Speaker 1: Ah, It's the breakup of the century, the breakup that
Speaker 1: maybe we all should have seen coming, given that they
Speaker 1: both seemed interested in different things. Elon and Donald Trump
Speaker 1: a brief flash in the pan romance, Like most of
Speaker 1: Elon's and romances, come to think of it, it gave
Speaker 1: birth as also Elon romances tend to do to the
Speaker 1: whole Doge idea, which is now kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit of a kind of petering out. And I want
Speaker 1: to talk about sort of what this breakup means now.
Speaker 1: I talked a lot during the campaign and shortly after
Speaker 1: the election about how Elon Musk engaging with the conservative
Speaker 1: movement could have been maybe still will be to some extent,
Speaker 1: but doesn't seem like it's going to be. Musk had
Speaker 1: said even like a week or two ago that he
Speaker 1: was not going to be as involved in politics as
Speaker 1: he was this time around, and it seems like some
Speaker 1: people have tweeted that he basically did a speed run,
Speaker 1: so went through the whole thing very quickly of the
Speaker 1: entire Republican experience in a matter of approximately one year,
Speaker 1: less than a year, going from you know, delirious optimism,
Speaker 1: thrilling victory and then inevitable embitterment and disappointment at the
Speaker 1: mediocre results of those Republican victories. As the inevitable compromises
Speaker 1: have to come about. Republicans go through that experience. Usually
Speaker 1: it takes them, you know, a decade or two before
Speaker 1: they get to that full circle of embitterment. Elon went
Speaker 1: through that whole experience in less than a year. Now.
Speaker 1: I had said during campaign that Musk's, you know, engagement
Speaker 1: with Republican politics could be transformative to the entire American
Speaker 1: political scene. Here is literally the richest man in the
Speaker 1: world highly engaged with the Republican Party, and in the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four cycle, huge donations to Trump, to Republican
Speaker 1: House candidates, to Republican Senate candidates, huge engagement, huge levels
Speaker 1: of engagement. And my thought had been, well, look at
Speaker 1: all of the ways in which let's say, George sorows okay,
Speaker 1: George Soros like him or not, and I very much
Speaker 1: do not like him. George Soros has undeniably had a
Speaker 1: massive impact on American politics. He has reshaped American criminal
Speaker 1: law in horrible ways through his brilliant strategy of flooding
Speaker 1: local district attorney races with huge amounts of huge amounts
Speaker 1: of cash to back horrible, extremely left wing district attorney
Speaker 1: candidates for races that usually don't you know, don't involve
Speaker 1: that much money, and all of a sudden, he's just
Speaker 1: going to drop, you know, two hundred thousand and five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, two million dollars. He's going to drop two
Speaker 1: million dollars on a race where all the candidates combined
Speaker 1: or narrowly wouldn't spend more than two hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And by electing an ultra progressive district attorney, he can
Speaker 1: utilize the power of what's called prosecutorial discretion to basically
Speaker 1: just reshape American criminal law within that city. You know,
Speaker 1: the chase of Boudin types who basically were like, I'm
Speaker 1: just not going to prosecute any thing short of felony,
Speaker 1: you know, grand larceny, you know people, So the spectacle
Speaker 1: of people walking into cvs with their iPhone calculator in
Speaker 1: hand and stealing, adding up the value of the things
Speaker 1: they are stealing, just in broad daylight, just to make
Speaker 1: sure that it's one dollar less than the dividing line
Speaker 1: between felony theft and misdemeanor theft. And just walking right out.
Speaker 1: The employee at CVS is not supposed to stop them
Speaker 1: with physical force. A CVS, you know, understandably, CVS is like, well, no,
Speaker 1: we don't want our employees to be superheroes. We have
Speaker 1: insurance to help cover this, you know, we don't want
Speaker 1: one of our employees getting hurt or something. We're trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, physically restrain someone who's just stealing stuff. That
Speaker 1: was because of Chase A Budin. That was because of
Speaker 1: Chase A Budin enacting the Soros ideology that African Americans
Speaker 1: are incarcerat at disproportionate rates and therefore the enforcement of
Speaker 1: criminal law for things like petty theft is just punishing
Speaker 1: people for being poor, punishing persons of color and communities
Speaker 1: of color for their poverty, the result of systemic racism,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So George Soros has
Speaker 1: this massive impact on America. Elon Musk has way more
Speaker 1: money than George Soros, unfathomably more. And the thought was, well,
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump can reel in this fish and have
Speaker 1: him be part of the conservative coalition going forward, Holy smokes,
Speaker 1: you think George Soros was influential, you think the Koch
Speaker 1: brothers were influential, All these different figures on the left
Speaker 1: and the right that have set up enormous networks of
Speaker 1: super packs five on C four's five on C three's
Speaker 1: interconnected webs of different kinds of organizations that influence policy
Speaker 1: with think tanks, influence issue advocacy with five oh one
Speaker 1: C four's issue they impact political campaigns through super pac spending.
Speaker 1: If you think Leonard Leo is influential, if you think
Speaker 1: the Koch brothers are influential, if you think George Soros
Speaker 1: is influential, if you think Bill Gates is influential, Elon's
Speaker 1: got more money than all of them. And I had
Speaker 1: thought that this could be the most significant. One of
Speaker 1: the most significant outcomes of the twenty twenty four election
Speaker 1: was Elon Musk becoming a major political player, a major
Speaker 1: player in American politics. Well, maybe he still will be,
Speaker 1: but he's not going to be that for this iteration
Speaker 1: of Trump and this iteration of the Republican Congress, Trump
Speaker 1: and Elon engaged in a bitter war of words based
Speaker 1: on Elon's distaste with the OBBB as I call it,
Speaker 1: the One Big Beautiful Bill Elon thinks it's adding to
Speaker 1: the deficits, adding to the debt, it's financially irresponsible. He
Speaker 1: thinks it's I mean, the way he characterized it was
Speaker 1: that it's revolting, it's horrible, and he then proceeds to
Speaker 1: jump into bitter, vindictive blasting of Trump, you know, saying
Speaker 1: that Trump is in the Epstein files and that's why
Speaker 1: the Epstein files weren't fully released. Now. In fairness, Trump
Speaker 1: is mentioned in the publicly known Epstein files as having
Speaker 1: had had some kind of interaction with Epstein way in
Speaker 1: the past. It wasn't particularly damning. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: Elon kind of saying, well, I mean, Elon is very
Speaker 1: much implying that Donald Trump is involved in the Epstein
Speaker 1: stuff in a way that's much more insidious than what
Speaker 1: is publicly known, which I doubt is true. I feel
Speaker 1: like Elon is kind of making that up. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm open to believe whatever, but I just don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is part of my skepticism about the
Speaker 1: Epstein files in general. I just don't think there's any
Speaker 1: there there with the Epstein files. I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: keep talking about the Epstein file that reluse to Epstein files.
Speaker 1: I just don't think there is any smoking gun within
Speaker 1: the Epstein files, let alone a smoking gun about Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: And I think Elon is just going off of the
Speaker 1: fact that Trump is mentioned in the publicly known Epstein
Speaker 1: files and just wants to say something mean to Trump
Speaker 1: because he's upset. Now the the what is the dispute?
Speaker 1: The problem is I kind of see both sides of
Speaker 1: the dispute, and I can see the reason behind both sides,
Speaker 1: But the divorce is bad, and it's clear that I honestly,
Speaker 1: I think Trump is probably the more reasonable person in
Speaker 1: this whole dispute. Elon's not wrong. Yeah, it's fiscally irresponsible,
Speaker 1: and there are aspects of the OBBB, as I call it,
Speaker 1: that I think are terribly financially irresponsible. I think extending
Speaker 1: the salt deductions, increasing the amount of state and local
Speaker 1: taxes that people can deduct is unbelievably stupid. It is
Speaker 1: a tax cut for rich people in blue states. That's
Speaker 1: what it is. It is a tax cut for rich
Speaker 1: people in New York and California. If you increase the
Speaker 1: amount of state and local taxes that you're able to
Speaker 1: deduct from your federal income tax burden. What you're basically
Speaker 1: saying is that the stuff the federal government pays for
Speaker 1: should be shouldered more so by people who live in red,
Speaker 1: low tax states who don't have a very high state
Speaker 1: and local tax deduction a burden, so they won't be
Speaker 1: able to take advantage of any salt deduction because they
Speaker 1: don't have income taxes. If you're if you live in Florida,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, I have to pay my federal income taxes. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't have much in state and local taxes to deduct.
Speaker 1: Florida doesn't have an income tax. Florida's thinking about eliminating
Speaker 1: property taxes. So it's basically the salt deduction is we're
Speaker 1: gonna gather less revenue, which increases the deficit, and it's
Speaker 1: basically shifting the burden of the federal budget onto red
Speaker 1: states away from blue states. It's idiotic. There's way more
Speaker 1: that we need to do to medicare, and the fundamental
Speaker 1: problem this is the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem with
Speaker 1: the One Big Beautiful Bill is it's not really touching
Speaker 1: entitlement programs, and at some point someone needs to do
Speaker 1: something to address entitlement programs. Medicare, Social Security, Medicare. It
Speaker 1: does a little bit to means test Medicaid, maybe to
Speaker 1: limit Medicaid eligibility for able bodied people who aren't working
Speaker 1: other than the and the left is going to have
Speaker 1: an absolute cow over it. And there are Republicans in
Speaker 1: the House who may very well lose their seats because
Speaker 1: they vote for it, like David Valadeo, because they have
Speaker 1: a high number of medical beneficiaries. And you're already starting
Speaker 1: to see political advertising against Valadeo for voting for this.
Speaker 1: So they barely do anything to touch Medicaid, and people
Speaker 1: are going to lose their seats, and the Left's gonna
Speaker 1: have a cow. So I'm not disagreeing with Elon. I'm
Speaker 1: not disagreeing with Thomas Massey that this is a problematic
Speaker 1: piece of legislation fiscally in a number of respects. And
Speaker 1: I also think it's the best thing they could possibly
Speaker 1: you do at the moment given the makeup of Congress
Speaker 1: right now. And that's the problem. Their majority in the
Speaker 1: House is so so narrow. They passed the OBBB by
Speaker 1: like two votes. It was like two fifteen to two
Speaker 1: thirteen or some ridiculously narrow margin like that. They have
Speaker 1: no wiggle room in the House. They have to listen
Speaker 1: to practically everybody. And it's Thomas Massey, the Republican House
Speaker 1: member from Kentucky who's kind of out on his own,
Speaker 1: who's a real fiscal the only like real fiscal hawk
Speaker 1: who's like, I will not vote for this. And Massy's
Speaker 1: not wrong, it's it's irresponsible. But also, I mean, if
Speaker 1: we want to enact any other part of Trump's agenda,
Speaker 1: especially funding for border security measures and things like that,
Speaker 1: this is the best we can do. It just is like,
Speaker 1: why do we have the salt deduction because a bunch
Speaker 1: of Republicans from New York, the few Republican House members
Speaker 1: from New York who could sink the whole bill if
Speaker 1: they jump ship, the bill's not passing again because they
Speaker 1: have a two vote narrow majority. If Republicans had a
Speaker 1: twenty vote majority in the House, if they had a
Speaker 1: thirty vote majority in the House, which they have had
Speaker 1: at different points in the not so distant past, then
Speaker 1: sure they wouldn't have to listen to them. They could
Speaker 1: pass something that didn't include the salt deduction, which is
Speaker 1: what they did in twenty seventeen. They limited the salt deduction,
Speaker 1: and Republicans from New York have been bellyaching about it
Speaker 1: ever since, as have been Democrats from New York like
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer well to the epitome of the
Speaker 1: phony Bologney liberal who really likes money and being comfortable,
Speaker 1: you know, Chuck Schumer. Yes, Liberalism, the political movement of
Speaker 1: the little guy Schumer who's made reinstating the salt deduction,
Speaker 1: you know, the great civil rights movement of our time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: But we have to listen to those Republicans because the
Speaker 1: majority is so narrow, we have to listen to them.
Speaker 1: So in short, I mean I just think I definitely
Speaker 1: I can see both sides, all right. I see Trump's
Speaker 1: perspective that listen, I have a two year window where
Speaker 1: I'm going to have a Republican majority in the House
Speaker 1: and a Republican majority in the Senate. It is almost
Speaker 1: certain that Republicans are going to lose the House in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. I mean there's you know, every off
Speaker 1: year cycle, usually it winds up bad for the party
Speaker 1: that's in power. And even if Republicans only lose two
Speaker 1: or three seats, which would be a massive upset for
Speaker 1: the Republicans, they're going to lose the House. They probably
Speaker 1: won't lose the Senate, but they're definitely losing the House. Guaranteed,
Speaker 1: if they lose the House, they won't be able to
Speaker 1: pass another reconciliation bill. And you know, really, so they
Speaker 1: have one shot at this. They can do one reconciliation
Speaker 1: bill this one time when they have a majority in
Speaker 1: the Senate. They have a majority in the House, the
Speaker 1: reconciliation bill. The benefit of it is you don't need
Speaker 1: the sixty vote threshold in the Senate. They have one
Speaker 1: shot at this, and that's it. So I you know,
Speaker 1: I completely see both sides perspectives. And I mean, Trump's
Speaker 1: certainly not going to back down. And Elon has enough money.
Speaker 1: He's got you know what some people call screw you
Speaker 1: money where he's so rich he has the ability to
Speaker 1: tell even the President of the United States to go
Speaker 1: sc through himself, because but yeah, what's gonna happen to me.
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna be a billionaire the next morning when
Speaker 1: I wake up when we return. One comment Elon made
Speaker 1: that I thought was very interesting about whom Republicans should
Speaker 1: want to please. That is next on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 1: In the Trump and Elon Holy War debate that took
Speaker 1: place on Twitter and truth Social yesterday, which this is
Speaker 1: why Trump needs to come back to Twitter. It's like
Speaker 1: they're communicating from competing social media platforms, which has been ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Elon made one point that I thought was very significant
Speaker 1: and deserves some notice. One of the things he made
Speaker 1: was Trump's gonna be around for only the next four years.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be around for the next forty years. Choose wisely.
Speaker 1: It's a thing to think about. As I said in
Speaker 1: the first segment, I had believed prior to the breakup
Speaker 1: we're now seeing, I had believed that one of the
Speaker 1: most significant outcomes of the twenty twenty four election, beyond
Speaker 1: Trump's victory itself, was Elon Musk entering the arena of
Speaker 1: American politics. If Elon becomes this mainstay, I mean, he
Speaker 1: has the money and thereby the potential to have as
Speaker 1: much of an impact on American politics as George Soros,
Speaker 1: as the Koch Brothers, as Leonard Leo is having as anybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, the ways in which entities like the Koch
Speaker 1: Brothers or George Soros set up enormous interconnected networks of
Speaker 1: different kinds of five to one C three five one
Speaker 1: C four and pack organizations. Pack organisations to directly influence elections,
Speaker 1: five on one C four's to directly influence legislation, and
Speaker 1: then five on one C three is to develop policy,
Speaker 1: think tanks, education movements, et cetera. Elon has the capacity
Speaker 1: to fund stuff like that, you know, ten times greater
Speaker 1: than anything Charles Koch ever did, ten times greater than
Speaker 1: anything George Soros ever did, because he's got ten times
Speaker 1: more money. And it makes me wonder. You know, Elon
Speaker 1: had this one tweet where he said, you know, people
Speaker 1: should remember Trump's only going to be around for four years.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be around for another forty. And I
Speaker 1: wonder about this, Like I have not been an unqualified
Speaker 1: fanboy of Elon Musk. I think there's stuff he likes
Speaker 1: and believes in, stuff that he's pushed Trump towards that
Speaker 1: I am not as crazy about. And I think we
Speaker 1: have to take his sort of advocacy always with a
Speaker 1: bit of a grain of salt. But it seems to
Speaker 1: me that he still wants to be some kind of
Speaker 1: a player, and I think he has realized that Trump
Speaker 1: is not going to be quite the vehicle for his
Speaker 1: viewpoints that he thought. And it makes me wonder, is
Speaker 1: there going to arise maybe in twenty twenty eight a
Speaker 1: candidate who will be the Elon candidate? Is it JD Vance?
Speaker 1: I mean, Elon tweeted the thing saying he wanted Trump
Speaker 1: to be impeached and removed and for Jadvance to become president,
Speaker 1: which is kind of ridiculous. You know, we've been down
Speaker 1: the impeachment road before. Maybe that person is JD Vance.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Vance was clearly sort of the darling
Speaker 1: of Peter Thiel and some of the tech crypto guys.
Speaker 1: He clearly is very interested in AI questions, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure Elon has interested in Maybe maybe he's the guy
Speaker 1: come twenty twenty eight, and maybe, you know, maybe Vance
Speaker 1: is able behind the scenes to kind of patch things
Speaker 1: up with Musk in time for the twenty twenty eight elections.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I thought that was just the
Speaker 1: most interesting comment from Musk, because again, nobody has more potential,
Speaker 1: because nobody has more money to influence American politics like
Speaker 1: Elon does. So I'm gonna follow that aspect of things
Speaker 1: very carefully, all Right, when we return. President Trump's plans
Speaker 1: to pull funding for high speed rail hits Fresno. That's
Speaker 1: next on the John Girardi Show. So the Trump administration
Speaker 1: under Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that basically, we are
Speaker 1: threatening to pull four billion dollars in federal funds that
Speaker 1: are earmarked for the California High Speed Rail project. And
Speaker 1: Secretary Duffy said the state quote has no viable path
Speaker 1: to complete this project on time or on budget. And
Speaker 1: Wednesday letter to the California High Speed Rail Authority. The
Speaker 1: lengthy reports of the rail project has been rife with
Speaker 1: quote delays, mismanagement, waste, and skyrocketing costs. Check check, check,
Speaker 1: and check President Donald Trump. This is from the president
Speaker 1: b story about it. President Donald Trump had signaled he
Speaker 1: would attempt to pull back financial support from the federal
Speaker 1: government toward the project, as he did during his first term,
Speaker 1: but the region's officials said the federal money is urgently
Speaker 1: needed to finish construction in the Central Valley. Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course it is. They don't want it to be finished
Speaker 1: because the whole thing is a black hole. They don't
Speaker 1: have the money to finish even the portion they're working
Speaker 1: on anyway without those funds. Officials expressed concern about more
Speaker 1: delays as the project lumbers towards its anticipated launch in
Speaker 1: the Central Value by twenty thirty three. Good lord, twenty
Speaker 1: thirty three. Oh my gosh, we voted for the thing
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. I don't think we thought
Speaker 1: it was a twenty five year timeline, and god knows,
Speaker 1: it's probably not going to be ready by twenty thirty
Speaker 1: three either. He doesn't understand the San Joaquin Valley or
Speaker 1: the legal challenges that have delayed this project. Instead, he
Speaker 1: is stalling progress and killing good paying jobs to score
Speaker 1: political points, said Representative Jim Costa. This is such an
Speaker 1: absurd talking point that liberals, it's the only thing they
Speaker 1: have left for defending the high speed rail is that
Speaker 1: it creates jobs. Okay. I could start a government program
Speaker 1: of ditch digging, where you dig ditches and then you
Speaker 1: get the dirt and you refill the holes again, and
Speaker 1: I could create a ton of jobs with it. You know,
Speaker 1: we could give gameful employment. Every homeless person on the street.
Speaker 1: Will give them a job diging the ditch, and they
Speaker 1: spend you know, the first four hours of the day digging.
Speaker 1: Then they take take an hour lunch break if you want.
Speaker 1: And then they spend four hours filling the hole again.
Speaker 1: And then they go home. Hey, what a wonderful government.
Speaker 1: And then we give them a salary, a forty hour
Speaker 1: work week, two weeks paid vacation, one week sick benefits. Hey,
Speaker 1: we've created jobs. Baby, This is a job creation machine,
Speaker 1: my government program, the ditch digging and ditch filling program.
Speaker 1: What a wonderful idea, What a wonderful use of your
Speaker 1: taxpayer dollars to help, you know, help create jobs. This
Speaker 1: is great. Okay, job creation for public works programs is
Speaker 1: wealth redistribution. It is an inefficient form of wealth redistribution
Speaker 1: that is not actually helping anything in the long term.
Speaker 1: It's a waste of government money propping up the high
Speaker 1: speed rail project on the basis of, oh, it's creating jobs.
Speaker 1: That's pointless. It's pointless if the end result is not
Speaker 1: going to actually benefit the state in some way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. And the case for how high speed rail
Speaker 1: is actually going to benefit anything is terribly weak and
Speaker 1: getting weaker every year as more and more electric cars
Speaker 1: get on the road, As air travel develops more and
Speaker 1: more and more. Okay, airports in California. Don't get smaller.
Speaker 1: It's pretty quick and easy and cheap to fly from
Speaker 1: LA to Sanfordsco. They're not making it more expend I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not making it more difficult. All right. Fresno's adding
Speaker 1: on another big old terminal. It's probably gonna expand our
Speaker 1: ability to move around in the state. I doubt it.
Speaker 1: It'll lead to fewer flights to Los Angeles, or to
Speaker 1: San Francisco, or to San Jose or to San Diego.
Speaker 1: And again, with the proliferation of electric cars, here's California
Speaker 1: trying to do an electric vehicles mandate all electric cars
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty five. Illough the federal government has mixed up,
Speaker 1: but still that's what California wants. If all new car
Speaker 1: sales are electric by twenty thirty five, then where what
Speaker 1: do we do about the whole environmental motive behind the
Speaker 1: high speed rail. The environmental motive was the big motive.
Speaker 1: One of the big pushing motives behind the high speed
Speaker 1: rail project was the environment The idea that if we
Speaker 1: have a high spa, fewer people will drive cars to
Speaker 1: get from LA to San Francisco or Fresno to LA
Speaker 1: or President to San Francisco, or or the highly trafficked
Speaker 1: route of Merced to Bakersfield. So that's the problem. All
Speaker 1: the Democrats who keep supporting the high speed rail to
Speaker 1: the bitter end to this day, in spite of everything,
Speaker 1: in spite of cost overruns and corruption. And by the way,
Speaker 1: it's not just Republicans who have pointed out corruption, waste,
Speaker 1: overinflated costs, wasted money, poor planning, poor management, et cetera.
Speaker 1: The Los Angeles Times has covered it extensively. It's not
Speaker 1: just right wing nut jobs, you know, parroting talking points
Speaker 1: that they heard on I don't know, on Alex Jones
Speaker 1: or something. Okay, mainstream reporting from very liberal, ordinarily liberal
Speaker 1: leaning outlets who've talked about these problems that the high
Speaker 1: speed rail has had. And for Jim Consert, well, Trump
Speaker 1: doesn't understand. Of course, he understands. He just disagrees with you.
Speaker 1: He doesn't think that. And by the way, the number
Speaker 1: of jobs that allegedly the high speed rail has created,
Speaker 1: let's understand what it is. When they throw out a number,
Speaker 1: If it's something like I think it's around ten thousand
Speaker 1: or fifteen thousand, something like that, what they mean is
Speaker 1: it's workers for a year, a worker for a year,
Speaker 1: So if the same worker is still working on the
Speaker 1: high speed rail, a worker who is part of a
Speaker 1: construction entity that is contracted with who has a contract
Speaker 1: with the state for helping build a section of the
Speaker 1: high speed rail. If that worker works on the high
Speaker 1: speed rail in twenty twenty four and then works on
Speaker 1: the high speed rail in twenty twenty five, the state
Speaker 1: then runs with, we created two jobs. Well, okay, First
Speaker 1: of all, these are contractors, not necessarily state employees, so
Speaker 1: the guy might have had a job already. Secondly, it's
Speaker 1: not like a new job is created every year, but
Speaker 1: they're sort of cumulatively stacking up those jobs year over
Speaker 1: year over year. That's how they get to.
Speaker 2: This, Oh, we created ten thousand job fifty thousand jobs, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, if the number of jobs they created
Speaker 2: versus the amount of money they spent is also.
Speaker 1: Wildly out of whack. If this is a job creation program,
Speaker 1: it's the most inefficient job creation program in human history.
Speaker 1: Seventeen years after voters approved the president Peace story goes on.
Speaker 1: Seventeen years after voters approve Proposition one A to fund
Speaker 1: California's high speed rail system, the project for means incomplete,
Speaker 1: delayed by changing construction costs and a series of lawsuits,
Speaker 1: all of which we could have and should have predicted.
Speaker 1: Of course it was going to have enormous litigation surrounding it.
Speaker 1: You're doing eminent domain seizures from LA to San Francisco. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good luck getting through that without tons of lawsuits. You're
Speaker 1: also trying to do it in California, where the environmental
Speaker 1: reviews are absurd. Officials at the rail authority say the project,
Speaker 1: which aimed to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles via
Speaker 1: bullet trains by twenty twenty, expects to launch service from
Speaker 1: Mercenda Bakersfield between twenty thirty and twenty thirty three. Like,
Speaker 1: how can you write that with a straight faith and
Speaker 1: not be like what a freaking disaster versaid to Bakersfield
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty, twenty thirty three, with no idea, no
Speaker 1: fathomable idea how to get from LA to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I still have not read a solid description. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: out there and I just missed it. I don't know
Speaker 1: of how they intend to get over the grapevine. How
Speaker 1: do you get over the grapevine? We can't do it
Speaker 1: right now with Amtrak. Okay, if you try to take
Speaker 1: amtrack from Fresno to La you know what you do?
Speaker 1: You get to I don't know where you get to
Speaker 1: Bakersfield or south of Bakersfield. You have to take a
Speaker 1: bus over the Grapevine and then you get on a train.
Speaker 1: Cause it's really hard to get over the Grapevine. How
Speaker 1: do you get through? Are are we gonna blast through
Speaker 1: the mountains? It's too steep to go, like over the
Speaker 1: mountains and down the hill into the San Juaquin Valley.
Speaker 1: Too steep for a train. So so what the heck
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? It's unclear how the potential loss
Speaker 1: of federal funds would impact high speed rail construction in
Speaker 1: the Central Valley. Merced Mayor Matthews Dorado, So the federal
Speaker 1: government should not reverse its funding commitments regardless of changes
Speaker 1: in presidential administrations. Why I mean should the president should?
Speaker 1: Should the executive branch just not be responsive to you know, elections,
Speaker 1: the will of the people. He supports a phased approach,
Speaker 1: starting with the Merced to Bakersfield line and expanding later
Speaker 1: there we go. High speed rail is probably the best
Speaker 1: way to travel, Serrato said, no, it's not. It's the
Speaker 1: mayor of Merced saying that the high high speed rail
Speaker 1: is probably the best way to travel by what possible metric.
Speaker 1: All Right, I'm in Fresno. I want to go to Bakersfield.
Speaker 1: Let me describe the process between high speed rail or
Speaker 1: going in my car. If I want to go to Bakersfield,
Speaker 1: I get in my car, which is sitting in my
Speaker 1: drive I turn it on, I drive two hours and
Speaker 1: I'm in Bakersfield. While in Bakersfield, I even have the
Speaker 1: ability to go to multiple different places and sits with
Speaker 1: my own car, with the convenience of my own car.
Speaker 1: Because I have a car, it's my own car. It
Speaker 1: takes me two hours to get there. Sure, if I
Speaker 1: do the high speed rail, though, here's what I gotta do.
Speaker 1: I've got to have someone. I've either got to drive
Speaker 1: my car to and leave it parked at a high
Speaker 1: speed rail station in downtown Fresno, or I need to
Speaker 1: arrange with a friend to drop me off, or I
Speaker 1: need to call an uber to drive me and drop
Speaker 1: me off at the train station. I then take the train,
Speaker 1: which is likely going to be faster, although I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's going to make stops in between. I
Speaker 1: would assume it's going to be faster than driving in
Speaker 1: my car, but how fast an hour? I mean? Let's
Speaker 1: also note, if I'm going to take the train, I
Speaker 1: probably need to get to the station at least thirty
Speaker 1: minutes in advance. So that means to get from my
Speaker 1: house to downtown Fresno, I probably need to leave like
Speaker 1: fifty minutes before the train gets there. So even if
Speaker 1: the train is you know, an hour to get too
Speaker 1: from Fresno to Bakersfield, well, I still have to leave
Speaker 1: fifty minutes before the train leaves to drive there. From
Speaker 1: Clovise to downtown Fresno, making my total travel time essentially
Speaker 1: the same. And then I wind up, so you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta take twenty minutes to get from close to
Speaker 1: downtown Fresno. I gotta get there, you know, a good
Speaker 1: half hour in advance, so that I don't miss the train.
Speaker 1: I get on the train, I'm on the train for
Speaker 1: an hour. It's about an hour and fifty minutes. I
Speaker 1: maybe save ten minutes. Then I'm in Bakersfield, and guess what,
Speaker 1: I still got to get to wherever my final destination is.
Speaker 1: Because my final destination was not the train station. So
Speaker 1: how do I do that? Well, hopefully it's destination's right
Speaker 1: near the train station, I can walk there, but probably not.
Speaker 1: I then have to call an uber and pay for
Speaker 1: that and the cost of all of these things. Although
Speaker 1: gas prices are ridiculously high, the cost of these things
Speaker 1: is maybe higher than the cost of gas. So it's
Speaker 1: undeniably a worse way of transportation than taking a car
Speaker 1: by I mean, other than environmental impact, although if I've
Speaker 1: got a hybrid or you know, an electric car, then no,
Speaker 1: not necessarily worse Fresno. Now, when we return, we'll hear
Speaker 1: what Jerry Dyer has to say about all this. Poor
Speaker 1: Jerry Dyer, I genuinely feel for it. He's like the
Speaker 1: one person who kind of wants high speed rail that
Speaker 1: I sort of feel some sympathy for. And I'll explain
Speaker 1: why that's next on the John Girardi Show. Jerry Dyer,
Speaker 1: I think, is the last Republican left in Fresno who
Speaker 1: thinks high speed rail is worth it. And I think
Speaker 1: it's because Fresno is already all the way in. Fresno
Speaker 1: has sort of patterned its whole plans around downtown development
Speaker 1: around a high speed rail station. Which I think is
Speaker 1: a terrible strategic mistake, but one that they're sort of
Speaker 1: committed to. Now. They're all in, so there's not much
Speaker 1: they can do about it. So the news that the
Speaker 1: Trump administration is going to pull about four billion dollars
Speaker 1: in federal funding away from the high speed rail project
Speaker 1: is coming as a blow to Jerry Dyer. He writes.
Speaker 1: He said, the potential loss of federal funding for high
Speaker 1: speed rail raises concerns for the city, quote where this
Speaker 1: project plays a critical role in our future. High speed
Speaker 1: rail isn't just about transportation. It's about connecting Fresno's people
Speaker 1: and economy to the rest of California. It represents jobs, growth,
Speaker 1: and long term opportunity for our Regent Dire said, I
Speaker 1: encourage the High Speed Rail Authority to take the necessary
Speaker 1: steps to address the findings and keep this transformative project
Speaker 1: moving forward. I mean, I sort of feel bad for
Speaker 1: Dire because again, he's in for a penny, in for
Speaker 1: a pound. I mean, he's in his whole plan for
Speaker 1: downtown revitalization revolves around this high speed rail station that
Speaker 1: he wants to build, which I just feel like is
Speaker 1: not going to be utilized. I feel like it's a big,
Speaker 1: expensive idea, another kind of hair brained, expensive scheme for
Speaker 1: revitalizing downtown president that I just don't think is going
Speaker 1: to work. But he's in and he's now learning that
Speaker 1: the rugs getting pulled out from under him by the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. So you know, I mean I sort of
Speaker 1: feel bad for him, and you know, to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: this card was dealt to him before he became mayor,
Speaker 1: but he certainly did nothing to course correct. So I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a bad situation. This. I just do not think
Speaker 1: this high speed rail thing is ever going to get done.
Speaker 1: And the idea that the city pinned all its hopes
Speaker 1: on downtown revitalization around a station, Yeah, it just seems
Speaker 1: like such a bad idea that'll do it. John Dilready
Speaker 1: shows you next time on Power Talk