President Trump said he was taking over the Penn Station project. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has at times aggressively criticized Mr. Trump, went a different route.
President Trump said he was taking over the Penn Station project. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has at times aggressively criticized Mr. Trump, went a different route.
President Trump said he was taking over the Penn Station project. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has at times aggressively criticized Mr. Trump, went a different route.
When President Trump extended his reach into New York’s affairs with a promise to “kill” the state’s congestion pricing plan, Gov. Kathy Hochul drew her sword.
“We are not subservient to a king or anyone else out of Washington,” Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, told reporters, vowing to preserve the program.
The aggressive stance was at odds with Ms. Hochul’s usual, deliberative approach, but it also seemed to be successful: Two months later, the tolling program’s cameras remain on.
So when the Trump administration on Thursday declared it would take over one of the state’s largest and most complicated infrastructure projects, Penn Station, some were surprised that Ms. Hochul appeared to respond not with defiance but with a kind of artful gratitude.
“I want to thank the president and Secretary Duffy for taking on the sole responsibility to deliver the beautiful new $7 billion station that New Yorkers deserve,” her statement read, referring to the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy. She suggested that the move was a “major victory for New Yorkers,” in part because she asserted that the state would no longer be contributing a previously allotted $1.3 billion to the project.
It remains to be seen how Ms. Hochul’s approach, which called to mind former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s performative clapping at Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address in 2019, will play out for Ms. Hochul and the people of New York.