Sherrill & Schumer join North Bergen LIUNA protest over Trump’s Gateway cuts

Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) joined LIUNA union members protesting President Donald Trump’s (R) disruption of the Gateway project this morning at a project site in North Bergen.

By Daniel Ulloa/Hudson County View

The shutdown has resulted in the loss of hundreds of construction jobs and threatens thousands more jobs across the region, officials said at a Weehawken rally Friday just before a judge temporarily halted Trump from withholding funding, as HCV first reported.

“Release the funding!” the LIUNA crowd of workers chanted passionately before the rally began.

“I took the president to court on Friday, and I won!” Sherrill exclaimed to many cheers. “He has to release the money. But he has yet to do so … The President of the United States cares more about politics than he does about working men and women in this country.”

That expectedly drew boos from the crowd before a man in attendance yelled “Kick his ass Mikie!”

“Kick his ass Mikie!” a man yelled.

“All of you know that this is a special job … This is something your grandkids will talk about:  Enough is enough! The President has got to release the funds!” she exclaimed.

The union members then chanted “release the funds now!”

As she did on Friday, Sherrill reminded onlookers that she was deemed “the tunnel-obsessed congresswoman” while in the House and she she vowed to be the same way as governor, also noting her grandfather was a United Auto Workers union member.

“Governor Sherrill and Senator Schumer have been fighting for this Tunnel for decades … The equipment behind us would be working exception for one man, Donald Trump … We’d all be doing the things we’d much rather be doing … if it wasn’t for one man,” LIUNA General President Brent Booker exclaimed.

“He’d rather negotiate about naming a Tunnel, naming an airport, naming a bridge, naming a train station, rather than let you go to work every single day! I don’t care what he calls our tunnel … I care about each and every one of you. Seems like he doesn’t care about the American workers.”

He also vowed to show Trump’s White House what a unified front looks like.

“The Mikie Sherrill Tunnel!” a man in the crowd yelled as a name suggestion, which prompted Sherrill to modestly smile and shake her head no before Schumer addressed the crowd.

“We’re fighting for jobs, jobs, and more jobs. Donald Trump said he wants to cut off the funding of Gateway…. We say no way. No effing way!” he declared.

That prompted the crowd to chant back several times without any self-censorship.

Schumer further stated that no Gateway Tunnel and a collapse of the very old Lincoln Tunnel would cause a recession, which they will fight every step of the way.

“Fund Gateway now!” they chanted.

“What happened to the America first agenda?.. This is nothing more than a vendetta. A silly bulls**** vendetta!” LIUN Local 472 Business Manager Manny Amador added, noting that the prior version of Gateway, the Arc Tunnel, was cancelled.

He also said that giant Tunnel Burrowing Machines (TBM) have already been purchased to create a tunnel through the Palisades.

“On Friday, I handed out layoff checks to workers .When we’re on the jobs they economy moves … and America moves. We do it all… we can’t be stopped! We will never be stopped!” LIUNA Local 472 Labor Steward Danny Horvath stated.

LIUNA Vice President and Eastern Regional Manager Mike Hellstrom said that by not releasing the funds, Trump is “violating the law … Every f***ing day that the money don’t flow there’s a lawbreaker sitting in Washington, DC!”

“Boo! Get him out! Release the funds!” the crowd shouted in response.