President Trump made it crystal clear Tuesday: Gavin Newsom’s hopes of running for president are dead on arrival—thanks to the bullet train boondoggle and his failure to manage wildfires in California.
Speaking from the Oval Office while hosting newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump laid into Newsom for the out-of-control high-speed rail project, calling it “the worst cost overrun I’ve ever seen.”
“They’re building a train that doesn’t go to San Francisco or Los Angeles,” Trump said. “They’re stopping 25 miles short in both directions—and it’s costing hundreds of billions. You could have limousines running full-time and still save money.”
Trump didn’t stop there. He slammed the California governor for mismanaging the state’s resources, saying Newsom refused to take his advice on water management—advice that could have helped prevent the devastating wildfires that swept through the state in recent years.
“I got him a lot of water. He didn’t want it. If they had listened, those fires in Los Angeles could’ve been put out quickly,” Trump added.
The high-speed rail project, once touted by Newsom as the future of sustainable transportation, has become a symbol of California’s bureaucratic dysfunction. Initially projected to cost around $33 billion, it has ballooned into a multi-decade, multi-hundred-billion-dollar fiasco that still has no functioning service between the state’s major urban centers. In 2023, Newsom’s administration confirmed the project had blown through its budget again—and now won’t be completed in its originally promised form at all.
Trump said his administration will not pay a dime toward the disaster. “We’re not gonna fund that thing. Sean Duffy’s our new Secretary of Transportation, he’s doing a great job—and I told him: they are on their own.”
The president then turned to the media and dared them to look deeper into Newsom’s record. “This should be a scandal. It’s 30 times over budget. I’ve seen a lot of stupid people build a lot of stupid things, but this takes the cake.”
Trump also suggested Newsom’s national ambitions are being shredded in real time by his own track record. “I’d love to see him run. But I don’t think he’s going to. Between the train, the fires, the lawsuits—it’s over for him.”
In his second term, Newsom has taken a confrontational posture toward Trump, filing at least 15 lawsuits against the administration in just 100 days. But Trump’s remarks suggest those attacks aren’t sticking—and may even be backfiring.
“California’s a mess,” Trump concluded. “And it’s not just Newsom’s train. It’s his everything. He governs by press conference, not results.”
The comments come as speculation swirls about the Democrats’ 2028 bench. Newsom has long been floated as a possible White House contender, especially with Kamala Harris’s political brand taking a nosedive after her failed 2024 campaign. But Trump’s blunt assessment—and the facts behind it—may be the death knell for Newsom’s presidential aspirations.
As it stands, Newsom has handed Republicans a golden talking point: A blueprint of what not to do with power. And Trump isn’t letting him forget it.
