President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he will launch a comprehensive investigation into California’s beleaguered High-Speed Rail project.
Trump lambasted the project as “the worst managed project I’ve ever seen,” hinting at what many conservatives have known all along: this boondoggle is nothing but a colossal waste of taxpayer money.
Trump said from the Oval Office on Tuesday:
“One of the things I want to investigate rapidly—because I’ve never seen anything to this extent—is the train that’s being built between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
It is the worst-managed project I think I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some of the worst. Billions and billions—hundreds of billions—of dollars over budget.
In fact, I read that you could take every single person who was going to go on the train, provide the finest limousine service in the world to take them back and forth, and you’d still have hundreds of billions of dollars left over.
It is the worst thing, and we’re going to start an investigation of that because it’s not possible. I built for a living, and I built on time and on budget. It’s impossible that something could cost that much.
Now it’s not even going to San Francisco, and it’s not going to Los Angeles. They’ve made it much shorter. Now it’s at little places far away from San Francisco and far away from Los Angeles.
We’re going to start a big investigation on that because I’ve never seen anything like it. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. The worst overruns there have ever been in the history of our country.”
WATCH:
President Trump announced an investigation into California’s high-speed rail project, which appears to some as a giant money laundering scheme.
“I built for a living, and I built on time, on budget. It’s impossible that something could cost that much.”
Californians should be… pic.twitter.com/o64vUR2aTQ
— George (@BehizyTweets) February 4, 2025
The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has attempted to defend the project’s progress in a post on X, citing the completion of 50 major structures, 60 miles of guideway, and the creation of 14,600 jobs.
Ignore the noise. We’re busy building.
As we enter the track-laying phase, 171 miles are under active construction & we’ve already:
✅ COMPLETED 50 major structures
✅ COMPLETED 60 miles of guideway
✅ COMPLETED full enviro clearance from SF to LA
✅ CREATED 14,600 jobs pic.twitter.com/esbk0Gespb— CA High-Speed Rail (@CaHSRA) February 4, 2025
Originally greenlit by the voters with the promise of linking Los Angeles to San Francisco in a modern, efficient bullet train system for a mere $33 billion with a completion date set for four years ago, the project has ballooned to an astonishing $128 to $130 billion, with no clear completion date in sight, according to abc30.
