MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell said the tunnel under construction, which will eventually provide an additional rail connection between Manhattan and New Jersey, should be named the “Biden Tunnel,” adding that President-elect Donald Trump “I'm going to give credit to” Tunnel, he insisted.
O'Donnell made the remarks during an interview with outgoing Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday's prime-time show “The Last Word,” where he praised the Gateway project as “the most complex infrastructure project ever funded by Joe Biden.”
“This should be called the Biden Tunnel,” O'Donnell said Tuesday.
His comment is This was reported by the news site Mediaite.
MSNBC opinion host talks about funding for the estimated $16.1 billion Gateway program. Made possible by Biden's infrastructure bill It was signed into law in 2021.
“This is the most complex infrastructure project Joe Biden has ever funded,” O'Donnell said, adding, “This is the first bridge across the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey, one of the most important interstate corridors in the country. 3 tunnels will be constructed,” he added. ”
The project includes a new double-track tunnel between Bergen Palisades and Manhattan in New Jersey, as well as repairs to the North River Tunnel, which was damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
The federal government also allocated funding to install a concrete casing at Hudson Yards that will allow the new tunnel to connect to Manhattan's Penn Station.
O'Donnell said that despite the increase in vehicle traffic, “not a single lane has been added to the Hudson River crossings between New York City and New Jersey, including the Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge. No,” he pointed out. In the last 50 years.
The MSNBC host scoured a list of New York politicians who have called for a new tunnel, including the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and several governors and mayors.
“Then Joe Biden came along,” O'Donnell said. “For the next 100 years, people will drive through that tunnel and have no idea who did it.”
O'Donnell also predicted that Trump “will take credit for that tunnel.”
Buttigieg agreed: “That's right.”
“So we've created a pipeline of great projects that will be rolled out over the next several years,” Buttigieg said.
“When I call a project like the Hudson River Tunnel an infrastructure cathedral, I don't just say it because it's a poetic word for something big.”
The newspaper has contacted the Trump transition team and the White House for comment.
