Russ Vought and the Trump administration’s shutdown revenge tour rolls on as they continue to make blue city residents suffer in an attempt to force Democrats to fold to their demands.
On Friday, the Office of Management and Budget director froze $2.1 billion in funding for Chicago infrastructure, blaming it on DEI and wokeness.
“$2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects—specifically the Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project—have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting,” Vought wrote Friday on X. “More info to come soon from USDOT.”
The Department of Transportation blamed it directly on the government shutdown.
“Unfortunately, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ decision to shut down the government has negatively affected the Department’s staffing resources for carrying out this important analysis,” the department said. “We urge Democrats in Congress to stop holding the federal government’s budget hostage so USDOT can get back to the important work of the American people.”
Chicago is just the latest Democratic city to get hit. The Trump administration has already frozen $18 billion in infrastructure projects in New Jersey and New York, and announced cuts to $8 billion in energy funding from 16 blue states, as well.
It’s clear that this is a sort of hostage situation for Democrats: Give Republicans the awful austerity bill they want, or more people and more transportation projects get hurt.
“The Democrats should know that they put the White House and the president in this position,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said plainly on Thursday. “And if they don’t want further harm on their constituents back home, then they need to reopen the government. It’s very simple: Pass the clean continuing resolution, and all of this goes away.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker sounded off.
“At a time when federal agents are sowing chaos in Chicago, the Trump administration is holding bipartisan funding hostage,” he said on X. “It’s attempting to score political points but is instead hurting our economy and the hardworking people who rely on public transit to get to work or school.”
The post Trump Cuts Billions in Funding From Another Blue City in Revenge Tour appeared first on New Republic.
