{"id":2417713,"date":"2025-03-30T17:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T21:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sean-duffy-blames-liberals-for-ruining-high-speed-rail-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2025-03-30T17:39:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T21:39:36","slug":"sean-duffy-blames-liberals-for-ruining-high-speed-rail-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sean-duffy-blames-liberals-for-ruining-high-speed-rail-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Duffy blames liberals for ruining high-speed rail &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsean-duffy-blames-liberals-for-ruining-high-speed-rail-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2417713&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy criticized California&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pro-trump-religious-groups-begin-turning-up-heat-on-gop-to-take-action-on-marjorie-taylor-greene\/\" title=\"Pro-Trump, Religious Groups Begin Turning Up Heat On GOP To Take Action On Marjorie Taylor Greene\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-move-to-force-conspiracy-theorist-marjorie-taylor-greene-off-her-committee-assignments-report\/\" title=\"Democrats Move To Force Conspiracy Theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene Off Her Committee Assignments: Report\">high-speed rail<\/a> project<\/a>, asserting that its inefficiencies and delays undermine the potential for similar advancements in the U.S. Duffy highlighted major issues, including massive cost overruns and missed deadlines, indicating that nearly $4 billion in taxpayer funds is at stake. He described the project as a &#8220;waste of money&#8221; and faulted California&#8217;s liberal leaders, including Governor Gavin Newsom and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for failing to effectively manage the initiative.Duffy expressed skepticism about California&#8217;s ability to complete the rail line, which has escalated in projected costs from an initial $33 billion to over $130 billion. He noted that while other regions, like a private rail service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, are making progress, california&#8217;s project continues to stall, casting doubt on its viability and future federal support.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Sean Duffy blames California liberals for ruining high-speed rail: &lsquo;They do it like s***&rsquo;<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong>EXCLUSIVE &mdash;&nbsp;<\/strong>Transportation Secretary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/sean-duffy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Sean Duffy\">Sean Duffy<\/a> said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/california\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Sean Duffy\">California<\/a>&lsquo;s &ldquo;waste&rdquo; of a high-speed rail project is discouraging the advancement of the technology elsewhere in the United States, in a significant black-eye for liberal proponents.<\/p>\n<p>In one of Duffy&rsquo;s first acts as a member of Trump&rsquo;s Cabinet, the Federal Railroad Administration opened up an <a href=\"https:\/\/railroads.dot.gov\/elibrary\/fra-chief-counsel-letter-chsra\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"investigation\">investigation<\/a> into the California High-Speed Rail Authority to determine whether the nearly $4 billion in taxpayer dollars should be clawed back after California blew through its 2020 completion date and suffered from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/poetic-justice-obama-library-delayed-discrimination-lawsuits-environmental-injunctions-enrichment-allegations\/\" title=\"Poetic Justice: Obama Library Delayed - Discrimination Lawsuits, Environmental Injunctions, Enrichment Allegations\">major cost overruns<\/a>. <\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3363669\/majority-voters-support-trump-deportation-plan-poll\/\">Majority of voters maintain support for Trump deportation plan: Poll<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3363652\/gop-celebrates-white-house-briefing-room-overhaul\/\">GOP celebrates reports of White House briefing room overhaul<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3363589\/uaw-shawn-fain-no-tradeoff-anti-trump-pro-tariff-stance\/\">UAW&#8217;s Shawn Fain says there&#8217;s &#8216;no trade-off&#8217; between anti-Trump and pro-tariff stances<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>In a wide-ranging interview with the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em>, Duffy said the delays of the project, touted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ca.gov\/2025\/01\/06\/governor-newsom-marks-new-track-laying-phase-of-high-speed-rail-with-completion-of-key-construction-and-continued-partnership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"G\">G<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ca.gov\/2025\/01\/06\/governor-newsom-marks-new-track-laying-phase-of-high-speed-rail-with-completion-of-key-construction-and-continued-partnership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"ov. Gavin Newsom\">ov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> (D-CA) and former House Speaker <a href=\"http:\/\/pelosi.house.gov\/news\/press-releases\/pelosi-announces-landmark-3-billion-federal-investment-california-high-speed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Nancy Pelosi\">Nancy Pelosi<\/a> (D-CA), raise significant questions about California&rsquo;s handling of billions in funding.<\/p>\n<p>And while California has sought to be the first state to launch a novel high-speed rail project from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Duffy said the Democratic-run Golden State has been the &ldquo;opposite&rdquo; of a &ldquo;model&rdquo; for others.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Look what happened in California. It&rsquo;s a waste of money. I want to invest in good projects. The liberal mindset, who wants high-speed rail, you would think they would want to do it really, really well, and they do it like s***,&rdquo; Duffy said. &ldquo;And the question is, why? I don&rsquo;t know.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;You should try to sell people on your ideas, not make them go, &lsquo;These are black holes where people get rich and projects don&rsquo;t get built,&#8217;&rdquo; Duffy added.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy discusses the investigation into California&rsquo;s high-speed rail project. (Graeme Jennings\/Washington Examiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3363277\/duffy-no-beef-with-musk-doge-despite-bumpy-start\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\"><strong>DUFFY SAYS NO &lsquo;BEEF&rsquo; WITH MUSK AND DOGE DESPITE &lsquo;BUMPY&rsquo; START<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Newsom backs the project, saying in January at a rail event that &ldquo;No state in America is closer to launching high-speed rail than California.&rdquo; Pelosi, whose hometown legacy in San Francisco is also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3326020\/trump-targets-pelosi-legacy-order-defund-bay-area-park\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"under assault\">under assault<\/a> by President Donald Trump, secured federal funding for the project under former President Joe Biden, saying California&rsquo;s &ldquo;bullet trains&rdquo; will &ldquo;help save our planet&rdquo; with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-slams-bidens-electric-vehicle-mandate-forcing-truckers-to-go-all-electric-whole-thing-is-crazy\/\" title=\"Trump criticizes Biden...s electric vehicle mandate for truckers, calling it &quot;crazy.&quot;\">greener transportation option<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But the project has since shrunk in scope with a focus on the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment and it could grind to a halt with a lack of federal support, especially after a state assessment recently found the embattled project needs at least <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/beltway-confidential\/3361408\/california-high-speed-rail-will-never-be-completed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"$\">$<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/beltway-confidential\/3361408\/california-high-speed-rail-will-never-be-completed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"7 billion to move forward\">7 billion to move forward<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While Duffy believes in high-speed rail, which has flourished in other countries, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.transportation.gov\/briefing-room\/us-transportation-secretary-duffy-announces-review-california-high-speed-rail-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"questions\">questions<\/a> why California has had so much trouble while the privately-run Brightline West is making progress to <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">begin high-speed rail service<\/a> between the Los Angeles region and Las Vegas in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>The Pelosi-backed San Francisco to Los Angeles project was initially supposed to be completed by 2020 and cost $33 billion, but now Duffy said the cost is &ldquo;upwards of $130 billion.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;California doesn&rsquo;t have the money. I can&rsquo;t imagine the DOT is going to send them additional cash,&rdquo; Duffy said. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t even have a time frame and when this could be completed.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Duffy sat for a half-hour interview with the&nbsp;<em>Washington Examiner<\/em>&nbsp;on Thursday, covering a range of topics like Transportation&rsquo;s push to innovate automated driver and delivery technologies, the Department of Government Efficiency, fallout from January&rsquo;s deadly Washington, D.C., plane crash, and more.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/3361932\/sean-duffy-not-invited-signal-group-chat\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\"><strong>SEAN DUFFY SEEMS PRETTY HAPPY HE WASN&rsquo;T INVITED TO THAT SIGNAL GROUP CHAT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can read&nbsp;the <em>Washington Examiner&rsquo;s<\/em> exclusive interview with Duffy in full on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sean Duffy criticizes California liberals for mishandling high-speed rail, saying it hinders progress in the U.S<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2645,"featured_media":2417714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/duffy-california-scaled-1024x683.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[47655,6069,45268,8068,32076],"class_list":["post-2417713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-high-speed-rail","tag-liberals","tag-sean-duffy","tag-transportation","tag-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/duffy-california-scaled-1024x683.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2645"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2417713"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2417717,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417713\/revisions\/2417717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2417714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2417713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2417713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2417713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}