The Little Engine That Couldn't (08/03)

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. KFI AM-640. You're listening to the John Cobel podcast on the I-Heart Radio app. K-Fi AM-640, more stimulating talk radio. It's the John Cobalt show. How are you? We're very happy that you're here. We're on every day from 3 to 6. And after 6 o'clock, John Cobalt's show On Demand on the iHeart app. That's the podcast. It's the same as the radio show. It's so you can pick up on what you missed. You also can watch us right now, live on YouTube and live on X. All right. We should be a daily part of your entertainment, either through audio or video, any time of a day or night. You could listen or watch. So thank you for coming. Have you gone on the high-speed rail train yet? I have not. No? No. You know, it's been around six years. I know. Have you? Huh? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah? How is it? Oh, it goes real fast. Does it? Oh, yeah. It goes San Francisco to L.A. What was it? Two hours, 20 minutes. Do they serve food? Yeah, they serve food. It's really good food. We left about two weeks ago. I forgot to tell you. Oh, you forgot to tell you? Yeah, it was going up to the Bay Area for the weekend. And that Sunday afternoon, about 4 o'clock, we took a train by 630. We were in Illinois. So it's worth all the money? Oh, absolutely. It wasn't that much money. No. It wasn't that much money, no. It was cheaper than an airline flight. Yeah. I meant to build. Oh, cheap to build? No, I meant, was it worth it? You know, all the money. Worth the money? Yes, it has been spent to build it. They only spent $33 billion. I know. So it was worth it then, right? It's all the way to San Diego. I don't know if you saw it. Oh, yeah. I mean, I just took a piece of it. But it goes up to Sacramento. It's amazing. This is a wonder. Yeah, I know. It is like the eighth wonder of the world, isn't it? Yes. Not. Not.

The reason I brought up this delusional fantasy is CBS News, CBS California, Julie Watts, it was a great reporter. She posted a story about why the Trump administration withdrew the $4 billion to build high-speed rail, which happened last year, and why... Gavin Newsom withdrew the lawsuit. There's a reason. Let me give you a quick rundown in case you haven't tracked all these details. This is a fascinating story. And if I had one wish, if I had one wish outside of wishing that the high-speed rail train actually existed, is that everybody in this state would realize that this is the worst run, most badly managed state of all states. It's really disaster. I'm going to explain why in the high-speed rail case. Now, just to go through the basics again, in 2008, a majority voted to build the train. And it was supposed to be Sacramento all the way down to San Diego, going to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Anaheim. San Francisco to L.A. was two hours, 20 minutes, electric trains, 220 miles an hour. Right now, I know of one person who once took the Amtrak train from a union station to Oakland, and that was 11 hours. All right, so, you know, something was needed if you're going to have train service. And as you know, right now, it's been reduced to a 171 mile. stretch between they say Merced to Bakersfield, but actually it's about five miles outside Merced to five miles outside Bakersfield. So it'll drop you off the train station. And if you actually wanted to go to Merced, you'd have to call a taxi. Same thing in Bakersfield. And then if you wanted to get to L.A., you'd have to take a bus out of Bakersfield to L.A. So it would be, let's say you're in Merced, right? You want to get to L.A.? It would be... Taxi to the train station. Taxi train. Taxi after you land outside of Bakersfield. Taxi train, taxi bus. How many takers do we have for that? I don't even know if you could do that in a day. In July 2025, the Trump administration pulled back $4 billion in federal funding for the high-speed rail. They said the state had spent $15 billion over 16 years, and there were zero tracks. And the Transportation Secretary said federal dollars are not a blank check. They come with a promise to deliver results. Now, one of the reasons they pulled the money was...

Gavin Newsom had never purchased any trains. And part of the agreement required him to buy the trains. So he had no track. We had no trains. There weren't even trains on order. We had not even put down a deposit. There weren't trains like waiting at a factory somewhere. And federal officials said there's no viable path to completing the segment on time. On time now is 233. The promise was to connect major metropolitan cities, but now it's going to connect two random endpoints. And Gavin Newsom had one of his public fits where he's all self-righteous and offended. Same is saying Trump committed a political stunt to punish California. and then his little mini-mee, who lives inside Gavin Newsom's rear end, sued to stop Trump's politically motivated attack on high-speed rail. But six months later, California, Gavin Newsom and Bont had dropped the lawsuit. Everybody wondered why. Well, Julie Watts found out why. Apparently, high speed rail repeatedly failed to meet its own deadlines to buy the trains, which was a key requirement with the federal grant money and dropped its lawsuit. After it missed a new deadline, it had promised a judge that it would meet. While they were, they promised a judge, it's like, okay, okay, we missed the other deadlines. But here's the new deadline, and we're going to meet it, and the deadline came and went. And they still didn't purchase the train. They didn't meet the moment. Very good. Grant documents signed during the Biden years required the rail authority to execute a train set contract by December 31st, 2024. California missed that. So when Trump terminated funding, the administration pointed to that missed deadline. All right, you're failing to do the basics here. High-speed rail then assured a federal judge it was going to execute a train contract by December 1st, 2025. And that would keep the project on schedule. But high-speed rail missed that deadline, too. In fact, it canceled the board meeting where the train contract was expected to be approved. Multiple sources said missing the revised deadline undercut their legal argument that they could be trusted to meet future deadlines. You think? They'd already missed the original deadline, and if it missed the revised deadline that it had promised the court, then the state had proven that the federal government was right. The project was not on track. Gavin Newsom and Banta could not be trusted. And so the state withdrew the case. Very quietly. They dismissed their own case two days before Christmas. The cowardly bastards. So Gavin Newsom and Banta dismissed their own case two days before Christmas.

No press release, no explanation for taxpayers, just a reference, one single reference buried among the federal grant documents and court filings posted on the website. And Gavin Newsom, Rob Bonta, and the High Speed Rail Authority never publicly explained. Why they never bought a train. We will give you more when we come back. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM 640. John Cobalt show, KFI AM 640. More stimulating talk radio. And we're going through a new report from CBS News, California, Julie Watts. And they have discovered why the California High Speed Rail Authority withdrew the lawsuit. Seven months ago, they were suing the federal government because the Trump administration had pulled $4 billion for high-speed rail. And Gavin Newsom and the little man who lives inside Gavin Newsom, Rob Bonta, both go, not fair, not fair, you're being mean. They went to court. And one of the reasons it got pulled was they hadn't purchased any trains. Not only had they not laid down any track, they hadn't purchased any trains, and the train thing is important because that was a requirement to get the federal money. And they missed the deadline. And then they appealed to the judge, and they promised the judge, okay, we'll make our own new deadline, December 1st, 2025, and that'll keep the project on schedule. Cross our fingers, promise, pinky swear. They missed that deadline, too. They've been canceled the board meeting. And Gavin Newsom and little Rob Bonta had no legal argument anymore. So two days before Christmas, they quietly withdrew the lawsuit and dismissed it. Never explained anything. In January of 2026, He just said it was appropriate for us to pull the lawsuit. And he wouldn't say anything further. He said, go ask high-speed rail. Of course, the head of high-speed rail is that suspicious Ian Chaudry, who was last seen getting arrested and sent to jail because he got into some wild brawl with his fiancé and the woman's daughter.

Now, Gavin Newsom, at his state of the state speech, said that California is finally laying the tracks of the nation's first high-speed rail system. This was in January. He said, California is finally laying the tracks. Now, I'm not always good on tenses, you know, in English grammar. When you say you're laying the tracks, that sounds like you're in the process of, right? Yes, you're doing it right now. It's not the future tense that we're going to lay tracks. I'm eating a sandwich, right? I'm eating a sandwich right now. I mean, I'm not, but you know what I mean. You're eating the imaginary sandwich in the imaginary club car of the imaginary train. And it's a wonderful hummus sandwich. Oh, they're not going to sell those. The state, though, had not. actually laid any high-speed rail track. Gavin Newsom simply lied. What the state had built was a railhead, which is described in the CBS story as a logistics depot. That's where you receive, store, and stage the rail that the crews would install. Now, he did a press conference, one of those photo ops, video ops, where he stood in front of the rail depot. and he stood in front of a random train to make you think that, hey, here's the train, and this is a train station. But that wasn't a high-speed train, and they weren't at a station. It was a real depot. But all the television stations covered it like it was. Because the only bigger idiots than Gavin Newsom and Banta are the people who run radio news, television news departments. And occasionally radio news departments. Not any current employees here, though. Now, the high-speed rail has an inspector general named Ben Belknap. And he told CBS, there was a rail yard created that had track on it, but it's not a high-speed rail track. High-speed rail track, as it's defined, has not been laid yet. said Inspector General Ben Belknap. Six months after Gavin Newsom said this, not only in front of television cameras, but also said this as part of his state of the state address, California still had not laid any high-speed rail. In June, a spokeshole... told CBS California that the commitment is to begin laying high-speed rail track by the end of the year. And in June, they approved a team to build the track, to build the track. But it does not disclose the status of its train set procurement. That would be buying of the train. That line is blank. So they don't even have a date that they can tell you when they're going to buy the train. They already missed the 2024 and 2025 deadlines. Sources say the high-speed rail delays are based on decisions made by Ian Shoudry, who's apparently, like most of Gavin Newsom's appointments, absolutely incompetent and overwhelmed. The federal officials say, well,

We're pulling the money because there's unrealistic assumptions. The purchase of the train, safety and performance testing. They looked at nine key findings and said there was no viable path to complete the segment by 2033. Then there was another investigation by the U.S. Senate, the Commerce Committee investigation. They said California leaders are wasting federal funds and they're guilty of gross mismanagement. And they also talked about the missed deadline. So CBS California wanted to get the other side of the story. They sent the high-speed rail authority 20 questions. 20. How many do you think the high-speed rail answered? Zero. Oh, for 20. They did not answer any questions. They provided a statement defending the project. That's it. There you go. That's why the money was pulled. And that's why Gavin Newsom and little Rob Bonta didn't even contest it in court because they knew they missed the deadlines. And all the claims about buying and laying rail track are just lies. There's no rail track. There are no trains. There is probably by now about $17 billion flushed down the toilet. But much of the public still doesn't believe it, understand it. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM 640. FI AM 640 live everywhere on the IHeart Radio app. We're on 3 to 6. After 6, John Cobalt Show on Demand. That's the podcast to catch up on what you missed. We are live on YouTube, live on X, so you can watch us. You can watch us on your video screen. You can enjoy the group chat alongside the screen. Go to YouTube.com slash at John Cobalt Show. Subscribe, become a member, YouTube.com slash at John Cobelt Show. All right. So we just went through the idiot Gavin Newsom and the idiot Banta. And how they, after what is it, God, God, it really is, it really is going to be 18 years now. And they still haven't bought a train for high speed rail. And that's why Trump pulled the money. They hadn't bought train and laid down any tracks. And now we get to the idiot mayor, Karen Bass. I saw this headline over the weekend, and boy, this is what makes me hate the local news media and just hate modern journalism. So some hack Noel Goldberg writes a story. And the headline is, it's been a summer of bad news for Karen Bass. Can she reset the narrative? Of all the words, of all the obnoxious phrases that needs to be, need to be banned. Narrative needs to be banned. You know what the word narrative means to political writers and consultants and campaign people and politicians? It means the narrative is the big lie the story used to cover up the truth.

Reset the narrative. You know what that means? Come up with a story that obscures all her incompetence. The rising homeless numbers. The fact that the Palisades doesn't exist anymore. The fact that Boyle Heights is still unlivable. Six weeks plus after the fire. Reset the narrative. No. This is not a narrative. This is a true story. She's really bad at her job. She's completely overwhelmed. She's a far-left progressive whack job. And she doesn't care. And that's what's the fascinating thing about the Boyle Heights situation. Of course, she wouldn't care about the people in the Palisades. They're wealthy white people. But she got a lot of Latino vote. In fact, she carried 35 Latino neighborhoods. And I believe that if I can find it here. Whatever, whatever Nithya Raman and Spencer Pratt carried, they were in the single digits combined. Yes, here. 35, including Boyle Heights, seven for ramen, one for Pratt. So she figured she had the Latino vote locked up, right? You know, because when you're a member of an ethnic group or you're a member of a certain racial group, you're all supposed to vote the same. That's the rule. That's in the Constitution. And who you vote for is assigned to you at birth. depending on your ethnicity and race. You probably didn't know that. So she got 35 Latino districts, but according to Noah Goldberg, when she attended a community meeting in early July after this lineage fire. She was met with booze from the largely Latino crowd. Why, how could this be? What do you mean? She was met with booze. Don't they know? They're all supposed to worship her. Because everyone is supposed to be in lockstep depending on their race and ethnicity. And so this Noel Goldberg is just shocked at this. Why, we've never seen this before. People thinking for themselves. People looking at the job she's done and saying, wow, she's no good at this. Because it turns out that she doesn't care about Latino people anymore and she cares about white people or black people or any people. What she cares about is her fan girl hero worship. That's why she was in Ghana when the Palisades fire broke out to attend the inauguration of the president of Ghana. That's why she was in Chicago when the Boyle Heights fire happened. She's a big fan girl of Barack Obama. And he was opening up his new presidential library. She's also a big fan girl of Fidel Castro. She went to Cuba 30 times. Got more on that later. So her life is worshipping these socialist communist politicians the way a little boy.

has idolizes baseball players, major league baseball players, and collects their cards. She's got that same surge. Or the way teenage girls used to go crazy over rock stars. According to a professor at Pomona College, Sarah Sadwani, the lineage fire has deeply eroded the Latino support she was getting from the eastern side of the city. Well, yeah, because. When she did finally come back from her Obama party, she told all those people that the air is not dangerous. The air quality is not dangerous. She actually said that out loud on television. The air quality is not dangerous. And, of course, everybody is gasping for air, terrified that their kids are breathing in all these toxic metals and toxic gases. Well, she was in Chicago for Obama, and she returned to L.A. the next evening as the fire continued to burn. So she went through. That's why she did go to the cocktail party. She had the cocktails, just like in Ghana. She didn't drop everything and run. She left the next day. Had to have the cocktails. And the fire kept burning. And the stench continues. And. Here's another quote from another professor, Fernando Guerrera, of Loyola Merrimont. It reinforces the narrative of the palisades, her being out of town. It's not that narrative. It's the truth. When she was in Congress, she did an interview. Somebody asked her what she really liked about being in Congress. And she said to travel. She had taken a number of trips to Africa. That was her favorite thing. She talked about it so much that somebody made her promise publicly that when she becomes mayor, she's not going to go traveling. But that's what she enjoys about the job. She doesn't enjoy having meetings to plan fire coverage. She doesn't... have meetings to ask about, you know, empty reservoirs, busted fire hydrants, busted fire trucks. She doesn't go to meetings where she says, hey, maybe we ought to fund the other half of the fire department or the other third of the police department. No, she wants to go out and drink with Barack Obama and the president of Ghana because that's really cool. It's the narrative. Of course, the place still stinks. And everybody's angry, and you should be angry. If ever there was anybody in political office who did not deserve a second term, it would be Karen Bass. I can't think of somebody who deserves a second term less. I mean, she destroyed the Palisades. She ruined Boyle Heights. The homeless bodies still number in the tens of thousands after blowing billions of dollars. She lost billions of dollars in homeless funds and refuses to explain where the money went and, in fact, has hired a lot of lawyers so she can't be questioned on it. Now, unfortunately, that leaves us with Nithya Raman from there. And we come back. We're going to play you a clip of Nithya Raman.

at a press conference that she believes Spencer Pratt voters are frustrated at the city. And I'll tell you what she said most recently on a podcast. You're listening to John Cobalt on Demand from KFI AM 640. Can't find AM 640. More stimulating talk radio. John Cobelt's show. Moist Line is for Friday. 877 Moist 86. 877 Moist 86. Or use the talkback feature on the IHeart Radio app. After 4 o'clock, you'll enjoy this. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. And yeah, he is nuts. He does strange things with dead animals. But... Well, he laid into Dana Bash. She's one of CNN's political reporters, and she hosts a Sunday morning interview show. And Bash was trying to bash Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about all his vaccine opinions. And they got into a heated discussion about COVID. and about how CNN and the rest of the media just repeated Anthony Fauci's lies over and over again. And I've got a few clips to play. It's really entertaining. And this is the way these smug network anchor reporters ought to be treated. She and her experts. Because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lays her out in one of these clips where he said, you know, you bring out these experts and they were all wrong. And Anthony Fauci lied. And then you bring out the experts all over again to defend them. We'll play that coming up after 4 o'clock. Well, it's just been released. And I don't have all the audio to play. But I wanted to tell you about this. And then we're going to get the audio clips for tomorrow. We just went through Bass and that stupid L.A. Times story by Noah Goldberg on how Bass has to reset the narrative after she's destroyed. major parts of the city. Well, Rahman did an interview with the New Yorker trying to explain her campaign. And she said again what she said in June, she wants to attract Spencer Pratt voters. Right? That collection is the wild card collection. They already rejected Bass. How many of them are going to go to Rahman? How many of them will go to Bass? Well, let's play you a clip from Nithya Raman from back on June 11th at a press conference. Spencer Pratt tapped into very real frustrations that people are facing here in the city. I think they're looking at a city that... has failed on some of the most basic functions and is still asking us to trust the city on solving even more complicated things like homelessness, like our affordable housing crisis. And they're seeing in that a real lack of trust and a lack of faith and a real frustration about the direction that the city is heading in. I share that frustration. I share that frustration. And I think we can use this moment.

And we can use this campaign and we can use a new mayor in City Hall to demand that change and to deliver that change for Angelinos. I want them to expect more from the city and I want to deliver more from the city for them. I think she's asking us to meet the moment. Absolutely. Yes. So you need to meet the moment. You too. You're an Angelino. Now with the New Yorker. She said again, she wants to attract Spencer Pratt voters. But later on in the interview, she says she believes in more government spending to cure homelessness. Boy, did you really miss the point on that, huh? You really missed the point on the Spencer Pratt. You don't need to spend more money. You've tried that for over 10 years. You need to do something different. You spend less money. You spend whatever you've got on treatment, drug treatment and mental health treatment. That's what you spend the money on. Not building a million dollar apartments. So she's going to do the same thing, and she's got a record even longer than Karen Bass. Karen Bass has been mayor for three and a half years. Nithya Raman has been office. Six years. She's chair of the city's homelessness committee. Six years. She's chair of the city homelessness committee. So she talks about the failures. She's the failure. Michael Cherheo is a political consultant wrote today. Many of these nonprofits received all this money that is now being investigated. And as chair of the city's homeless committee, I'd say she had a front row seat to the waste, the fraud, and the abuse. And to ignore that or not acknowledge that is going to be hard for any Spencer Pratt voter to align with Nithya Raman. We're going to take a look at this interview because it was just released today and we will play some clips tomorrow. But she's... And I realize this is an impossible situation. Because it's her or Bass, and they're both horrible, horrible. But Bass is running on everything is okay. I can get really well. And Rahman is running on, no, things are not okay. Spencer Pratt was right. Except if Bass was the most powerful person on homeless policy, Nithya Raman was number two. We come back, Dana Bash and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. Deborah Mark, live in the KFI 24-hour newsroom. You've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear the show live on KFI AM 640 from 3 to 6 p.m. every Monday through Friday, and of course, anytime on demand on the IHeart Radio app. KFI, AM 64. 64. More stimulating talk.