Lexington, MA – Nine years after Brian Shortsleeve handed a Chinese Communist Party owned company a $249 million no-bid contract to build delayed, defective, and undelivered MBTA cars, and a year after Maura Healey extended that deal for another $239 million in cash and penalty-forgiveness, the Trump administration is actively investigating the use of slave-labor to manufacture parts used in MBTA cars. The CCP has routinely come under intense scrutiny for their exploitation of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups.

The $249 million fiasco signed by Shortsleeve nine years ago likely exceeds the combined savings of all the operational improvements he claims to have enacted at the MBTA. Only 11% of the Shortsleeve MBTA cars have been delivered to date, with the rest expected years from now – if they are ever actually delivered. Last month, Brian Shortsleeve said he was “proud” of this deal, which he previously described as “a good business decision”.

Just last month, Governor Healey welcomed the CCP’s ambassador to Beacon Hill with open arms — all while the CCP floods our country with fentanyl that’s killing our children, steals intellectual property from American innovators, and scammed Brian Shortsleeve on an MBTA train car deal he still brags about to this day. Healey apparently forgot to ask the ambassador about the MBTA cars, which have seen their price tag skyrocket to over $1 billion. 

“As Governor, I’ll work with the Trump administration to ensure slave labor is not used in MBTA rail cars. I’ll use every contractual and legal tool available to reduce and eliminate taxpayer exposure to the catastrophic Shortsleeve-Healey MBTA car deals.” – Mike Kennealy

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