President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he has canceled all federal funding for California’s controversial high-speed rail project, slamming Governor Gavin Newsom’s handling of the project as “incompetent” and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
“To the Law abiding, Tax paying, Hardworking Citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, ‘HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we have received NOTHING in return except Cost Overruns.”
The project, originally estimated at $33 billion, has ballooned to over $100 billion with little progress to show for it. Despite receiving $6.8 billion in federal funding over the years and an additional $22 billion from California state funds, the rail line remains largely unfinished.
Just weeks before Trump took office, California Democrats had urged then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to approve another $536 million for the project’s first phase. The request came in a letter signed by Sen. Alex Padilla, Rep. Adam Schiff, and several other Democrat lawmakers, who claimed the funding would help with “complex tunnel design” and advance state and federal goals on climate and equity.
Trump was unmoved by their plea and put a permanent stop to the money pipeline.
“The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” Trump wrote. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.”
Trump credited Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for following through on the White House directive: “Thanks to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again.”
The decision marks a significant blow to Newsom, who once declared that California was “making rail real.” Critics argue that the project has become a poster child for failed liberal governance—plagued by mismanagement, political favoritism, and exploding costs.
With the federal spigot now officially shut off, Trump has made clear that under his leadership, taxpayer dollars will no longer fund what he called “an ill-conceived and unnecessary project, and a total waste of Taxpayer money — But no more!”