carrying hazardous substances to upgrade their braking systems to electronically-controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes.”

Pirro may have been referring to Congress repeatedly delaying requirements for passenger trains to update their brakes, which happened during the Trump administration. However, in 2020 the implementation of those requirements had neared completion – making passenger trains much safer.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.

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