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Donald Trump has attacked US transport secretary Pete Buttigieg in his latest Truth Social diatribe, calling him “weak and totally ineffective”, deriding the pronunciation of his surname and accusing him and his party of “disinformation” and “gross incompetence” over the Ohio train derailment.
Mr Buttigieg arrived in East Palestine, Ohio, a day after Mr Trump last week to inspect the costly chemical cleanup after the freight train crash of 3 February and has been outspoken about harmful industrial deregulation under the Trump administration and its possible role in the disaster.
Meanwhile, veteran media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has admitted during a sworn deposition that top personalities at Fox News promoted a baseless narrative that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Mr Trump, according to a recent filing in a voting machine company’s billion-dollar lawsuit against the network.
The chair of the right-wing media empire said that hosts including Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro “endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election,” claims that former president and his allies continue to amplify as he seeks re-election in 2024.
“I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” Mr Murdoch said, according to the court documents.
