New York Senator Chuck Schumer has denied a claim by President Donald Trump that it was the Senator who suggested renaming Penn Station in honor of the president in exchange for the lifting of a freeze on federal funds for a major infrastructure project.
Earlier this week, news reports citing “people close to the situation” began popping up, claiming that Trump told the Senate Minority Leader that he would agree to unfreeze $205 million in federal funds for a $16 billion New York infrastructure project if Schumer agreed to rename New York’s Penn Station and Virginia’s Dulles International Airport after him.
On Friday night, while Trump was on his way to Mar-a-Lago, he told reporters that Schumer pitched the idea to him.
“He suggested that to me,” Trump said. “Chuck Schumer suggested that to me, about changing the name of Penn Station to Trump Station. Dulles Airport is really separate. Dulles Airport is really not too involved with Congress. It’s a separate kind of a deal, as you know. But it was suggested to me by numerous people. Unions, Democrats, Republicans, a lot of people suggested it. But nothing’s been done on that.”
Shortly after Trump made the comment, Schumer went on X and posted a his rebuttal.
“Absolute lie. He knows it. Everyone knows it,” Schumer wrote. “Only one man can restart the project and he can restart it with the snap of his fingers.”
The “project” Schumer referenced is the Gateway Tunnel Project in New York City. Trump froze more than $200 million in federal funding for the project in October, even though the funds had already been approved by Congress.
Work on the tunnel, which would join New York and New Jersey and ultimately replace other aging infrastructure linking the states, cannot continue past this week due to Trump’s refusal to unfreeze the federal funding.
The Gateway Development Commission, which is overseeing the project, sued the federal government over the funding freeze on Monday. On Friday, Judge Jeannette Vargas in Manhattan ruled against the Trump administration and ordered it to release the funding.
The Trump administration never offered any specific reason for why it froze the funds and blamed Democrats for refusing to negotiate to get the project restarted.
At least according to some sources, Trump was holding up the project to get his name on more buildings.
“That’s why we’re going to jeopardize this project? It’s insane,” Congressman Robert Menendez Jr., who represents New Jersey, told CBS News.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York railed against the reported naming deal in a post on X.
“These naming rights aren’t tradable as part of any negotiations, and neither is the dignity of New Yorkers,” Gillibrand wrote. “I demand that the president put people first and unfreeze this project and all the others his administration has been holding hostage for his personal gain.”
Trump will shy away from admitting that he loves seeing his name on things, even though the truth of it is plainly obvious. When he announced his TrumpRx discount pharmaceutical drug site last year, he insisted that someone else had come up with the name and said he had nothing to do with the branding.
Last year, the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — a group of people who were handpicked and placed in their positions by Trump after he fired the previous board — voted to rename the venue after Trump.
The president’s insistence that Schumer actually suggested the name changes seems to follow that pattern.
It’s unclear what will happen with the tunnel. Even though a judge ruled against Trump, it doesn’t necessarily mean he will agree to release the funds, or that he will do so in a timely manner.
