The U.S. Senate confirmed Sean Duffy as the Secretary of Transportation under President Donald Trump's administration. The TV personality-turned-politician from Wisconsin was confirmed by a vote of 77 to 22. He takes over the Department of Transportation at a crucial time at the agency, a massive employer of more than 55,000 that spends tens of billions of dollars annually, oversees the nation's highways, railroads and airspace and sets safety standards for trains, cars and trucks.
At his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Duffy vowed to restore global confidence in Boeing, hire more air traffic controllers, cut DEI programmes at DOT and create federal rules for self-driving cars instead of leaving that to patchwork of state regulations that critics said holds back US development.
Here are five things to know about Sean Duffy, who is believed to be instrumental in Donald Trump's plans "to cut regulations and fix the nation's infrastructure."
1. 53-year-old Sean Duffy is among the Fox News-linked journalists who found their way into US President-elect Donald Trump's goodbooks. US media reports said that Sean Duffy used to co-host of "The Bottom Line" on Fox Business.
2. In the final decade of the 20th century and the first of the 21st, Duffy garnered public attention by appearing in a couple of MTV reality shows. He was part of "The Real World: Boston," "Road Rules: All Stars" and "Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons", USA Today said in a report.
3. Sean Duffy is the father of nine children. His wife Rachel Campos-Duffy is still with the Fox Network, hosting the “Fox & Friends Weekend.” Interstingly, they met at the sets of a reality showed and tied the knot in 1999.
4. A law graduate from St Paul William Mitchell College of Law, Sean Duffy is an alumnus of St. Mary's University in Minneapolis. He served as district attorney in Wisconsin's Ashland County before exploring a career in media and later politics.
5. Duffy represented Wisconsin in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019. He resigned his seat reportedly to care for a newborn daughter with a heart defect.