U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House, on the one-year mark into his second term in office, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS Nathan Howard
The Gothamist reports a Manhattan federal judge may have ended President Donald Trump’s attempted extortion of New York and New Jersey residents.
Judge Jeannette Vargas’ ordered the Trump administration to “unfreeze funding for the sprawling Gateway project on Friday, paving the way for work to resume on a new set of Hudson River tunnels,” the Gothamist reports.
The decision came in the aftermath of a lawsuit filed by the New York and New Jersey attorneys general against the federal government, arguing that the White House’s order to withhold the funds was illegal and caused economic harm.
The $16 billion project is one of the largest public works projects currently underway in the nation, and Trump put more than 1,000 jobs on hold with his funding freeze. On Friday, the Gothamist reports “the White House had floated unlocking the Gateway in exchange for Democrats’ support of renaming Penn Station and Washington Dulles International Airport after Trump.
“The Gateway commission managing the mammoth project said in court filings that winding down operations at five construction sites was a huge undertaking in itself,” the Gothamist reported. “It would take nearly a year of work and $15 million to $20 million a month to secure and monitor the work sites, as well as store the expensive equipment, like the boring machine that cost nearly $500 million.”
Gateway announced the work was officially paused Friday morning because it had exhausted a line of credit, but Judge Vargas declared later that day that “Plaintiffs have adequately shown that the public interest would be harmed by a delay in a critical infrastructure project.”
“This is a critical victory for workers and commuters in New York and New Jersey. I am grateful the court acted quickly to block this senseless funding freeze, which threatened to derail a project our entire region depends on," New York Attorney General Letitia James said.