Political Tea, Election Edition: Trump's Tantrum Blows Up in His Face

Julie Roginsky

Let me share some good political gossip about Donald Trump that I heard in the waning days of the New Jersey gubernatorial campaign:

A few weeks before last Tuesday’s election, Trump canceled the ongoing Gateway Project, a major infrastructure initiative to build new rail tunnels under the Hudson River and expand train capacity between New York City and New Jersey. The two existing rail tunnels under the Hudson River, built over a century ago, are overcrowded and deteriorating, especially after damage from Superstorm Sandy in 2012. If one of those tunnels fails, it will cut rail capacity between New York and New Jersey by as much as 75 percent, crippling commuter and interstate travel along the busiest rail line in the United States. If they both collapse, so does the nation’s economy.

There is no bigger infrastructure priority in the United States. But Trump is in a state of pique because the four Democratic senators from New York and New Jersey have refused to reopen the federal government without Republican agreement to extend healthcare subsidies. Like a fool, the president announced an end to the Gateway Project as New Jerseyans had already begun voting in the hotly contested gubernatorial election, where Republican Jack Ciattarelli was vying to defeat Democratic congresswoman Mikie Sherrill.

The Ciattarelli people were furious — and rightly so. They apparently called the White House and said something to the effect of, “You just cost us this election.”

https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/political-tea-election-edition-trumps