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“I Really Could Care Less”: Mike Lawler Shrugs As Trump Holds Billions in Federal Funding for New York Hostage

Lawler justified Trump’s decision to hold billions hostage over demands to rename landmarks after himself
Construction on the Gateway Tunnel screeched to a halt on Friday – all because Donald Trump refuses to release federal funding unless Penn Station and Dulles Airport are renamed after him. When asked about it this weekend, vulnerable Republican Mike Lawler said: “I really could care less.”

During an interview with ABC This Week, Lawler dismissed concerns about Trump extorting New York commuters and screwing over the regional economy to satisfy his own vanity – even as the funding freeze triggers “the immediate loss of nearly 1,000 construction jobs and puts at risk the estimated 95,000 jobs and $19.6 billion in economic activity the project is expected to generate.”

Read the exchange below:

Lawler: “Renaming critical infrastructure projects is not a new concept.”

Reporter: “But he is holding the money hostage for having these things named after him. This is not like, part of a, ‘let’s honor somebody.’ Trump wants it named after himself. And he says he’ll unfreeze the money if they do it.”

Lawler: “At the end of the day, to me, I really could care less what the name of a building is, a critical infrastructure project is.”

DCCC Spokesperson Riya Vashi:
“Mike Lawler is once again choosing blind loyalty to Trump, even when it means screwing over New York commuters and tanking the regional economy. If Lawler actually cared about getting Gateway done, he’d be calling out Trump’s reckless obstruction instead of defending it on national television.”

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