Days after suggesting he is above the law, Donald Trump declared himself “king” following his administration’s push to strike down new tolls for Manhattan drivers to raise funds for the city’s aging mass transit system.
“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday, Feb. 19. “Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
The White House’s X account then shared his statement with a mock cover of Time magazine featuring a portrait of the president wearing a crown with the caption “long live the king.”
White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich also shared an AI-generated image of the president wearing a crown and regal cape.
In a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outlined the president’s objections to the first-of-its-kind congestion pricing program, claiming that federal officials would be discussing plans with the state for the “orderly cessation of toll operations.”
Duffy called the program “backwards and unfair” and a “slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners.”
“Public transit is the lifeblood of New York City and critical to our economic future — as a New Yorker, like President Trump, knows very well,” Hochul fired back in response.
Since the program rolled out last month, vehicle congestion in New York has “dropped dramatically and commuters are getting to work faster than ever,” she said.
“We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king,” Hochul said. “We’ll see you in court.”
In a separate address to reporters on Wednesday, Hochul said: “New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years. We sure as hell are not going to start now … In case you don’t know New Yorkers, we’re going to fight. We do not back down, not now, not ever.”
Justin Brannan, a New York City council member, also condemned Trump’s statement, and referred to the Trump-appointed justice department that ordered prosecutors to drop their federal corruption case against the city’s mayor, Eric Adams.
“Doesn’t matter what u think of congestion pricing, federal government doesn’t get to make this decision. NY State passed a law, USDOT approved it. No matter what corrupt deal Donald Trump made with the mayor, he isn’t king. Only fools concede to false power. It’s an illusion,” Brannan said.
Similarly, Don Beyer, a Democratic representative of Virginia, wrote on X: “We don’t have kings in the USA.”
David Hogg, vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee, wrote: “Republicans: Stop overreacting and calling Trump a king. Literally the White House twitter account:” as he reposted a picture of the computer-generated magazine of Trump with the crown.
Trump’s statement follows his declaration that “he who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” a message also shared by White House X accounts in an apparent endorsement of a belief that the president of the United States is incapable of breaking any law.
On Tuesday, Feb. 18, the president — who has empowered Elon Musk to gut federal agencies while blocking congressionally approved funding and inviting major constitutional challenges in courtrooms across the country — issued an executive order to consolidate power by assuming regulatory control of independent agencies created by Congress, which are now no longer allowed to disagree with him.
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority sued Duffy and federal transportation officials on Wednesday, Feb. 19, arguing that the Trump administration unlawfully and “precipitously — and for blatantly political reasons— purported to ‘terminate’ the program, as then-candidate Trump proclaimed he would do in his first week in office.”
“The Administration’s efforts to summarily and unilaterally overturn the considered determinations of the political branches — federal, state, and city — are unlawful, and the Court should declare that they are null and void,” lawyers for the MTA argued.
If the court allows Trump to follow through with his threats, he will be stripping more than $15 billion that the MTA had planned to spend on crucial upgrades throughout the city’s mass transit system, which moves more than 3.6 million people on subways and 1.4 million on busses each day.
“It’s mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally-supervised environmental review — and barely three months after giving final approval to the [program] — [the Transportation Department] would seek to totally reverse course,” MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber said in a statement.
New York City comptroller Brad Lander said he was “appalled” by the president’s actions, which he called “another instance of federal overreach by the Trump administration.”
