President-elect Donald Trump is keeping with the tradition of unconventional Cabinet picks, on Tuesday selecting a second Fox News host to help advise him on national transportation matters.
CNN reported that Sean Duffy, a Wisconsin congressman from 2011 to 2019 and later a reliable commentator at Fox, has been tapped by Trump to serve as U.S. Secretary for Transportation, a powerful role overseeing the nation’s network of rails, highways, and sea and airports. His last day as a host of “The Bottom Line” was November 13th, the network confirmed, and his last day as a Fox employee was Monday. A source told CNN that Duffy interviewed for the position sometime in between.
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In a statement, President-elect Trump praised his latest pick as a “tremendous and well-liked public servant” who was “a respected voice and communicator” in the Republican caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives. “He will prioritize Excellence, Competence, Competitiveness and Beauty when rebuilding America’s highways, tunnels, bridges and airports. He will ensure our ports and dams serve our Economy without compromising our National Security, and he will make our skies safe again by eliminating DEI for pilots and air traffic controllers,” Trump said.
CNN noted that Duffy, who served on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and on the House Committee on Financial Services, has virtually no transportation experience. The mainstream network appeared to give current secretary Pete Buttigieg, the first LGBT Cabinet secretary, a pass in 2020 when President Biden picked him on the basis of his ability to manage simple sewer and street repairs as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a city with a population around 100,000.
Across four years the department has overseen a successive number of failures including a toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio; a second derailment in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; a Montana crash that led to toxic seepage into a nearby river; a safety system outage at the Federal Aviation Administration that halted all U.S. flights for the first time since 9/11; and a systemwide meltdown at Southwest Airlines grounding thousands of flights during the holidays. The administration narrowly avoided a nationwide strike by port workers which former Boston mayor and union leader Marty Walsh had to step into and intervene in place of Buttigieg. Still, the former presidential aspirant remains in the top five Democratic candidates who voters would like to see run for the White House in 2028.
Duffy’s selection follows in the tradition of rewarding those who were reliable supporters of Trump long before he won his second term. While in Congress, Duffy introduced legislation that would have expanded Trump’s ability to impose tariffs, a key stated goal in his second term. Although the bill was derided by fellow Republicans at the time, it received support from the former president.
After retiring from Congress to spend more time with his family and wife, who experienced pregnancy complications, he served in 2019 as senior counsel at BGR Group, a bespoke consulting service for clients in defense services, automotive and air transport industries where he provided “strategic advisory work,” according to a statement by the company’s spokesman.
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