Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Calls on President Trump to Unfreeze Funding for Gateway Tunnel Project

Earlier today, Governor Hochul urged the Trump administration to unfreeze funding for the Gateway Tunnel project.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

I want to address a situation that has been unfolding for a number of months here in the State of New York. Here in New York. You heard me speak about how we're very proud to dream big and get things done. We've focused on major infrastructure projects, job creation — over a million jobs created since I've been Governor, private sector jobs.

We're doing everything we can, and then we have Donald Trump to deal with. He promised to grow our economy, promised to focus on more jobs, focus on the needs of everyday Americans. But instead of doing that, he's dead set on killing 1,000 jobs of people working hard right now to build the largest public infrastructure project in American history right now.

They've been building the Gateway Tunnel — 1,000 workers now, upward of 10,000 over a number of years. Now he claims to be a builder, but seems like in New York, he's trying to do everything he can to stop us from building, and that means he's even recklessly breaking the law.

Since Friday, the construction of the Gateway Tunnel has been stopped. Hundreds of union workers have been sent home without a paycheck, and the commutes of 200,000 daily riders are now at risk. Let me be clear: This is happening only for one reason. Now, I've worked hard to get this over the finish line. This is something that was essential for our economy to ensure that we don't have a failure of a tunnel that connects the entire Northeast for Amtrak — 200,000 daily commuters, as I said.

It was compromised during Superstorm Sandy way back in 2012, and there's been talk for years and years about how to rebuild a tunnel, to create that essential lifeline and to build a resiliency that's necessary. And it went through different presidents and different governors — governors of New Jersey, governors of New York. And finally, we hit the sweet spot where we had President Biden with funding; Majority Leader Schumer, supportive for years; Governor of New Jersey Phil Murphy and myself, new on the scene, who said, “Let's get this done.”

And so I've been proud that this has been ongoing, thousands of people are working on it, and now it has come to a dead stop because Donald Trump is throwing a temper tantrum. We're not quite sure what he's mad about right now. It may have something to do with the naming of different buildings, but here's what I say: Let's worry about what to call it when it gets done. Let's keep working on it. Keep building. Put people back to work. Stop saying one thing and doing the exact opposite.

So what he is doing is illegal. We sued. We won in court. He could have turned the funding back on, and instead, he decided to appeal. So he doesn't care. He doesn’t care. He's on his revenge tour against places like New York.

You might think you're hurting me or Chuck Schumer, but you're hurting thousands of people who are home today with their futures uncertain, their lives turned upside down because of the callous behavior of the Trump administration. I say, "Get them back to work now.” Forget all this childish behavior and just stop being so petty. This is essential. That's what I wanted to say — not real happy today.