President Trump is flat-out wrong about CA’s high-speed rail project | Opinion

President Donald Trump needs to rethink his decision to divorce his administration from California’s High-Speed Rail project. His announcement Wednesday to rescind $4 billion in federal grants from the controversial project was not a surprise.

Last month, his administration signaled it was not confident that the project would be completed and signaled it was ready to pull the plug on federal funds in a 315-page audit calling the project “a story of broken promises and waste of Federal taxpayer dollars.”

The authority responded to the audit on June 11 and July 7, saying the audit was flawed in its findings.

Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced he would pull $4 billion from the project. “After over a decade of failures, (the California High-Speed Rail Authority)’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget,” Duffy wrote in a statement. “It’s time for this boondoggle to die.”

“Thanks to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account.

We’re glad to see Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t accepting Duffy’s move. Thursday, the governor announced the High-Speed Rail Authority is suing the Trump administration “over its politically motivated termination of $4 billion in federal grants.”

The termination of the federal grants, said Newsom in a press statement, “is petty, political retribution by President Trump’s personal animus toward California and the high-speed rail project, not by facts on the ground.”

“In reality, this is just a heartless attack on the Central Valley that will put real jobs and livelihoods on the line,” said the governor. “We’re suing to stop Trump from derailing America’s only high-speed rail actively under construction.”

The way the Trump administration describes the “train to nowhere,” you’d think the route was nothing but tumbleweeds, bare dirt and animal carcasses. The president is wrong to assume that, with apologies to Gertrude Stein, “there’s no there there.”

Newsom said all environmental reviews for the 463 miles from Los Angeles to the Bay area are finished, and that trainset selection is underway.

Fresno County residents have seen the recently completed Belmont Avenue overpass heading toward the Chaffee Zoological Gardens, the arch spanning the San Joaquin River as motorists hit northwest Fresno, and the arches over Highway 99 in south Fresno. That in addition to grade separations in portions of the bullet train routes in Madera and Kings counties. More than 50 major railway structures – including bridges, overpasses and viaducts – have been built.

Officials are preparing to lay down the first rails within the next two years.

It’s a shame that Trump wants nothing to do with the country’s first high-speed rail project. As with immigration reform, the president could very well make this rail project a centerpiece of his second term in office. Why would he rather go down in the history books as the man who removed millions of people from Medicaid, or ordered a massive deportation?

Duffy’s reasons make no sense

Let’s look at Duffy’s explanation for yanking federal grants from the project:

▪ “Governor Newsom and California’s high speed rail boondoggle are the definition of government incompetence and possibly corruption.” Criticisms and concerns do not translate into “possible corruption.”

▪ “The price tag has gone from $33B to $135B with no completion date in sight.” The 171-mile Bakersfield-to-Merced portion is expected to be completed by 2030, although some backers expect an earlier start time. The project has spent $14.4 billion thus far.

▪ “We could give every single LA and SF resident almost 200 free flights for that much.” In 2023, the latest ridership figures provided by Amtrak California, shows more than 658,000 passengers embarked in Bakersfield, and more than a quarter-million in Fresno. They were among the 8.2 million rail travelers that year. Airport passenger traffic in California was 17.4 million in 2025, so obviously there are some who prefer rail over air.

▪ “That’s why TODAY we’re pulling the plug on federal funding for this train to nowhere.” Excuse us, but the first phase of the project will provide transportation from oil-rich Bakersfield to California’s fifth largest city (Fresno, whose population is greater than Atlanta’s) and to Merced, home of an accomplished UC campus that neighbors Yosemite National Park. Also, this is a region that has experienced population growth in the last few years contrary to population losses in other parts of the state.

▪ “I won’t help Gavin Newsom waste your money!” Waste? The project thus far has created 15,560 jobs, engaged with 936 small businesses, and generated more than $21 billion in economic impact.

Trump and Duffy should open their eyes and see what high-speed rail means for California and the country.