Sean Duffy Takes Off

Sean Duffy has done airport pull-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., lost a bruising public fight for control of NASA and drawn his share of mockery for urging Americans to dress up on planes.

But the “Real World” cast member turned Congress member turned Transportation secretary has held on where it really matters — retaining the support of President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the relationship between the two men.

And now, Duffy is proposing changes to federal policy that, if they succeed, could greatly enhance his ability to speed approvals of big infrastructure projects while bypassing federal environmental reviews, according to a draft of the plan reviewed by POLITICO.

People following Duffy’s career in Trump’s Cabinet attribute his durability in part to the flair for showmanship he’s honed during years on television, including as a Fox Business host. But they also credit Duffy with making a serious pitch for overhauling the nation’s overstretched air traffic control system — at the same time that he’s complying with Trump’s demands for staff cuts at the Federal Aviation Administration. And even Democrats who denounce Trump’s policies credit Duffy with maintaining lines of communication with them.

Not to say the road hasn’t been rough at times.

His ill-fated bid this fall to become NASA’s permanent leader placed him in the crosshairs of various MAGA influencers, including Laura Loomer, who identified Duffy as the next Trump administration official she would try to oust. Elon Musk, who backed rival candidate Jared Isaacman, mocked Duffy as a two-digit-IQ “Sean Dummy.” In the end, Trump picked Isaacman, an astronaut who has worked with Musk’s SpaceX.

Duffy “had a little bit of a bumpy patch with the Isaacman thing,” said one person close to the White House, who like several others quoted for this article was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

That person and another familiar with the situation say Duffy stabilized his standing inside the White House with his performance during the 43-day government shutdown, during which his warnings of “chaos” in air travel and mandates that airlines cut flights made him a constant TV presence. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement to POLITICO that Duffy "skillfully shepherded the Department of Transportation through a Democrat Government Shutdown that left our air traffic controllers in a bind and jeopardized public safety."

Duffy’s unrelenting praise of the president hasn’t hurt, either, even if that applause sometimes contradicts his own previous positions. Nor has his slashing persona on social media, including X posts swiping at his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Katy Perry’s bona fides as an astronaut.

“Trump feels like he got what he hired Duffy for. It wasn't because he was a transportation expert,” one person with knowledge of the relationship told POLITICO. “It was because he was an effective messenger and operator that Trump valued.”

Trump’s own public review of Duffy, at a Cabinet meeting in December, was positive: “You’re doing a really good job. I appreciate it,” the president said. Desai, the White House spokesperson, said "President Trump maintains the utmost confidence in Secretary Duffy."

‘I am not running for president’

This story is based on interviews with three dozen people, several of whom were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. Duffy did not agree to an interview, and a spokesperson declined to answer a detailed list of questions about his job performance, providing instead a statement.

“Working for the greatest President in American history is the honor of a lifetime," Duffy said in a statement. "Since day one, my loyalty has been to President Trump and my focus has been on executing his bold transportation agenda.”

Duffy also made clear that he does not plan to run for president.

“I am not running for President — in 2028, or ever. Whether it’s installing a brand-new air traffic control system, transforming Penn Station, kicking dangerous truck drivers off the roads, or making cars more affordable again, I’m working to deliver results for President Trump and the American people,” Duffy said.

Some Trump administration officials viewed Duffy skeptically when he was up for the job of Transportation secretary, according to current and former administration officials, citing his lack of knowledge and experience. The 54-year old father of nine got the job anyway.

As the leader of the 53,500-person Department of Transportation, two people familiar with the matter say, he’s benefited from Trump’s deep interest in building — and in aviation, a field where Trump has experience as a former airline owner who has a personal fleet of jets and helicopters.

Trump calls his DOT secretary often, the two people said.

“They talk a lot,” a person familiar with the matter said. “After announcements, the president will often call Duffy to say, ‘Well done.’”

Duffy has also distinguished himself on several fronts, including pushing to overhaul the troubled FAA, according to industry lobbyists, congressional aides and current and former administration officials. The need for that change became clear when a collision between an Army helicopter and a regional jet killed 67 people in the skies over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29, 2025, the day after Duffy was sworn in.

“Duffy chose to step into [the D.C. crash] and to own it,” an administration official involved in the crash response said. “I wouldn’t say he knew a lot about aviation the night of the crash, but he did what he needed to, including making the appropriate outreach.”

While Duffy had a limited grasp of some crucial topics in transportation, he readily acknowledged them.

“I learned that he’s honest and had no problem saying right out of the shoot that — from his time in Congress — he knew something about highways and bridges, but that he didn't know anything about aviation,” a former Trump administration official told POLITICO.

Despite that, he impressed Trump and persuaded skeptical Republican leaders on Capitol Hill to undertake a massive air traffic control system upgrade that could become a big part of the president’s legacy. On top of that, he is seeking to beef up the chronically depleted air traffic controller ranks, which took a hit during the shutdown.

As the GOP megalaw was taking shape in 2025, Duffy met with Trump in the Oval Office to pitch an ambitious plan for addressing aviation’s ills: a new multibillion-dollar air traffic control system, built from scratch.

Such a plan would tackle problems that have long plagued the aging systems that underpin the busiest airspace in the world.

But the timing was less than ideal: Republicans in Congress were crafting a massive tax-cut law that would need to be paired with deep budget cuts, and Duffy’s plan would require adding $12.5 billion in new spending. Some in the White House Office of Management and Budget and House GOP leadership didn’t like the idea, a person involved in the negotiations said.

Still, Duffy got Trump’s blessing after offering the president a slide presentation on how he planned to achieve the upgrade, including new computers, radar and communications equipment, a project that Duffy has “staked his tenure on,” a person familiar with the matter said.

Meanwhile, Duffy and his team were working with House Transportation Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.), airline CEOs and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union, among others.

By late April, Graves’ panel approved its part of the massive spending and tax package with the money included.

It couldn’t have happened without Duffy, a person directly involved in the negotiations told POLITICO.

“If Trump and Duffy hadn’t been so publicly supportive of the funding, it would have been more likely squashed by either OMB or Republican leadership,” the person said.

Duffy has rolled out plans to increase air traffic controller staffing, including financial incentives for workers. He’s worked with Congress to try to boost safety requirements for military flights near airports. And he’s looking for ways to get even more money from Congress.

The FAA has a fraught history with these kinds of massive technology upgrades, including a multibillion-dollar effort to move toward a GPS-based air traffic control system called NextGen that was plagued with huge cost overruns, years of delays and criticism from Trump.

But Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he could be amenable to giving the FAA more money if Duffy shows he’s being judicious with it.

“And I've said [to Duffy], ‘Look, if you could demonstrate you could spend this money well and effectively, I think there will be bipartisan support for continued investment in doing this,’” Cruz said.

Desai, the White House spokesperson, praised Duffy for continuing to "deliver on the Administration’s America First agenda by overseeing an overdue modernization of our nation’s air traffic control system."

Flexing his muscle

A proposal circulating inside DOT could enhance Duffy’s power by letting him and Trump choose federally funded projects that would circumvent regulations.

The plan would reserve a “golden” token for the president, giving him an opportunity to waive federal environmental reviews for projects with “national significance,” according to the draft viewed by POLITICO.

A less-powerful “silver token” would let the DOT secretary offer a more modest environmental waiver for a separate road, rail or other surface transportation project.

It’s not clear what plans DOT has for these proposals or how they would mesh with existing permitting protocols. The proposals have not been made official.

Meanwhile, Duffy has won some fights inside the Trump administration.

Duffy last year forced out an employee of Musk’s cost-cutting team who had been assigned to DOT, former Tesla lawyer Daniel Abrahamson, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Abrahamson was pushing directives from his bosses at DOGE that Duffy thought were too hasty and would ultimately not hold up, such as canceling contracts, one of those people said. At times, Abrahamson tried to make decisions on behalf of DOT without Duffy’s sign-off, the person said.

Abrahamson did not respond to a request for comment. It is unclear whether he is still employed elsewhere in the federal government.

Despite that dust-up, Duffy supports the mission of DOGE, the person added. After Abrahamson was pushed out, a handful of other DOGE staffers joined the department.

Another distinction for Duffy: He spent about five months as acting NASA administrator, making him one of a select few in Trump’s Cabinet who have held more than one job title at a time. Others include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is also acting IRS commissioner, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also acting national security adviser and acting head of the National Archives. Rubio has recently added to his portfolio a vague, new role guiding the future of Venezuela.

But that doesn’t make Duffy equal to Rubio and Bessent in Trump’s inner circle.

“He’s not Marco. He’s not Scott,” a person close to the White House said.

‘He’s a cool guy’

Along the way, Duffy has won grudging praise from Hill Democrats, who say they appreciate him for engaging with them and answering their calls, even if they don’t always get the response they wanted.

“What I do know is that where there's a large area of operational issues, where he can have a lot of latitude, he's very responsive to members, and I appreciate that,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said. Still, he acknowledged, “He's not going to let daylight come between him and the president.”

The top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), offered at a hearing this past summer: “I do like the secretary."

Duffy’s smooth persona and quirky backstory has won him fans in D.C., where he spent 2011-2019 in the House representing Wisconsin’s rural and blue-collar 7th District. The GOP has held the district ever since Duffy flipped it from Democratic control.

“Socially, people are just drawn to the guy,” said Rep. Glenn Grothman, a fellow Wisconsin Republican. “He's a cool guy. There are 10 people in the room — the one you want to talk to is Sean Duffy.”

As a participant on the Real World Boston in the late 1990s when he was in his twenties, Duffy could be seen often drinking beer and smoking cigarettes along with most of the others. He wasn’t hesitant to defend his criticisms of affirmative action but also jumped at the opportunity to join colleagues at a gay bar.

Nowadays, he’s known to smoke his Juul e-cigarette and has blunt conversations with appropriations cardinals.

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), who came into Congress in the same class as Duffy, considers the secretary a friend with whom he can speak freely.

“He knows he can be candid with me … and he knows I'm going to be candid right back with him,” said Womack, the chair of an Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and HUD. “And to me, that's where you want to always be when you've got a legislative and an executive branch discussion going on here.”

High-wire act

At times, though, Duffy has contorted himself to ensure he doesn’t cross wires with his boss.

One example was Trump’s social media attack in November on air traffic controllers who had taken time off work during the shutdown, in which he told them: “If you want to leave service in the near future, please do not hesitate to do so.”

That ran counter to Duffy’s earlier expressions of sympathy for the financial struggles of controllers who missed paychecks during the funding impasse. “Don’t hold air traffic controllers hostage,” Duffy told reporters.

Trump’s statement was antithetical to the work Duffy has been doing since he started as secretary to improve the number of air traffic controllers.

But after Trump lashed out, Duffy echoed the president — focusing his remarks on the subset of controllers who had called out of work even before their pay had lapsed.

“I’m trying to bring more air traffic controllers in,” Duffy told reporters. “I’m not trying to take air traffic controllers out, but if we have controllers who systemically weren’t doing their job, we will take action.”

Trump has since granted $10,000 bonuses to the almost 800 controllers who had perfect attendance during the shutdown. That has prompted some grumbling from the union representing the roughly 13,000 other controllers who got no bonuses.

In another instance, Trump declared at the outset of the shutdown that his administration had “terminated” a crucial train tunnel project between New York and New Jersey. Duffy countered that it was simply under review.

Duffy is not done with serving after the DOT job runs its course, people close to him said. They didn’t say whether that means he will seek the presidency or a higher-profile Cabinet role.

“The sky is the limit for Sean,” said Mark Bednar, Duffy’s spokesperson from when he was in the House, “because he understands people, he understands politics and will outwork anyone.”

Others who have seen Duffy in action say their positive grades for him are strictly on a curve.

“He’s not as bad as the other Trump secretaries,” said Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce aviation subcommittee. “But he’s still completely compromised by Trump.”

Sam Ogozalek contributed to this report.