Sometimes it’s necessary to state the obvious — as the old parable reminds us — the emperor has no clothes.
That moment arrived again on Tuesday when Gavin Newsom strutted in front of the cameras to celebrate California’s high-speed rail project — a boondoggle that has already burned through at least $12 billion, is projected to require more than $120 billion to finish, and remains nowhere near completion more than a decade after breaking ground.
But here’s the problem with his victory lap: There’s no bullet train, and there’s no track:
Gov. Gavin Newsom was mocked for posing in front of a freight train to tout progress on the troubled High Speed Rail project — still years from carrying passengers despite a staggering price tag of roughly $215 million per mile for a Central Valley route.
“He stands in front of a freight train saying ‘it’s coming’ — no, sir, it’s not,” said Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo, who represents parts of the Central Valley. “Your privilege train is a money pit and a boondoggle.”
Newsom visited Kern County Tuesday to “celebrate” the completion of a railhead facility — a “critical step in the track-laying stage,” the governor said in a statement.
Back in 2008, Newsom confidently promised he would solve the homelessness crisis in San Francisco. Not manage it. Not reduce it. Solve it. Nearly two decades later, the result is impossible to ignore: sprawling encampments, open-air drug markets, human waste on sidewalks, and billions spent with nothing to show for it.
We've taken another critical step in the track-laying stage for California's @CaHSRA high-speed rail! pic.twitter.com/qVYw7eJQbn
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) February 4, 2026
Message for the governor: The train behind you is not a high-speed bullet train; it’s a traditional diesel freight train. Moron.
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Critics were swift to respond — and their response was warranted. Here’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy:
Gavin’s big reveal… NOTHING??
Not a single high-speed track is installed for Gavin Newsom’s TRAIN TO NOWHERE. A monstrous $135 BILLION price tag. And federal taxpayers spent $16 BILLION, for nothing.
Best of luck with your boondoggle @CAgovernor, but federal taxpayers aren’t… https://t.co/LUa3xmJifN
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) February 5, 2026
Best of luck with your boondoggle @CAgovernor, but federal taxpayers aren’t on the hook anymore. President Trump and I made sure of that.
So far, Duffy, the Trump administration, and steadfast Republicans in Congress, such as Rep. Kevin Kiley (CA-03), have pulled more than $4 billion in funding from this circus act:
We won. Federal funding for the CA High-Speed Rail catastrophe has officially been terminated. pic.twitter.com/TGeD2VfGxk
— Rep. Kevin Kiley (@RepKiley) July 17, 2025
More from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), himself a former governor of the Sunshine State of Florida:
After 10 years and a $135 billion price tag of wasteful spending for taxpayers, @CAgovernor is standing in front of a freight train that’s not moving and touting his high-speed rail scam as a success. (Note: actual high-speed rail tracks are nowhere to be found in the video.)
That’s California efficiency for you.
It’s easy — and honestly well-earned — to mock Gavin Newsom and catalog his many failures. But here’s the part conservatives shouldn’t ignore: early polling shows he’s already a top-tier contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
And let’s be blunt — Newsom is slick enough to dispatch Kamala Harris, whose political ineptitude borders on parody, despite her current frontrunner status. If Democrats are choosing between those two, party elites will pick the guy who can string sentences together, smile for donors, and lie convincingly about his record.
What voters should understand is this: what you see in California is exactly the leadership he would bring to the White House. Grand speeches. Glossy optics. Skyrocketing costs. Collapsing outcomes. Zero accountability.
And spare us the moral lectures about “the will of the people.” Millions of patriotic Californians didn’t vote for this dysfunction — and they don’t deserve it. But they’re trapped under it anyway, thanks to a one-party machine that punishes dissent and rewards failure.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Just 13 months ago, the country was led by Joe Biden, a wax-figure president propped up by handlers and press flacks. Ask yourself honestly: did you vote for that — or did it simply happen to you?
That’s the future Democrats are offering again. Different face. Same rot.
Meanwhile, here’s what trains in Newsom’s California really have to deal with:
If being a decade behind schedule and 100 billion dollars over budget has you beginning to doubt Gavin Newsom and his high speed rail project, just take a look at some other trains attempting to operate in California. pic.twitter.com/OaOHjkcHr3
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) February 5, 2026
Gavin Newsom is far more dangerous than Joe Biden ever was — and that’s saying something.
Biden gave the country drift and decline. Newsom offers something worse: active mismanagement on an industrial scale. Billions unaccounted for. Major infrastructure failures. Cities collapsing under crime, drugs, and homelessness — all wrapped in slick messaging and elite applause. That’s his record, and he’s eager to export it nationally.
Newsom doesn’t just fail — he rebrands failure as success and demands more money, more power, and less accountability every time it happens.
So yes, he deserves the mockery. Not because it’s entertaining — but because it’s necessary. When a politician with this track record positions himself as the future of the country, ridicule becomes a warning. And frankly, he’s earned every bit of it — and more.
