MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell says Gateway Program should be ‘Biden Tunnel’ — but Trump ‘will take credit’
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell said the tunnel under construction that will eventually provide additional rail links between Manhattan and New Jersey should be named the “Biden Tunnel” — claiming that President-elect Donald Trump “is going to take credit for” it.
O’Donnell, who made the remarks during an interview with outgoing Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on his “Last Word” prime time show on Tuesday, praised the Gateway Program as “the most complex infrastructure project funded by Joe Biden.”
“It should be called the Biden Tunnel,” O’Donnell said on Tuesday.
His comments were reported by the news site Mediaite.
The MSNBC opinion host noted that funding for the Gateway Program, which has a total estimated cost of $16.1 billion, was made possible by Biden’s infrastructure bill which was signed into law in 2021.
“It is the most complex infrastructure project funded by Joe Biden,” O’Donnell said, adding that it “will provide a third tunnel across the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey, one of the most important interstate links in the country.”
The project will include a new double-track tunnel between the Bergen Palisades in New Jersey and Manhattan as well as the rehabilitation of the North River Tunnel that was damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
The federal government has also allocated funds for concrete casing to be installed in Hudson Yards that would allow the new tunnel to be connected to Penn Station in Manhattan.
O’Donnell noted that “there has not been one additional lane added” to the Hudson River crossings that link New York City to New Jersey, including the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels as well as the George Washington Bridge — this despite the increase in vehicular traffic in the last 50 years.
The MSNBC host ran down a list of New York politicians who sought to get a new tunnel built, including the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan as well as several governors and mayors.
“Then came Joe Biden,” O’Donnell said. “For the next 100 years, people will be driving through that tunnel and they will have no idea who did that.”
O’Donnell then predicted that Trump “is going to take credit for that tunnel.”
Buttigieg agreed, saying: “Absolutely.”
“I mean, look, we’ve created a pipeline of good projects that are going to play out over the next few years,” Buttigieg said.
“When I called the projects like the Hudson River tunnel the Cathedrals of our infrastructure, I didn’t say that just because it’s a poetic word for something big.”
The Post has sought comment from the Trump transition team and the White House.
