NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- President Donald Trump said the government shutdown had given him license to eliminate “a $20 billion project” in Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s home state of New York, without specifying which one.
“We’re cutting Democrat programs that we didn’t want because, I mean, they made one mistake, they didn’t realize that. That gives me the right to cut programs that Republicans never wanted, you know, giveaways, welfare programs, etc.,” the president said in an excerpt of an interview that will be broadcast on Fox Business on Sunday.
“We’re cutting a $20 billion project that Schumer fought for 15 years to get and I’m cutting the project,” Trump said in the excerpt broadcast on Friday. “The project is going to be dead. It is pretty much dead right now.”
Trump didn’t identify the project by name and it was unclear to what he was referring. On Oct. 1, the day the shutdown began, the White House suspended financing for two projects: A railway tunnel under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey and an extension of the Second Avenue subway in Manhattan.
The Office of Management and Budget has said the funding has been halted.
The fate of the two projects came up during last night’s mayoral debate in New York.
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