Pete Buttigieg lashes out at reporter asking about Ohio train derailment

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg snapped that he was on “personal time” when questioned late Tuesday about his plans to visit the toxic train derailment site in East Palestine, Ohio — before asking if he could take a photo of the reporter.

Jennie Taer, who posted the 46-second video on Twitter, identified herself to Buttigieg as a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation as he walked down the street with his husband, Chasten.

“What do you have to say to the folks in Ohio, East Palestine, who are suffering right now?” Taer asked the 41-year-old.

“I’d refer you to about a dozen interviews I’ve given today, and if you’d like to arrange a conversation, make sure to reach out to our press office,” Buttigieg responded. “I’d like to have that conversation with you.”

“Do you have a message for them?” Taer persisted.

“I do and I shared that with the press many times today. I refer you to those comments,” Buttigieg repeated.

Taer asked if he could share that message with her. 

“No. I’m going to refer you to the comments I made to the press because right now I’m taking some personal time and I’m walking down the street,” the secretary said.

Asked when he would be traveling to Ohio, Buttigieg said he would “share that when I’m ready.”

At that point, the cabinet member stopped and asked Taer if he could take a photo of her. 

In her Twitter posting, Taer said that “I guess he didn’t like that so he took a pic of me. Im [sic] just doing my job, sir.”

The bizarre exchange made many conservatives bristle.

Follow The Post’s coverage of the Ohio train derailment

“This is how elitists who are made uncomfortable act out,” tweeted The Hill columnist Joe Concha. “Amazing how few members of the press are commenting on this.”

“Why did the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg need a picture of a member of our FREE press?” asked Fox News host Harris Faulkner. “Is he trying to be funny … or is something else at play here? Targeting? Journalists are allowed to speak with public officials who are in public.”

“When is this guy NOT taking personal time?” asked Alana Mastrangelo of Breitbart.

“This is totally weird, and shows the current administration’s disdain for journalists,” tweeted former CNN producer Steve Krakauer. “Imagine if Elaine Chao did this during the Trump administration … Let’s see if the corporate press colleagues speak out on behalf of a reporter doing her job.”

“Where in his tenure at McKinsey & Company or as a small town mayor did Pete Buttigieg learn to think that this was a good idea when asked a question by a reporter?” asked Steve Guest, a communications adviser for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Buttigieg has been criticized for not trekking to the eastern Ohio community since the Norfolk Southern train carrying a variety of toxic chemicals derailed on Feb. 3 — after previously coming under fire for going on vacation during talks to avoid a nationwide rail strike, using taxpayer-funded private jets while Americans struggled with airline cancellations and delays, and going on paternity leave at the height of the supply chain crisis.

The transportation secretary said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Tuesday that he would go to Ohio “when the time is right.” On Wednesday, the Department of Transportation said Buttigieg would travel to East Palestine on Thursday to meet with community members and receive an update from the National Transportation Safety Board.

Drawing on his experience as the mayor of South Bend, Ind., Buttigieg told “GMA” there are “two kinds of people who show up” at disaster sites. 

“People who were there because they have a specific job to do and are there to get something done. And people were there to look good and have their picture taken,” he said.

The comment was an apparent jab at former President Donald Trump, who visited East Palestine on Wednesday. 

Thirty-eight rail cars derailed and a fire destroyed another 12 cars, the NTSB said in a preliminary report on the disaster.

The train was transporting 20 known hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, a chemical used in making plastic. 

The spill caused the evacuations of hundreds of people from the East Palestine area and contaminated the surrounding air, water and ground.