Former President Donald Trump traveled to East Palestine, Ohio yesterday, bringing with him “Trump Water” to help people affected by the toxic train derailment and worried about potential hazards in the drinking supply.
In a speech Wednesday, Trump said he was offering “thousands of bottles of Trump water,” but also said that some of it was “much lesser quality water.”
Trump’s speech comes weeks after a train derailed in East Palestine, which spewed thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the air and onto the ground in the northeast Ohio town.
Trump visited the site of the train derailment in the wake of complaints that President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine before visiting the people affected. Although the train company, Northern Suffolk, has claimed the situation is not a major health concern, people have reported fish turning up dead in nearby streams.
While any type of bottled water will likely assuage those concerned about drinking tap water in the wake of the crash, some users on Twitter joked that Trump Water might not be that much better, especially given that the president himself mentioned it might not be the best quality.
Others highlighted his decade-old, discontinued water brand, Trump Ice.
In a clip from Access Hollywood posted by user @JonBershad, Sylvester Stalone says that Trump Ice—Trump’s very real water company he launched in the early 2000s—was so bad he “wouldn’t wash [his] socks in this.”
Trump Ice was discontinued in 2010 and isn’t the same water that was delivered to East Palestine, but users were quick to troll the former president anyway.
“We’re bringing you Trump Water…which was discontinued in 2010…and even lesser quality water,” one user wrote.
“Trump Water was discontinued in 2010. He’s giving away plastic water bottles that have been sitting in a warehouse somewhere for THIRTEEN YEARS. Safer to ditch water from next to the rail line,” said another.
But while Trump wasn’t bringing expired water, there was still plenty of criticism of his visit, given Trump’s rollback of rail safety rules for hazardous cargo that were designed to prevent issues like the derailment and spill in East Palestine.
“His administration repealed safety rules for high-hazard cargo trains. Now he wants to turn a toxic derailment into a political branding show for Trump water,” a user said.
“So Donald Trump shreds the rail safety rules that would have prevented the East Palestine disaster, then he goes to East Palestine and brings them Trump Water that might actually be at least 13 years old (the business went under in 2010)? Got it,” another wrote.
The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that it would be handling the cleanup of the chemicals from East Palestine, but ordered Norfolk Southern to foot the bill.
