Joe Rogan blasts Buttigieg comments on white construction workers

Joe Rogan slammed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Wednesday for saying that there are too many white construction workers taking jobs in communities of color. 

On his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan argued that the workers should be selected based on merit, not race, and criticized the Department of Transportation’s response to the train derailment that occurred in East Palestine, Ohio, last week. 

“Do you know that he [Buttigieg] gave a speech the other day about how there’s too many white people working in construction sites? Where these construction sites are set up in these communities, where the people in the community can benefit from it. Which shows a profound lack of understanding of skilled labor because if you’re talking about people that are carpenters, people that are plumbers, and people that are electricians, and people that are framers and roofers, like that’s skilled labor,” Rogan said during a conversation with Bridget Phetasy, a comedian.

“Like, you have to hire people that are really good at that, and if they don’t exist in that community, you have to hire them from outside that community. That’s why those unions are important, that’s why it’s important that, look if you see what happens when you have unskilled labor and unskilled people working on buildings, you have f—ing disasters,” Rogan said. 

“The fact that he talked about that, and he didn’t talk about this derailment, this derailment should be, but the derailment’s a colossal failure on the part of the Transportation Department,” Rogan continued.

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Rogan has been a frequent critic of the Biden administration despite holding liberal views on several issues. Buttigieg, meanwhile, has been criticized for his handling of various commercial air flight incidents under his tenure in addition to train derailments.

The people of East Palestine, Ohio, have expressed concerns that despite reassurances from public officials, their drinking water is contaminated and air polluted as a result of the train derailment that resulted in an explosion and the release of toxic chemicals into the environment.

When asked by a resident at a town hall Wednesday night where Buttigieg has been during the crisis, East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway responded, “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as me.”