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Trump's Cabinet pick for secretary of transportation is Sean Duffy. Here's what to know

Sean Duffy, President-elect Trump's pick for transportation secretary, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
Samuel Corum
/
Getty Images
Sean Duffy, President-elect Trump's pick for transportation secretary, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

We're following the confirmation hearings for the incoming Trump administration. See our full politics coverage, and follow NPR's Trump's Terms podcast or sign up for our Politics newsletter to stay up to date.


Who: Sean Duffy

Nominated for: secretary of transportation

You might know him from: Fox News, where Duffy has been a contributor since 2020. He also spent more than 8 years in Congress as a GOP Representative from his native Wisconsin.

More about Duffy:

  • Long record of public service, but his transportation resume is short 
  • One of many Trump cabinet picks with ties to Fox News
  • Starred on MTV's "The Real World" before going into politics 

Position: The Secretary of Transportation leads a department with a budget of more than $100 billion that's tasked with maintaining the nation's aviation system, highways, railroads and ports.


WASHINGTON — When Republican Sean Duffy was in Congress, he worked with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to replace an 80-year-old bridge across the St. Croix River between his home state of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

More than a decade later, the St. Croix Crossing — and the relationships that the new bridge helped forge — came up several times Wednesday during Duffy's confirmation hearing to lead the Department of Transportation.

"When I fly into Minneapolis and drive up to Hayward, where I was born and raised, I go across that bridge," Duffy said during the hearing. "I'm proud every single time for the bipartisan work that we did together, and I would like to continue that kind of work should I be confirmed."

That project required action by Congress to grant an exemption from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Duffy's work to make that happen helped endear him to several Democrats in the Senate, including Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

"Our efforts show that when we work together, we get important things done. And we haven't always agreed," Baldwin said in remarks introducing Duffy to the committee. "But at the end of the day, I am confident that Sean is the right person for this job in this upcoming administration."

While some of President-elect Trump's cabinet nominees faced sharp questioning from Democrats on Capitol Hill this week, Duffy received an overwhelmingly friendly welcome from Baldwin and other members of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Duffy has a long record in public service, representing a district in northern Wisconsin in the House of Representatives for more than eight years. But beyond the St. Croix Crossing, he has relatively little direct experience in transportation — or leading a large organization like the DOT, which has a budget of more than $100 billion.

At the confirmation hearing, Duffy committed to prioritizing safety on the roadways and in the air, and said he would "work to reduce the red tape that slows critical infrastructure projects, ensuring funds are spent efficiently." He pledged to bring "tough love" to Boeing as regulators work to restore confidence in the struggling airplane maker. And Duffy said he would address the shortage of air traffic controllers, while hiring only "the best and the brightest" for those jobs.

After leaving Congress in 2019, Duffy worked as a lobbyist and as a contributor at Fox News. In announcing his pick, President-elect Trump praised Duffy as a "respected voice and communicator" in a post on Truth Social in November.

Trump has looked to the ranks of Fox News for many of his cabinet nominees. But few have as much experience on camera as Duffy, who starred on MTV's "The Real World: Boston" in 1997. He met his future wife Rachel Campos-Duffy, a fellow Fox News contributor, when they both starred on another MTV reality show. Campos-Duffy was on hand at Wednesday's hearing, along with eight of the couple's nine children.

Duffy noted that roadway safety "hits close to home for me, because my wife survived a deadly head-on car crash, which has profoundly reshaped her life."

The outgoing Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also had little direct experience in transportation before taking the reins. Under Buttigieg, the department has handed out billions of dollars from the bipartisan infrastructure law to build roads and bridges, dig tunnels, modernize airports and more.

Duffy was asked several times on Wednesday whether funding for those projects would continue to flow.

Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) asked specifically about funding for the Gateway Program, a multi-billion dollar project to replace a series of crumbling rail tunnels and bridges connecting northern New Jersey to Manhattan.

"I want to look at what funding has gone out," Duffy said. "But I imagine those good projects that are underway, we would continue."

The Department of Transportation includes the Federal Aviation Administration, which is in charge of the nation's airspace, as well as agencies that regulate the nation's railroads, and set safety standards for passenger cars, trucks and commercial vehicles.

There are several areas where the department's broad mandate intersects with the business interests of Elon Musk, the world's richest person, who poured more than a quarter of a billion dollars into President-elect Trump's 2024 election campaign.

Now safety advocates worry that Musk may try to influence the federal agencies that regulate his businesses. His rocket company SpaceX has sometimes clashed with regulators at the FAA over its launch practices.

Federal regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, part of the DOT, are investigating crashes involving Tesla's advanced driver-assistance systems. And safety advocates fear the Trump administration could move to end those investigations, along with a crash reporting requirement that Tesla opposes.

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) pressed Duffy on whether he would allow traffic safety investigators to "follow the evidence and operate objectively as part of their investigations?"

"Yes, I commit to this committee and to you that I will let NHTSA do their investigation," Duffy responded.

The nominee was asked several times about his level of commitment to Amtrak — not only by Democratic senators from New Jersey and Delaware, but also by Republicans from Kansas and Mississippi.

Duffy acknowledged voting against Amtrak funding when he was a member of Congress from rural Wisconsin. But he said "this committee has spoken loudly about Amtrak and rail in their home communities."

If he's confirmed, as appears likely, Duffy said his first trip as transportation secretary would be to the Appalachian mountain regions of Tennessee and North Carolina, where flooding from Hurricane Helene damaged major interstate highways along with countless smaller roads and bridges.

"This is an emergency," Duffy said. "I'll do everything in the power of the Department for Transportation to move the process forward as quickly as possible so these communities get access and roads that are functional again."

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Joel Rose is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk. He covers immigration and breaking news.