{"id":22277,"date":"2025-02-21T01:40:04","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T01:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=22277"},"modified":"2025-02-21T01:40:04","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T01:40:04","slug":"california-crowd-savagely-boos-trump-transportation-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=22277","title":{"rendered":"California crowd savagely boos Trump transportation secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A word to visiting politicos: Don\u2019t tread on California\u2019s\u00a0transit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On Thursday morning, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stopped by LA\u2019s Union Station to give a news conference on California\u2019s\u00a0high-speed rail<\/a>\u00a0project. Duffy tore into the project, arguing that it was wasteful and unaccountable, and he announced an upcoming\u00a0\u201ccompliance review\u201d<\/a>\u00a0for the $4 billion in federal funds dedicated to the rail system.<\/div>\n
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\u201cPresident Trump has thought about this project, he\u2019s talked about this project, and I think he was kind when he said that this project has been mismanaged,\u201d Duffy told reporters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the most striking part of the conference may have been the\u00a0LA crowd\u2019s vocal protests. Beneath the sound of Duffy\u2019s voice, video of\u00a0the conference<\/a>\u00a0sounds like a hostile sports match, with near-constant waves of boos and chants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cBuild the rail! Build the rail!\u201d protesters chanted at one point; at another, \u201cWe pay taxes, we want trains!\u201d One protestor held up a cardboard sign:\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t delay our trains.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Duffy, for his part, took a moment to acknowledge the protestors in the crowd. \u201cThese protestors should all be at the steps of Gavin Newsom\u2019s mansion,\u201d he said. \u201cThey should all talk to him about what happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Trump-appointed director of the Department of Transportation criticized the project, which has been marred in delays and setbacks, as unnecessarily wasteful and inefficient. \u201cCan California build a project with an allotted amount of time, with an allotted amount of money? Because right now, all the estimates have been wrong,\u201d Duffy said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As the\u00a0LA Times reported<\/a>\u00a0a year ago, the project, which was originally meant to conclude in 2020, has no set end date. The initial phases of the project focus on the Central Valley, where more than 100 miles of the rail line are under construction. At that time, the state\u2019s High-Speed Rail Authority expected a stretch of the line from\u00a0Merced to Bakersfield would be completed in the early 2030s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a statement\u00a0shared with KTLA-TV<\/a>\u00a0on Wednesday, California\u2019s High-Speed Rail Authority anticipated, and refuted, Duffy\u2019s criticisms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOf approximately $13 billion spent on the project, $10.5 billion have been funded exclusively by the State of California (not hundreds of billions) and those expenditures have created over $22 billion in economic impact,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cEvery dollar of the project is accounted for and has been thoroughly reviewed by the independent Office of the Inspector General [whose] sole focus is improving oversight and accountability of the California high-speed rail project.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In 2021, President Biden restored almost $1 billion in federal funds for the project, which the first Trump administration had previously blocked. In 2023, Biden also awarded a $3 billion grant to the high-speed rail project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Senate approved Duffy, a former U.S. representative and alumnus of MTV\u2019s\u00a0\u201cThe Real World,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by a 77-22 vote in January.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A word to visiting politicos: Don\u2019t tread on California\u2019s\u00a0transit. On Thursday morning, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stopped by LA\u2019s Union Station to give a news conference on California\u2019s\u00a0high-speed … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22279,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22277\/revisions\/22279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}