Trump Administration Audit Could Signal The End Of California’s ‘Crappy’ High-Speed Rail Project

Instead of focusing on ways to increase the domestic supply of oil and reduce America’s dependence on other nations, leftist leaders like those in charge of California have continued to push for remedies like EVs and high-speed trains despite offering no real plan for developing the necessary infrastructure.

Now President Donald Trump is determined to take a look into an apparent boondoggle of a program designed to establish high-speed rail travel in the Golden State.

Via recently confirmed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, news surfaced in recent days that the project will be subjected to an audit, as Fox News reported:

President Donald Trump is calling for an audit that could kill California’s high-speed rail proposal, which has been around for nearly two decades and has made very little progress.

Many union workers who depend on the federal lifeline turned out to Union Station in Los Angeles on Thursday to throw tomatoes and heckle Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, as his department will lead the charge of figuring out how the funds are being utilized.

“It’s been 17 years and $16 billion and no rail has been built,” Duffy said while the protesters were in the room reacting to his comments.

“So, if you want to go protest somewhere, if you want to go shout at someone, go to the governor’s mansion – go talk to Democrats in the legislature who have brought us this crappy project,” he added.

News of the crackdown soon began to spread across social media and various news outlets:

The Panama Canal took 10 years to build.

Golden Gate Bridge: 4 years.
Hoover Dam: 5 years.
China builds high-speed rail in 2-3 years.

In @GavinNewsom’s California? Almost $16 BILLION in 16 YEARS. Not ONE track laid—just a couple of bridges to nowhere.

California protesters are… pic.twitter.com/u8Scr570hB

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) February 22, 2025

For us in the Central Valley, we have had a first hand front row seat to the mismanagement and failures of the California High Speed Rail Authority. What is happening now is not what was told to Californians in 2008. It’s a complete bait and switch. This failed project needs to… pic.twitter.com/ES1myO00pQ

— Vince Fong (@vfong) February 20, 2025

Anyone else notice that Gavin Newsom is at the forefront of every Billion dollar boondoggle in California?

Here is Gavin in 2010 professing California’s future dominance in a high speed rail that’s now 20 years and 100 billion taxpayer dollars over budget pic.twitter.com/8fVZ7hSxVB

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) February 21, 2025

A recent op-ed published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal provided a glowing endorsement of the Trump administration’s efforts to rein in the cash being sunk into the high-speed rail project:

Kudos to President Donald Trump for moving to cut off the spigot of federal funds for the California High-Speed Rail project during the first month of his second term.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Thursday that $4 billion in funding, slated for projects that are part of a promised bullet train from Merced to Bakersfield, will be reviewed. “For too long, taxpayers have subsidized the massively over-budget and delayed California High-Speed Rail project,” Duffy explained.

Duffy also noted that if Californians really want a fast train from L.A. to San Francisco (the original plan) or Merced to Bakersfield (the placeholder scheme) they can have it. They just have to pay for it.

But who wants to pay for a project that already is more than a decade late and obscenely over budget? Not Trump, I am happy to report.

Here’s some additional coverage of the Transportation Department’s latest move:

California's FAILED High Speed Rail project is a decade behind schedule and $100 billion short of what's needed to complete it. President Trump wants to complete an audit to claw money back. THROW IT IN THE TRASH! pic.twitter.com/QLiWRPPz1C

— DeVory Darkins (@devorydarkins) February 22, 2025