In an attempt to clean up the Biden Presidency, media outlets have been bending over backwards to retell the stories of a heroin presidency. Lawrence O’Donnell exemplified this Tuesday night on MSNBC’s The Last Word with his coverage of the Hudson River Tunnel, and Biden’s groundbreaking impact on the project.
Though Biden’s $11 billion grant towards the New York City transportation occurred last July, Lawrence dug up the story along with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (DoT) as an opportunity to glorify Biden’s work:
It should be called “The Biden Tunnel.” It is the most complex infrastructure project funded by Joe Biden. It will provide a third tunnel across the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey, one of the most important interstate links in the country. As the vehicular traffic has increased across the Hudson river over the last 50 years, there has not been one additional lane added to that crossing.
New York Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, for 24 years in the senate, was a champion of the tunnel that never got built, so were some New York governors, New York City mayors, no one could get it done, no one. Then came Joe Biden.
As there seemed to be no other pressing news, Lawrence and Buttigieg took shots at President Elect Trump, whining he would try and take the credit for Biden’s success, especially as he didn’t follow through on the project in his own time:
BUTTIGIEG: I will admit, one of the few times I was fooled by Donald Trump was when I was a mayor and he said that he would do a big infrastructure package. I thought, why not? It’s good politics, both parties would like to see it happen, why wouldn’t he do that? And plus it seems to be something he talks about all the time. Of course, they didn't, but Joe Biden did.
The Industrial Strategy and its effect on manufacturing in the Midwest was brought up as yet another highlight of the administration, an idea that was heavily criticized by the media during Trump’s time in office.
O’Donnell promised Buttigieg “a seat here anytime you want to remind people of [Biden’s accomplishments].” Adding: “Mr. Secretary, please, whenever you can, come back and help us understand who did that. I do think it’s going to be one of those issues that we’re going to have to carry over the next four years.”
All of this to say that as the Biden Presidency comes to a close, the media will try, as best they can, to shield the public from a truly mediocre administration with rose colored glasses, and glorious dedications.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell
12/24/2024
10:35:25 PM EST
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: It should be called “The Biden Tunnel.” It is the most complex infrastructure project funded by Joe Biden. It will provide a third tunnel across the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey, one of the most important interstate links in the country. As the vehicular traffic has increased across the Hudson river over the last 50 years, there has not been one additional lane added to that crossing.
New York Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, for 24 years in the senate, was a champion of the tunnel that never got built, so were some New York governors, New York City mayors, no one could get it done, no one. Then came Joe Biden. Construction began this year on the new tunnel. For the next 100 years, people will be driving through that tunnel and they will have no idea who did that. They should call it the Biden tunnel. Secretary Pete Buttigieg is back with us and you know Donald Trump is going to take credit for that tunnel.
SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG (DoT): Absolutely! I mean look, we've created a pipeline of good projects that are going to play out over the next few years. When I called projects like the Hudson River Tunnel “the cathedrals of our infrastructure,” I didn’t just say that because it’s a poetic word for something big, I said it bearing in mind that the thing about the world's great cathedrals is the hands that laid the cornerstones of those cathedrals were not even around 100 years later when other hands laid the keystone.
And while some of the projects we’re funding, like a streetscape project to make intersections safer, really can be done in one or two construction seasons. Others, even working at warp speed, are the work of a decade or more. But President Biden deserves the credit for making these things happen because so many others before him promised and failed to get it done.
I will admit, one of the few times I was fooled by Donald Trump was when I was a mayor and he said that he would do a big infrastructure package. I thought, why not? It’s good politics, both parties would like to see it happen, why wouldn’t he do that? And plus it seems to be something he talks about all the time. Of course, they didn't, but Joe Biden did.
And it was an amazing thing to watch, especially because the bipartisan nature of that deal, really specifically vindicated his model of how to get things done in this town at a time when people said, that’s just not how it works anymore. And what’s resulted is even more things that people said were impossible have happened, of course they said it was politically impossible to do this.
But another thing that they told me growing up was impossible was for union jobs and manufacturing jobs to come back to the industrial Midwest in places like where I grew up. They told us that that was all done, never again.
O’DONNELL: Well we didn’t even think that was governmental action.
BUTTIGIEG: Yeah
O’DONNELL: We just thought, “Well private enterprise does a factory here or they don't or they move a factory.” The idea that government could get in here and influence what private industry is doing, was something that people weren’t even really thinking about before this presidency in any serious way.
BUTTIGIEG: You weren’t allowed to use terms like “industrial strategy” and yet the results of the industrial strategy are the factories that are rising out of the prairie in places like northern Indiana, where I grew up, in Michigan, where I live now, and Kentucky and Kansas, where I’ve visited facilities that would not be happening if it weren’t for things like the Inflation Reduction Act and the C.H.I.P.S. and Science Act and the Infrastructure Plan.
O’DONNELL: Can I just stop you from moment on that point for a moment because of the politics of it, cause we are trying to teach both what’s been done here and the political implications. When you say, “Rising out of the prairie,” somewhere, and what I've been reading about this, it indicated something like 80 percent of the benefits of that kind of activity are happening out there in the Republican prairie, where by the way, there is room there is plenty of room to throw up a new factory. It isn’t easy to throw up a new factory in Los Angeles county, there’s not a lot of room, but out there there’s plenty and that is where it is happening.
BUTTIGIEG: That’s right.
O’DONNELL: And you’re not going to get political credit for that.
BUTTIGIEG: Well right now, people in the building trades in some of these communities are telling me they are having the biggest year they’ve ever had just building these factories. But yeah, they’re not even online yet. Actually most of these major factories and facilities are slated to come online in 2026, some in ‘25, many in 2027. So I think we are going to have a responsibility, and I certainly – you know whatever I might be doing by way of a day job, I will be reminding everybody who will listen and quite a few people who maybe won't that these things are happening because Joe Biden made sure that American manufacturing would come back. --
O’DONNELL: You will have a seat here anytime you want to remind people of this.
You said something, I think, Monday at your Alma mater, a version of which I have been saying to people, a much less eloquent version. And I think this is one of the fun things that people experience listening to you on TV, listening to you on public forums is, you say things that are already in people's minds in certain ways. But much more eloquently and sharply and to the point, and this is an example, this is one. You said, “In moments like this, our salvation will come from the local and state level.” What did you mean by that?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think there is a lot of frustration, even despondency about where Washington is headed. Although I believe that –
O’DONNELL: There is?
BUTTIGIEG: [Laughter] To put it mildly.
O’DONNELL: I have heard of that, yes.
BUTTIGIEG: But there's more– first of all, a lot of good people in Washington who will be stepping up, many of whom are about to be on the program. I saw them on the way in, in the House and the Senate. But also there is a lot more to the political and policy life of this country than Washington. I mean part of it is my orientation having emerged as a mayor. But also the people that I see doing the work on the ground in our cities, in our communities, in our states, where – and look sometimes this has been an irritant for the center-left, just how much power this country is not national but state and local.
Right now, I think it’s going to be a very healthy thing because we are going to see communities stepping forward looking after people, demonstrating both a substance and a style of politics that has more decency and more focus, more discipline, and better results than what I fear we are soon going to see from the executive branch here in Washington. And I think it’s really going to light the way forward.
O’DONNELL: Mr. Secretary, please, whenever you can, come back and help us understand who did that. I do think it’s going to be one of those issues that we’re going to have to carry over the next four years.
BUTTIGIEG: It’s important.
O’DONNELL: Thank you very much for joining us. It’s a real honor to have you join us.
