Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has a Halloween scare for taxpayers. “Watch if you need a scare going into the weekend,” he wrote, sharing an animated short about California’s high-speed rail project.
“In 2008, California was given a promise,” the video begins. “A high-speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco. But something strange happened. The money started burning.”
Nearly two decades later, the punch line writes itself: “No train, no timeline. Just a construction zone into abyss.” The video’s “GHOST TRAIN” runs on a “$231 BILLION” price tag.
“What some are now calling a taxpayer horror story,” the narrator says. “Starring Gavin Newsom.” It closes with the question Duffy has been asking all along: “How long can the Boondoggle keep going?”
Under President Trump, the federal checkbook is closed to it. In July 2025, the Department of Transportation pulled about $4 billion in federal grants from the project, and Duffy has made clear American taxpayers will not keep paying for a train to nowhere.
