Onetime actuality TV star and present Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy posted a sometimes disrespectful tweet on Thursday attacking New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority over a congestion pricing program that goals to scale back New York Metropolis visitors. Duffy introduced that the Trump administration is extending a deadline for the MTA to kill the profitable program by 30 days.
“Your refusal to end cordon pricing and your open disrespect towards the federal government is unacceptable,” Duffy wrote. “Your unlawful pricing scheme charges working-class citizens to use roads their federal tax dollars already paid to build.”
The extension comes lower than one month after Trump declared himself a “KING” and boasted that this system charging automobiles $9 to enter Manhattan’s busiest areas was “DEAD” and town was “SAVED.” Trump has threatened to withhold billions in federal funds from the MTA and New York state if they don’t bend to the White Home’s bullying and scrap this system, whose proceeds are supposed to fund subway repairs and encourage mass transit.
“Congestion pricing is working. Traffic is down, business is up and support for this first-in-the-nation initiative continues to grow.” Hochul’s office responded in a statement. “We’ve seen Secretary Duffy’s tweet, which doesn’t change what Governor Hochul has been saying all along: the cameras are staying on.”
This system, which went into impact in January, has efficiently decreased visitors, sped up public transportation, and begun to generate promised income for the MTA to make use of on infrastructure that advantages all New Yorkers.
Duffy’s tweet comes a day after stories that the transportation secretary is threatening to chop federal funding to the MTA except the company offers the Trump administration with a plan to scale back supposedly rising crime on New York Metropolis subways. However in keeping with precise NYPD knowledge, subway crime fell by 5.4% in 2024.
“The good news is numbers are moving in the right direction: crime is down 40% compared to the same period in 2020 right before the pandemic, and so far in 2025 there are fewer daily major crimes in transit than any non-pandemic year ever,” MTA spokesperson John McCarthy mentioned in a assertion.
The New York Occasions notes that crime knowledge has been publicly out there for a while—all Duffy must do is test it. That didn’t cease the previous “Real World” star from releasing a fact-free video highlighting his TV appearances and claims that straphangers live in fixed worry of crime.
Sadly for Duffy and the Trump administration, most onlookers see these bullying ways as a basic instance of the GOP’s hypocrisy on the subject of the states’ rights they declare to champion—and the strain marketing campaign doesn’t appear to be swaying New Yorkers. Polling since Trump threw his ego into the ring has proven rising help for this system throughout the Massive Apple.
