Before drama struck, just sworn-in Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy just had a few hours to enjoy his advertising.
After a midair collision between a human aircraft and a military plane that left 67 people dying just outside of Washington, D.C., Duffy was taking the floor for a hastily arranged hit meeting.
At the press conference held inside Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Duffy claimed,” Not just the local staff but the national team has performed very well in this crisis. ” I am aware that the leader is very worried about what has transpired today. I’m sure we’ll continue to hear more from him, and I’ll continue to consult with him and]Defense ] Secretary]Pete ] Hegseth”.
Duffy was again at the East Coast press conference at 1:20 a.m. on Thursday morning to speak once more about the worst commercial airline disaster in 16 years. He addressed a second press conference at 11 a.m., this time in response to President Donald Trump’s tiradous notes.
DOT officials told the Washington Examiner that, even with such a disturbing change, Burke soon focused on gathering the company’s 55, 000 employees around communicating the DOT’s primary goal of safety to the public. The secretary especially pledged support for any DOT and Federal Aviation Administration investigations into the Reagan aircraft crash.
” Naturally, there will be a review of what happened around tomorrow”, Duffy said at the first press conference following the crash. We may take appropriate action if necessary to change journey lines and permits after the Federal Aviation Administration research what occurred.
Duffy’s assurance was firmly republican, and he won a procedural vote 97-0, but the helicopter fall immediately turned social. Anti-Trump accents on social media pointed out that he put a hiring freeze on air traffic controllers upon taking office, but Trump himself put the blame on the government’s diversity, equity, and inclusion work under the Biden administration.
Trump remarked,” You must have just the highest standards to function in our aircraft system.” ” I put safety first. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put the plan first, and they put elections at a level that one’s ever seen because this was the lowest amount. Their plan was terrible, and their politicians was even worse”.
” You have to get by mental energy”, he added. ” You have to come by internal value. These are very strong exams that we used, and Biden put an end to them.
Taking the pulpit soon after Trump, Duffy backed his employer’s approach that DEI was, at the least, no helping air traffic control work and should be eliminated.
With Trump by his side, Duffy said,” When we deal with health, we can just accept the best and the brightest in positions of health that affect the lives of our loved ones and our family people.” ” And I think you make a truly important place on that, Mr. President. That is the tagline of your president: the best and the brightest”.
With his transport minister father, former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, Duffy became embroiled in a row over that statement. Buttigieg, who left the job less than two weeks ago, described Burke and Trump’s says as “despicable”.
” As households grieve, Trump may be leading, no lying”, Buttigieg posted on X. ” We put protection foremost, conducted close calls down, increased Air Traffic Control, and canceled all but one commercial aircraft crash while on our watch,” he said.
Despite their obvious differences, Burke and Buttigieg have more than a few things in common.
Both are former Western business recipients, with Buttigieg serving as president of South Bend, Indiana, and a reputed Senate participant in Michigan, while Duffy spent nine decades as a Wisconsin representative.
Both males are press friendly as well, leading to a higher-than-usual account for the transport minister work. For his soft tone and distribution, Buttigieg made headlines in the 2020 Democratic primary, and he frequently appeared on Fox News while serving as transport minister.
Duffy was a Fox Business co-host after leaving Congress and before getting into politics was a reality television star on MTV’s The Real World: Boston, where he met his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy.
Burke and Buttigieg both received transportation secretary positions with little or no prior transportation experience, which has led to criticism of Buttigieg and was stifle Duffy.
During his , verification hearing, Duffy emphasized that aircraft and motorway health are his best objectives, along with restoring trust in U. S. planemaker Boeing , following an incident , in which a 737 Max 9 passenger plane lost a lock plug in first 2024. Two Boeing 727 Max plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 also put the company under the microscope.
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” I don’t think safety is a partisan issue”, Duffy said. ” The projects we talk about in your offices and we’ll talk about today, those aren’t partisan projects. Infrastructure is not partisan, so I’m working in a bipartisan way to ensure that we are examining the best projects and the safest record possible.
Duffy won’t have a chance to adjust to his new job because of the first significant airline crash on American soil since 2009, which will now come under severe scrutiny.
