U.S. Sen. Cory Booker wants Democrats on Capitol Hill to fight harder against President Donald Trump. And accomplish what, exactly?

During a fiery tirade on the Senate floor, the New Jersey Democrat recently accused his own party of being “complicit” in Trump’s ongoing series of constitutionally questionable power grabs — including withholding congressionally mandated funding; gutting federal agencies created via congressional statute; and using the government to intimidate private industry and universities.

“When will we stand and fight this president?” Booker asked, in remarks directed toward his bewildered Democratic colleagues.

The former Newark mayor was just getting started. “The problem with Democrats in America right now, is we’re willing to be complicit to Donald Trump … when we have all the leverage,” Booker, 56, said a few minutes later. Plus: “The Democratic Party needs a wake-up call … It’s time for Democrats to have a backbone, it’s time for us to fight.”

For frustrated Democratic voters, Booker’s comments are probably cathartic. There’s a reason these voters think so little of their party, contributing to its historically low approval ratings.

Except that Booker’s diatribe was misleading. The Democratic Party doesn’t occupy the White House and controls a minority of seats in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Conservatives enjoy a 6–3 supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court. The only leverage available to Democrats in Washington is the Senate filibuster, a product of chamber rules (not the Constitution) that requires most — but not all — bills to garner the support of 60 senators to pass.

So, Booker might be right that Democrats lack backbone. But that doesn’t change the fact that Democrats don’t have the numbers in Congress, or the highest court in the land, to stop Trump from stretching the bounds of executive authority.

“You have tons of internet (and) social media voices screaming that if Democrats would only fight, they’d achieve A, B, or C. Those people either don’t understand how Congress works, can’t count, or are opportunists misleading people,” Brian Rosenwald, a scholar in residence at the Partnership for Effective Public Administration and Leadership Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, told me. “Yet, it shapes the base’s expectations to think that Democrats can achieve more than is possible.”

Beyond the politically titillating nature of Booker’s criticism of his own party, his speech attracted attention because it sparked a real-time public debate with fellow Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

The backdrop to all of this was a package of bipartisan bills aimed at bolstering local law enforcement. Booker was already on record supporting the legislation, and Klobuchar and Cortez Masto were on the floor pushing for passage. Both sharply rebuked Booker. Their argument, essentially, was that Democrats should govern where common ground with Republicans was possible to avoid penalizing their constituents for Trump’s sins.

“I have been equally vociferous in taking on this administration. But all of these bills came out of the (Senate Judiciary) Committee unanimously and I think they deserve that support on the floor,” Klobuchar responded. (She listed the package’s benefits, including funding for mental health services for law enforcement; combating sexual exploitation; boosting police recruitment; and aiding families of officers killed in the line of duty.) Ultimately, Booker dropped his procedural objection and the bills passed.

Now, Booker does have one point. The Trump administration is withholding congressionally mandated funds, rendering the legislative branch’s Article 1 powers meaningless.

“Democrats and Republicans used to stand up for their turf,” Booker said in defense of his initial objection. In other words, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle used to jealously guard the prerogatives of the legislative branch — the supreme branch, according to the Constitution — against overzealous presidents. And they used to do so even when their party held the presidency. The erosion of congressional power is an unfortunate development that predates Trump.

Booker is hardly the first senator to complain that his powerless party had the power to stop the opposition party’s president, if only it had the will to fight. In 2013, I was a Capitol Hill reporter and witnessed Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas deliver an old-fashioned talking filibuster that lasted 21-plus hours — not unlike the record-long Senate floor speech Booker belted out this past spring. And like Booker’s lament that his party has (supposedly) rolled over for Trump, Cruz back then jabbed at Republicans for insufficiently standing up to President Barack Obama.

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Cruz wanted to bring Congress to a standstill by engineering a government shutdown in a bid to defund Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act. But Republicans did not have the power to follow through, despite controlling the House of Representatives — more than Democrats have going for them today.

But Cruz’s quixotic effort did succeed in a couple of ways.

It gave grassroots Republicans the false impression that the GOP could achieve more, legislatively, than was possible through sheer fortitude. It also turned Cruz into a leading 2016 presidential contender, propelling him to victory in the Iowa caucuses. Perhaps Booker, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, is a student of recent history.

Nothing wrong with Booker casting an eye toward 2028, but it might behoove Democratic voters to stay focused on the next election — 2026. Impeding Trump’s agenda requires capturing at least one house of Congress. Doing so would give Democrats some actual — versus imagined — leverage, empowering them to achieve more than emotional catharsis.

David M. Drucker is Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He is also a senior writer for The Dispatch and the author of “In Trump’s Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP.”

“The New York region’s most critical challenges, from economic inequality to the housing affordability crisis, all converge in the subterranean chaos of Penn Station.” 

The LIRR entrance at Penn Station. (Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Office)

What does something as particular as the number of escalators at Penn Station have to do with exorbitant rents in Brooklyn, astronomical property taxes in New Jersey, or the cost of groceries in Queens? What does it have to do with the spread of chain stores and empty storefronts replacing neighborhood institutions, families being priced out of their homes, or the region’s painfully obvious malaise?

It seems like a strange question, but the answer is: everything. The New York region’s most critical challenges, from economic inequality to the housing affordability crisis, all converge in the subterranean chaos of Penn Station. 

It is the dysfunctional heart of our circulatory system—a place where Amtrak, the Long Island Rail Road, and New Jersey Transit collide not in a coordinated symphony of movement, but in a grinding, inefficient mess. To be swept into its currents during rush hour is to experience a metropolitan region at its breaking point, choked by its own success and seemingly out of space.

This daily ordeal is more than just a commuter’s headache; it’s the most visible symptom of a profound structural failure. A region’s ability to grow, create jobs, and house its people affordably—its very scalability—is not defined by an ever-taller skyline, but by the relationship between transit expansion and land use. That necessary symbiosis, however, is being ignored due to a failure of public imagination.

Today, too many people and businesses want a piece of New York, but there’s not enough of it to go around. This isn’t a simple supply-and-demand equation; it is the direct result of clinging to an obsolete regional model.

So what does this mean for Penn Station? It means the station is both the problem and the solution.

The New York City region, for all its immense scale, is fundamentally monocentric. In the 21st century, this is a crippling limitation. To successfully absorb growth, other global cities have become polycentric, developing multiple cores for business and culture. This, in turn, has activated new residential neighborhoods in areas previously cut off from convenient transit and metropolitan life.

New York, however, maintains only one true center: Manhattan, with Midtown as its undisputed Central Business District. Why? Because Midtown is the only place that offers access to the entire regional labor market. The premium that companies pay for a New York address is for the ability to hire from a talent pool of 21 million people, drawing from every neighborhood and suburb across three states. 

This unparalleled access is possible only because Midtown is the singular point where virtually every transit network converges. That makes it the region’s greatest asset, and its greatest vulnerability. Midtown is finite. It cannot expand, and new construction is only feasible at astronomical rents that fuel the region’s inflationary cycle.

What makes an apartment in the city or a house in the suburbs desirable? Access. Proximity to the region’s economic engine is paramount. With only one core, we are squandering the scalability that other global cities have already embraced.

No region is an island, even if that island is Manhattan. (ReThinkNYC)

This is not an unsolvable problem. Our global competitors, London and Paris, faced similar crises of hyper-concentrated historic cores straining under the weight of their own growth. Their solution was not to accept these limits but to embark on systemic transformation by investing in high-capacity, through-running rail networks.

Both Paris and London are still painfully expensive cities, where generational residents compete with economic and demographic pressures. But unlike New York, these cities have critically utilized their surrounding regions with integrative transit and land use expansions. Thanks to things as technical as through-running, adaptation of a polycentric model, and the metroisation of their commuter railroads, these cities have expanded not just their raw housing supply, but vast areas that are connected to their value propositions.  

As a result, residents in Paris and London have the option to live in countless neighborhoods that a generation ago were nowhere as desirable or convenient. This has leveraged abandoned lots, parking lots, and certain obsolete industrial zones as places where housing can be built. And the immediate and long term result is that rents have stabilized, and while both Paris and London remain stubbornly expensive, they are not seemingly stuck in an inflationary cycle like the New York region.

Paris pioneered this model with its RER (Réseau Express Régional), which unified disparate suburban commuter lines by tunneling them through the city center. This allowed for a high-frequency, regional metro system that dramatically increased accessibility across the metropolis. Paris could now preserve its historic core while concentrating growth, housing, and new business districts like La Défense in well-connected suburban nodes. 

London also pursued this strategy, first with the Thameslink Programme and more recently with the Elizabeth Line. By connecting commuter rail from the east and west through a massive new central tunnel, the Elizabeth Line has drastically cut commute times, making distant towns like Reading and Abbey Wood newly viable and spurring significant housing development. 

These are not just infrastructure projects, but strategic interventions designed to distribute opportunity and fundamentally address housing affordability. How is applying this to New York City dependent on Penn Station? Because Penn Station already is physically, but not operationally, a through-running station that, if unlocked as such, could free New York City and the region from the current monocentric congested reality.

Currently at Penn, as an operationally terminating station, trains must slowly enter, unload, and painstakingly reverse out. This model fundamentally caps capacity, acting as a dam that restricts the flow of the entire regional transit network. It also prevents other locations along the region’s portion of the Northeast Corridor, like Newark or western Queens, from receiving trains from all the regional networks.  

Obviously coordination between the transit agencies would be required to begin through-running, but there’s also a real physical bottleneck at Penn Station that prevents it from bearing the same fruits as the RER, Thameslink, or the Elizabeth Line.

Penn’s barely legal platforms feel crowded even
when they are empty. (Sam Turvey)

The constraint that dictates the station’s low capacity is surprisingly mundane: its platforms are dangerously narrow and they cannot physically accommodate the number of escalators and stairs required to rapidly move thousands of passengers. 

This leads to excessively long “dwell times”—the period a train must sit idle at the platform while passengers slowly file off and on. These long dwell times are the absolute limiting factor for the entire system. They create a hard ceiling on Penn Station’s ability to operate as a through station. If this problem was somehow solved, we could lay the foundation to a scalable polycentric region.  

So that’s how the escalators at Penn Station limit the ability of the region to absorb the demographic and economic forces that are straining it. The symptoms of this we all know now too well. It’s at this confluence between problem and solution, concentrated at Penn Station, where a transformative transit plan becomes the most powerful land use and housing plan imaginable. 

As RethinkNYC Chairperson Sam Turvey detailed in City Limits almost two years ago, by re-engineering Penn Station as a high-capacity, through-running hub—as envisioned in ReThinkNYC’s Regional Unified Network (RUN)—we don’t just get less crowded escalators. We engineer a “leapfrog” that fundamentally expands the entire region’s capacity, following the proven model of our global peers. And this is largely done with the existing infrastructure of the Northeast Corridor, and the already initiated Gateway Plan’s two new tunnels underneath the Hudson River.

The word “leapfrog”  is actually very important. There are several plans in the region being circulated to increase the amount of housing units. Most prominent is the Eric Adams administration’s “City of Yes.” Taken together, these proposals would, if implemented aggressively, add roughly 200,000 units.  

But all these housing plans fall short. They are a magnitude off from what is really needed. A leapfrog is required, where a plan doesn’t just tweak zoning for marginal gains (not to mention eroding historic preservation). It also has to be regional, not just constrained in any one municipality or state. And it cannot just focus on housing in a vacuum. It must be supported by transit.

While a plan like RUN may not seem to be about housing at first glance, it is fundamentally a strategy for survival. It insists that the goal of spending billions on infrastructure cannot be merely shaving a few minutes off a commute; it must be to alleviate the crushing demand placed on the entire region. 

The cost of inaction is dire, and it is measured in human terms: in the families forced to leave, the small businesses that can no longer afford rent, and the young people who see no future here. To suggest that a through-running solution can wait until 2080 (as mentioned last year by the railroad agencies) is to accept defeat. It is to condemn two more generations to a region that is actively hostile to their aspirations. 

This is not just a policy failure; it is a moral failure. The choice before us is clear: we can continue to apply small fixes to a fundamentally broken model, or we can make the bold, strategic investment in our infrastructure that unlocks a more equitable, affordable, and sustainable future for all. Penn Station is the key, and the time to turn it is now.

Cezar Nicolescu is a board member at ReThinkNYC and the senior urban designer at ReThink Studio. He holds a MS in architecture and urban design from Columbia University.

Jim Venturi is the vice chairperson of the board of ReThinkNYC, the founder of ReThink Studio and the key thought-leader behind the RUN proposal.

The post Opinion: Penn Station is the Key to Solving New York’s Housing & Affordability Crises  appeared first on City Limits.

Each Friday, City Limits rounds up the latest news on housing, land use and homelessness. Catch up on what you might have missed here.

Flood damage in Woodside, Queens, following Hurricane Ida in 2021. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Welcome to “What Happened This Week in NYC Housing?” where we compile the latest local news about housing, land use and homelessness.

Know of a story we should include in next Friday’s roundup? Email us.

ICYMI, from City Limits:

There are still four months left in this year’s hurricane season, and forecasts say the Atlantic basin will face “above normal” storm activity. Here’s how homeowners and renters can protect their assets.

A new set of City Council bills aims to better protect tenants displaced by fires and other emergencies, including a requirement that the city ensure their temporary housing placements are near their homes.

New York City announced a new set of fair housing goals to make neighborhoods more accessible. They include a program to encourage New Yorkers living in areas prone to severe flooding to voluntarily move, and another to legalize more housing with shared kitchens or common facilities.

“My Family Built a Life in NYC. Today’s Zoning Wouldn’t Allow It,” writes Ryder Kessler, co-executive director of Abundance New York, as he argues in favor of the city’s plan to rezone Midtown South to allow for new housing.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

City inspections of buildings’ cooling towers “sank to a record post-pandemic low” in recent months, ahead of the current Legionnaires outbreak in Harlem that’s killed three people, according to Gothamist.

The New York Times previews an exhibit on the history of NYC rent strikes and tenant organizing, opening this weekend at Museum of the City of New York.

The City Council’s Land Use Committee approved a rezoning plan to spur new housing in Midtown South (and will include $122 million to support businesses in the Garment District), amNY reports. The proposal heads to a full Council vote soon.

Landlords in the Bronx whose buildings are made up of all (or mostly all) rent regulated units are worried about Democratic Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to freeze rents, according to The City.

When Gov. Kathy Hochul took office, she promised to build or preserve 100,000 units of affordable housing across the state within five years. City & State takes a look at her progress.

Veterans will get a preference for a larger share of affordable homes assigned through the city’s housing lotteries, BK Reader reports.

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed charges against two people in Queens accused of dead theft, the first under a new law that established the offense as a crime that the AG’s office can prosecute, according to ABC News.

The post What Happened This Week in NYC Housing? Aug. 8, 2025 appeared first on City Limits.

By FANNY BRODERSEN and SAM McNEIL

BERLIN (AP) — Germany won’t authorize any exports of military equipment to Israel that could be used in Gaza “until further notice,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday, in a strikingly quick response by one of Israel’s strongest international backers to a decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet to take over Gaza City.

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The move by Germany, which has previously stopped short of tougher lines against Israel’s government taken by some of its European Union allies, appeared likely to further isolate Israel in the wake of the military takeover plan that has been decried by the United Nations, aid and human rights groups, and supporters of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, among others.

Germany, along with the United States and Italy, is among the top foreign suppliers of equipment used by Israel’s military. The pause adds to action taken by European countries — including economic, military and diplomatic measures — against Israel in recent months out of concern over its government’s conduct in the nearly two-year war in Gaza.

Merz said in a statement that Israel “has the right to defend itself against Hamas’ terror” and that the release of Israeli hostages and purposeful negotiations toward a ceasefire are “our top priority.” He said that Hamas mustn’t have a role in the future of Gaza.

“The even harsher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, approved by the Israeli Cabinet last night, makes it increasingly difficult for the German government to see how these goals will be achieved,” he said. “Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice.”

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Netanyahu spoke with Merz Friday and expressed disappointment with the arms decision, according to an Israeli government statement. Germany is rewarding Hamas and failing to support Israel’s “just war” against the group, the statement said.

It wasn’t immediately clear which military equipment from Germany would be affected. Asked by The Associated Press for details, the German government declined to comment.

Germany has led efforts among the EU’s 27 member nations to block collective criticism of or efforts to stop Israel’s blockade of Gaza and military campaign in the coastal enclave.

Alongside Hungary and the Czech Republic, Germany has argued against calls from Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands to scrap a bilateral agreement with Israel, sanction settlers, and enact an arms embargo.

Weight of responsibility

The German government remains deeply concerned about the suffering of civilians in Gaza, Merz said.

“With the planned offensive, the Israeli government bears even greater responsibility than before for providing for their needs,” he said.

Merz called on Israel to allow comprehensive access for aid deliveries — including for U.N. organizations and other nongovernmental organizations — and said that Israel “must continue to comprehensively and sustainably address the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

The move has particular weight because Germany has been seen as one of Israel’s strongest supporters — arguably surpassed only by the United States. Germany has maintained a strongly pro-Israel stance for decades largely because of its historical responsibility for the Holocaust, which has shaped its postwar foreign policy around ensuring Israel’s security and combating antisemitism.

Merz’s government didn’t join announcements by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that their governments plan to formally recognize a Palestinian state in September.

The reluctance so far of Germany, the EU’s biggest economic power, to take a tougher line on the actions of Netanyahu’s government clouded the prospects that international pressure might have an impact on Israel’s decisions.

Israel’s air and ground war has already killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. The campaign was triggered when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 251 people.

Merz also called on Israel’s government “not to take any further steps toward annexing the West Bank.”

A ‘big deal’ but not decisive

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, last year, Germany was the No. 2 supplier of arms to Israel after the United States.

German companies provide 30% of Israel’s defense imports, mostly naval armaments, according to data analyzed by Zain Hussain, an arms transfers researcher at SIPRI. He suggested the German pullback would be temporary.

“This is going to be a limited measure,” Hussain said. “Germany has been committed to providing Israel with arms, especially with ships.

Germany, which has stood firmly with Israel, “is openly admitting that it is uncomfortable with Israel’s actions and limiting some arms transfers, and for Germany this is a huge deal,” he said. “However, I don’t think this alone will stop Israel’s operations in Gaza, and Israel still has the USA as a committed arms supplier.”

German-made engines can be fitted in Israeli Merkava tanks and Namer armored personnel carriers, which are actively deployed in Gaza. Sa’ar corvettes — small warships festooned with sophisticated radar equipment and cannons — from Germany have been used to shell targets in Gaza during the war, Hussain said.

The German news agency DPA, citing figures from the Germany Economy Ministry, in early June reported that the government had approved 485 million euros (about $565 million) worth of arms exports to Israel between Oct. 7, 2023 and May 13 this year.

Other European officials express concern

In a post on X, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Israel’s extension of military operations in Gaza “must be reconsidered,” in her strongest criticism yet during the war. She called again for Israel to let in more aid.

The foreign ministers of the Netherlands and Denmark called Israel’s decision to intensify the operation “wrong” and expressed concerns for civilians and the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský told the CTK news agency his country considers Israel’s plan “a risky step.”

Last week, even before the Gaza City takeover plan, Slovenia announced that it would ban the import, export and transit of all weapons to and from Israel in response to the country’s actions in Gaza — saying it was the first EU member country to do so.

Last month, two dozen mostly European countries condemned Israel’s restrictions on aid shipments into Gaza and the killings of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach food.

Last year, the U.K. suspended exports of some weapons to Israel over concerns they could be used to break international law, but it was a move with limited military impact. The decision related to about 30 of 350 existing export licenses for equipment that could be used in Gaza, including parts for military planes, helicopters and drones.

Outrage over Israel’s actions in Gaza has grown in Europe as images of suffering Palestinians have driven protests in London, Berlin, Brussels and other capitals. More recently, almost-daily killings of Palestinians while seeking aid have tested the EU’s friendly relationship with Israel like never before.

The Israeli decision, taken after a late-night meeting of top officials, came despite mounting international calls to end the war and protests by many in Israel who fear for the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are bracing to once again be forced from their homes, while families of the hostages fear their loved ones won’t return.

Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals but 50 remain inside Gaza. Israel believes around 20 of them to be alive.

The timing of another major Israeli ground operation remains unclear since it will likely hinge on mobilizing thousands of troops and forcibly evacuating civilians, almost certainly exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe.

Sam McNeil reported from Brussels. Karel Janicek in Prague and Jamey Keaten in Lyon, France, contributed to this report.