What's in a Name? The $16 Billion Held Hostage by Trump.
By Goldsea Staff | 05 Feb, 2026

The President offered to unfreeze the $16 billion earmarked for the Gateway tunnel project between Manhattan and New Jersey if Penn Station and Dulles International Airport were named after him.

Last month President Donald Trump told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blocked funds for the massive Gateway project would be released if Schumer backed renaming Washington's Dulles International and New York's Penn Station after Trump, according to statements by multiple sources to Punchbowl, as excerpted in an X post on Thursday afternoon.

Schumer rejected the offer out of hand, saying that he lacked authority to meet the request.

Trump continues to withhold  the $16 billion earmarked for the Gateway project to build a rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River.  New York and New Jersey are currently suing the Trump administration over the funding suspension which has been creating hardship for contractors retained for the project.

This is just another instance of Trump's crusade to put his name on everything possible, including the Trump Gold Card offering a high-priced path to citizenship, the TrumpRx website offering lower-priced prescription drugs, and a new Trump-class battleship meant to solidify his era of “peace through strength” foreign policy for years to come.

Last month he offended many by staging a coup of the board of the capital's Kennedy Center to have the institution renamed the Trump-Kenney Center.  He has also added his name to the US Institute of Peace.

The offer to Schumer represents a clear abuse of power of a brazen nature that would have been unthinkable under any other President, not merely due to its illegality and unconstitutionality, but due to its breach of decorum and good taste.  

The Gateway tunnel’s construction was legislated long before Trump’s return to office, and the federal government is obligated to provide much of the necessary funding.   Trump moved to halt the project late last year after Zohran Mamdani was elected New York City mayor.  The Gateway project commission has warned that work on the project will soon have to shut down and about 1,000 workers laid off  if the funding isn't released.

Trump's absurd offer was made to Schumer as the Senator had taken a central role in seeking to unfreeze the funding.  

A few conservative lawmakers introduced legislation to rename Dulles as the “Donald J. Trump International Airport,” but have failed to gain traction in the GOP-controlled House.