Trump Slaps His Name on Infrastructure Projects Funded by Biden
President Donald Trump is stealing credit for infrastructure improvements achieved under Biden-era legislation he actively sought to sabotage.
The New York Times reports that signs emblazoned with the words “PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” and “REBUILDING AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE” are popping up across the country at improvement projects financed by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (perhaps better known as Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), which passed against Trump’s best efforts in 2021.
As Trump was seeking to derail the legislation, he called it a “loser” for the country.
“Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill is a disgrace,” he said in August 2021 before a Senate vote on the bill, warning that Republican lawmakers who supported it would be committing political suicide. After it passed Congress, he referred to it as a “terrible Democrat Socialist Infrastructure Plan.”
Now Trump appears happy to claim Biden’s achievement as his own. The only indication on the signs pointing to the truth is smaller text noting the project was “funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”
An Amtrak spokesperson told the Times that the signs currently appear at sites in Connecticut, Maryland, Boston, and Philadelphia, as well as on a Baltimore-to-Washington, D.C., Amtrak route, as part of a “voluntary Amtrak initiative” to update signage “following the change in presidential administrations earlier this year.”
When Biden’s bill passed, the then president claimed credit for its achievements with signs bearing the words “Project Funded By President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.” Republicans were outraged at the time but are curiously quiet now. According to the Times, Senator Ted Cruz, who accused Biden of running afoul of the Hatch Act for his signs, “did not respond to an email asking whether the Trump signs might also violate the Hatch Act.”
Numerous Republicans who voted against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have, since its passage, taken credit for its results. For example, Representative Nancy Mace—despite voting “no” on the bill, which she called a “socialist wish list”—has since falsely said she “helped secure the largest infrastructure grant in state history, in South Carolina history.”
Similarly, when the Trump administration took over Union Station last month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy touted rail improvements made possible by Biden’s legislation as part of Trump’s effort to “Make Travel Great again.”
A peace vigil that’s over 40 years old has been dismantled on President Donald Trump’s orders.
The vigil, which stood in Lafayette Park near the White House, was composed of a blue tent surrounded by signs that read things like, “War is Not the Answer” and “Stop Genocide in Gaza.” Erected in 1981, it was widely regarded as the longest-running protest vigil in U.S. history, according to PBS, until the Trump administration removed it on Sunday.
The president was first made aware of the tent on Friday, when Brian Glenn, a reporter from Real America’s Voice, brought it to his attention.
While the tent had originally been constructed to promote nuclear disarmament, Glenn claimed that it had “kind of morphed into a kind of anti-America, sometimes anti-Trump” tent.
And of course, the president couldn’t stand for that.
“Take it down. Take it down, today. Right now,” he said. “Nobody told me that.”
The move is part of Trump’s ongoing efforts to clear homeless encampments around the city. But Philipos Melaku-Bello, a volunteer who has staffed the vigil for years, said that this outpost fell outside those bounds.
“The difference between an encampment and a vigil is that an encampment is where homeless people live,” Melaku-Bello told the AP. “As you can see, I don’t have a bed. I have signs and it is covered by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, and freedom of expression.”
Glenn, the reporter, claimed that he’d heard reports that there were rats at the vigil, that people were sleeping and eating in the tent, and that it could be a “national security risk” because people could hide weapons inside.
According to Melaku-Bello, no weapons were found in the tent, and neither were any rats. “Not a single rat came out as they took down the cinder blocks,” he said.
Hopefully now the president can sleep soundly, knowing that there’s one less peace vigil out there.
President Donald Trump is demanding foreign companies hire American workers after hundreds of South Korean workers were detained in a massive immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia.
Writing on Truth Social Monday morning, Trump addressed foreign companies directly.
“Following the Immigration Enforcement Operation on the Hyundai Battery Plant in Georgia, I am hereby calling on all Foreign Companies investing in the United States to please respect our Nation’s Immigration Laws,” he wrote. “Your Investments are welcome, and we encourage you to LEGALLY bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build World Class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so. What we ask in return is that you hire and train American Workers.”
About 300 South Koreans were among the 475 people who were arrested Thursday at a Georgia plant manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles operated by Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution. The Department of Homeland Security touted........
© New Republic
