Rogan homed in on a speech given by Buttigieg last month at the National Association of Counties conference in Washington DC during which the transportation secretary talked about “building a workforce that reflects the community.”
Buttigieg said: “We have heard way too many stories from generations past of infrastructure where you’ve got a neighbourhood, often a neighbourhood of colour, that finally sees the project come to them but everyone in the hard-hats doing the good-paying jobs don’t look like they came from anywhere near the neighbourhood.”
Rogan (whose podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, claims to have 190 million downloads a month – even more than Re:Construction) told a guest on his show that Buttigieg “gave a speech where he said there were too many white people working in construction sites.”
“That shows a profound misunderstanding of skilled labour,” added Rogan, pointing out that construction was a skilled trade and that it was often necessary to hire in those skills from outside the community.
Rogan went on to attack Buttigieg for focusing on racial issues while failing to acknowledge the derailment on 3rd February of a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio, and the ensuing toxic fire.
Rogan called Buttigieg’s failure to comment on the derailment until after 10 days of the disaster as “a colossal failure on the part of the Transportation Department.”
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