Senator Kirsten Gillibrand confronted Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a heated Senate hearing over a social media video in which he boasted about withholding $73 million in highway funding from New York. Gillibrand called out Duffy for "demeaning an entire state" of 20 million people during a back-and-forth exchange that grew increasingly tense.

The funding freeze reflects a broader Trump administration strategy to pressure blue states over immigration policy. New York has already sued the administration once before after a federal judge forced billions in grants back for the Hudson River rail tunnel project, where construction briefly halted and more than 1,000 workers lost jobs.

Duffy defended the move, saying New York alone failed to comply with federal demands and pointing to California's similar concessions, where officials revoked driving credentials for roughly 17,000 foreign nationals. He also teased an $8 billion commitment to rebuild Penn Station. Gillibrand maintained the approach amounts to political punishment of a state that depends on federal infrastructure dollars.