President Joe Biden‘s infrastructure czar got testy with a reporter who questioned why the White House is promoting projects that will take 10 years to complete and how many Americans know about them.
Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has been tasked with doling out some $1.2 trillion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and he spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One as Biden travels to New York to promote a rail project.
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Biden had visited Baltimore just one day earlier to promote another rail project, leading a reporter to ask about the public push.
“Like you said, we’re talking about projects that might be 10 years off because of their scope,” the reporter said. “It’s a two-year-old bill at this point, what’s the reason for such a focus on these big projects?”
Landrieu appeared to take umbrage at the question.
“First of all, it’s a year and a half, not two,” he said. “Secondly, we have intense focus every day, all day. It’s all about hurry the hell up and get it done from the president’s perspective. That’s just the way we roll.”
He then wondered aloud if it was the reporter who was out of touch with what’s going on.
“We are continuing, as you know, the constant drumbeat of announcing [projects], getting money out the door quickly,” Landrieu said. “You guys are aware of these, we do them every day, they’re massive announcements all over the country. It’s too hard for you guys to keep up with, actually.”
Biden is speaking this afternoon at the West Side Rail Yard in New York City to promote a tunnel project under the Hudson River that the White House says will improve reliability for the roughly 200,000 passenger trips taken each weekday on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit.
The president spoke Monday in Baltimore to credit the bipartisan infrastructure law for modernizing rail and bringing “good-paying union jobs” to communities across the country.
Biden, speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for a $450 million Frederick Douglas Tunnel, broadly reminisced about riding the train to and from Delaware during his tenure in the Senate and the region’s sorely needed rail upgrades.
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Ahead of a similar speech in New York, Landrieu also lashed out at Republicans who voted against the infrastructure bill but chose not to ignore its existence once it passed.
“It’s a myth that people don’t know about these projects,” he said. “If nobody knew about it, people would quit taking credit for all of them. Of course, Republicans and Democrats, and especially people who voted against the bill, talk about it all the time. As Nancy Pelosi said, even those people who voted no want the dough.”
