President Donald Trump on Saturday continued to swipe at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, comparing taxpayers' expense on newly built shelters for asylum-seekers to the state's scaled-back high-speed rail project.
“I hope the grandstanding Governor of California is able to spend his very highly taxed citizens money on asylum holds more efficiently than money has been spent on the so-called Fast Train, which is $Billions over budget & in total disarray. Time to reduce taxes in California!” Trump tweeted.
Trump may have been referencing Newsom’s Thursday visit to the border, where the Democratic governor celebrated the opening of a shelter that will temporarily house migrants and asylum-seekers and sought to draw a contrast with the Trump administration's hard-line immigration policies.
Last month, the Trump administration threatened to withdraw nearly a billion dollars in federal funding marked for California's high-speed rail project. The project was scaled back after Newsom said the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles portion was facing rising costs and increasing logistical concerns.
Newsom said that threat was retaliation after California led 16 states to file a lawsuit against Trump’s national emergency declaration aimed at securing funding for a southern border wall.
