Donald Trump has pulled $4bn in federal funding for California’s “high-speed train to nowhere” which has been beset by delays and budget shortfalls.

Further intensifying his public spat with Gavin Newsom Mr Trump criticised the bullet train project to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, claiming it was a “boondoggle” led by the “incompetent” state governor.

“To the law-abiding, tax-paying, hard-working citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, ‘high-speed train to nowhere’,” Mr Trump said.

“This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, and we have received nothing in return except cost overruns,” Mr Trump said in a social media post.

“This project was severely overpriced, overregulated, and never delivered,” the president added. “The railroad we were promised still does not exist and never will.”