During a Tuesday visit to a California High-Speed Rail facility, Gov. Gavin Newsom touted the train’s investment in the Central Valley and said the Trump administration gave the region “the middle finger” when it decided to pull $4 billion of the project’s federal money last year.

The governor described President Donald Trump as “temporary” and also took shots at the state of Texas, which he said has been incapable of making any progress on its own high-speed rail plans.

Newsom’s comments came during a speech at the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s railhead facility, a 150-acre yard in Kern County that will receive, store and send out materials for track construction on 119 miles between the Shafter area and the Fresno-Madera area.

The governor joined rail authority CEO Ian Choudri to announce the completion of the facility and suggested the project, historically plagued by delays and cost increases, has reached better days. The rail authority says the facility will be filled with workers and materials this year, as it is scheduled to begin laying the project’s first tracks in the Central Valley before the end of 2026.

“We’re there, we’re on the other side of the hardest part of this project,” he said.

The rail authority has a big to-do list this year as it tries to advance the project without help from the federal government, which has been hostile toward the California project with Trump in office. Besides beginning to lay tracks in the Central Valley, the agency is attempting to leverage its renewed financial backing from the state — $20 billion through 2045 — to secure private partners who can pay for construction up front and build faster.

The project has grown controversial since California voters in 2008 approved $9.95 billion in bonds for a train that would connect the state’s major metro areas at a total cost of about $45 billion. Today, after years of delays and cost increases, the focus is first on completing a 171-mile Merced-to-Bakersfield segment that the rail authority estimates could cost at least $36.75 billion and would be operational by 2033.

But Newsom said the project has now obtained environmental clearance on 463 miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and that track construction on the first 119 miles in the Central Valley is fully-funded.

“This is the phase everybody’s been waiting for,” he said. “Can’t believe what you can’t see? Well, you’re about to see a lot.”

Newsom says Trump policies hurt Central Valley, Texas failing on high-speed rail

The governor blasted the Trump administration’s decision to pull $4 billion for California high-speed rail last year, but said only 17% of the money the project has ever spent has come from the federal government.

The rail authority has pivoted toward more reliance on the state, which last year committed long-term financial support for high-speed rail through its Cap-and-Invest program. The program generates public dollars from companies that buy credits at state auctions to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.

But Newsom said the Trump administration’s decision to pull money dedicated to the project by past presidents was a move that “pulled the rug out from under” residents of the Central Valley, who he said would have been “the biggest beneficiaries” of that money through new jobs. He also slammed the cuts to health care pushed through by the Trump administration, which experts have warned could have serious impacts in the San Joaquin Valley and other high-poverty regions in the coming years.

“He’s temporary,” Newsom said about the president. “A couple years go by in a flash. By the time he’s out, we’ll have substantially completed this rail line.”

He added that California could try to seek new federal dollars for high-speed rail when there is a new administration in the White House.

Newsom also took jabs at a Texas high-speed rail project, which he described as “abandoned” by that state. That plan, a Houston-to-Dallas train, was proposed as a private venture shortly after California’s project began. But the Texas plan has also sought federal dollars.

“They couldn’t get anything done there,” Newsom said. “Big, red state of Texas, supposed to show us how to do it. They couldn’t get a damn thing done.”

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