Silke Jasso
Friday is a busy day for President Donald Trump.
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The president stopped by the U.S. Department of Transportation building in the morning to deliver a speech outlining his future infrastructure plans. He also has a press conference scheduled for later in the afternoon.
In his morning speech, the president drew on his experience in the private sector to illuminate the difficulties caused by bureaucratic restrictions. He declared, “One of the biggest obstacles to creating this new and desperately-needed infrastructure is the painfully slow, costly and time-consuming process for getting permits and approvals to build.”
#DonaldTrump showcases, then tosses, $29 million, 70lbs binder holding environmental report on 18-mile road
LIVE: https://t.co/QyIUk51fy5 pic.twitter.com/ISCARZWIYz
— RT America (@RT_America) June 9, 2017
But, the moment that caught the attention of viewers occurred when Trump stepped away from the podium. He made his way over to a series of binders beside him and explained that they contained a single environmental report that was holding up infrastructure projects. He claimed that they “spent $29 million for an environmental report weighing 70 pounds and costing $24,000 per page.”
Though the audience had difficulty hearing the president as he shuffled through the pages of the documents, when he dropped the binders on the ground, the sound of them hitting the floor sent the point loudly.
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Trump made his way back to the podium joking, “I’ll make sure I move it, I don’t want to trip on the way out, that would be a mistake.”
President Trump flips through a binder he says is an environmental report during an infrastructure speech at the Dept. of Transportation pic.twitter.com/CWJTXoiK39
— CNN (@CNN) June 9, 2017
Perhaps, the most important moment in the speech came when the president announced his plan to create a new White House counsel that will help streamline environmental reports like the one he showed the audience. He explained that the counsel will seek to ensure that “any federal agency that consistently delays projects by missing deadlines will face tough, new penalties. We will hold the bureaucracy accountable […] I was not elected to continue a failed system – I was elected to change it.”
