President-Elect Donald Trump has chosen former Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy, seen right here talking at a rally in 2018, to be his Division of Transportation Secretary.
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Andy Manis/Getty Photos
WASHINGTON — President-elect Trump has chosen Sean Duffy, a Fox Information contributor and former GOP congressman, to go the Department of Transportation.
In saying the choose, Trump praised Duffy as a “revered voice and communicator” in a post on Truth Social.
Duffy represented his native Wisconsin within the U.S. Home of Representatives for eight years. He is labored as a contributor at Fox Information since 2020, and hosted The Backside Line on the Fox Enterprise Community since 2023.
That is the second time in as many weeks that President-elect Trump has chosen a Fox host to serve in his cupboard. He tapped Pete Hegseth of Fox & Associates to lead the Department of Defense.
Duffy’s roots within the tv enterprise run deep. He appeared on MTV’s The Actual World in 1997, and on one other actuality present known as Street Guidelines: All Stars, the place he met his future spouse, Rachel Campos-Duffy, additionally a Fox host.
Duffy can be an completed lumberjack, successful several world championships in pace climbing occasions.
After incomes a legislation diploma, Duffy served because the District Lawyer in Ashland County, Wisc. from 2002 to 2010, when he resigned to run for Congress. In Washington, he served on the Home Monetary Providers Committee, the place he was additionally chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations.
“Admired throughout the aisle, Sean labored with Democrats to clear in depth Legislative hurdles to construct the biggest street and bridge challenge in Minnesota Historical past,” Trump wrote in his put up.
The DOT, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a sprawling division with an annual funds of greater than $100 billion and over 57,000 staff that is deeply concerned in sustaining the nation’s aviation system, highways, railroads and ports.
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Joel Rose/NPR
If confirmed as transportation secretary, Duffy would lead a sprawling division with an annual funds of greater than $100 billion and over 57,000 staff that is deeply concerned in sustaining the nation’s aviation system, highways, railroads and ports.
Underneath the present Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the division has handed out billions of {dollars} in funding from the bipartisan infrastructure legislation to construct roads and bridges, dig tunnels, modernize airports and extra.
Buttigieg has additionally pursued an formidable agenda geared toward defending the consumer rights of air travelers, regardless of some pushback from airways. And he is touted efforts to make the nation’s roads safer for pedestrians and different weak customers.
The way forward for these initiatives is now in query.
The Division of Transportation contains the Federal Aviation Administration, which is in control of the nation’s airspace, in addition to companies that regulate the nation’s railroads, and set security requirements for passenger automobiles, vans and business autos.
There are a number of areas the place the division’s broad mandate intersects with the enterprise pursuits of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who stands to benefit from Trump’s victory after pouring lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into his reelection marketing campaign.
Musk’s firm SpaceX has generally clashed with regulators on the FAA over its launch practices.
One other DOT element, the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration, is formally investigating Tesla, Musk’s automotive firm, over its “Full Self-Driving” system after the corporate reported 4 crashes in low-visibility situations, together with one which killed a pedestrian. That probe is simply the most recent effort by NHTSA to scrutinize Tesla’s driver-assistance methods, together with an earlier inquiry into its “Autopilot” system after a collection of crashes involving parked emergency autos.
The transportation secretary throughout President-elect Trump’s first time period, Elaine Chao, resigned after the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol, citing the “traumatic and fully avoidable” violence that day.
