In a Thursday CNN interview, host Poppy Harlow remarked to Espaillat: “There’s $1.5 million of funding toward the international bridge between New York and Canada— a bridge. And then right around San Francisco in the Bay Area, there’s $100 million to fund the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART. Are you comfortable with those in here?

Espaillat replied: “In any bill that has $1.9 trillion, there will be one line that will probably be somewhat embarrassing.”

Harlow then pressed Espaillat further on the issue: “You’re saying it’s embarrassing, and that’s $101.5 million of taxpayer money. And I’m just saying, are you comfortable with it?”

“The answer, no, I’m not comfortable,” Espaillat said. “I’m never comfortable with it. But I’ll tell you what I’m comfortable with. I’m comfortable with the fact that the past initiative came from the Senate, and we had to adjust to them. This is the first time we had a vision that comes from us, from the House, and it’s a robust vision.”

“I think that the American people from around the country are hurting and $1.9 trillion will get us back on the right track,” Espaillat added.

Biden’s coronavirus relief package, called the American Rescue Plan, includes $1,400 stimulus checks for Americans making less than $75,000 a year, and legislation to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The plan also contains an increase in the child tax credit and direct funding to state and local governments, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars for school reopenings, aid to small businesses, and coronavirus vaccine rollouts.

The House Budget Committee approved the plan on Monday. The bill will now head to the House floor for a vote later this week, followed by Senate action if it is approved by the lower chamber.

According to a Thursday Navigator Research poll, 73 percent of all Americans support the stimulus package, while only 19 percent oppose the plan. The poll also found that 65 percent of Americans trust Biden and the Democratic Party on this issue of “expanding coronavirus relief and unemployment benefits.”

House GOP Whip Steve Scalise, however, urged Republicans in an email last week to vote “no” on the bill, which his office described as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Payoff to Progressives Act.”

“Who said a subway to Silicon Valley has anything to do with COVID?” Scalise said in a statement Wednesday, referring to the $100 million in funding to BART mentioned in the relief bill.

Newsweek reached out to Espaillat’s office, but didn’t hear back in time for publication.