'Genuinely insane' decision by Trump when he was president could lead to New York City devastation: author

In an interview with the Daily Beast's Molly Jong-Fast, Stephen Marche, author of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future , described a decision by Donald Trump administration in the last year of his four-year term as "genuinely insane" and one that could come back to haunt New York City.

At issue, Marche told the host as part of her The New Abnormal podcast, was the federal government pulling the plug on building a much-needed seawall that would protect Manhattan in the event of a possible hurricane that would devastate the city's infrastructure.

As the New York Times reported back in February of last year, "The Trump administration has unexpectedly halted a project to protect the New York City region from flooding during dangerous storms like Hurricane Sandy — a decision that came six weeks after President Trump took to Twitter to ridicule the study’s most expensive proposal, a giant sea wall that could have cost billions of dollars."

The report continued, "While Mr. Trump cannot single-handedly cancel a Corps project — the funding is allocated by Congress, and its work plan is determined jointly by Corps officials, the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Management and Budget — the unusual suspension of an ongoing project quickly led to speculation that politics had played a role," before adding, "Mr. Trump’s tweet, in January, criticized one of the five possible proposals to reduce storm flooding along New York Harbor and its rivers: a sea barrier with retractable gates that would stretch from New Jersey to Queens."

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Recalling the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy that was downgraded to a tropical storm before it hit the city, Marche explained that 'The models when a hurricane hits New York are incredibly strong, " before adding, "Miami and New Orleans are very nice towns, but New York is New York and 88 percent of the world’s international currency goes through, it's still the capital of the world really."

"It's also unrebuildable, " he continued. "When it floods, the density of the infrastructure is so thick that, unlike Miami or Houston or New Orleans, they won't be able to rebuild it."

That led both Marche and host Jong-Fast to agree the decision was "genuinely insane."

You can listen to the interview here -- subscription required.