The president seemingly threatened to hold federal funding, which had already been approved by Congress, hostage in his relentless campaign of self-promotion. Even by the standards that Trump set after a year back in the White House, when he has systematically dismantled anti-corruption laws built over decades and used the presidency to enrich himself and his family, trading naming rights as a political favor is a new low. Trump appears to have tried to leverage a $16bn transportation project to build a rail tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting New York and New Jersey, for his personal glorification.