Reality star-turned-Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is no better at accepting responsibility than his boss.
In a softball interview on Fox News Saturday evening, host Lara Trump asked about January’s plane crash in Washington, D.C., that claimed 64 lives, which Elon Musk has blamed on outdated communication systems used by air traffic control.
“All of the crashes that have happened over the course of our first two weeks in office, they have nothing to do with air traffic control specifically,” Duffy said on My View with Lara Trump. “But it’s given us a focus.”
In February, Duffy announced a plan to “supercharge” the force of air traffic controllers by streamlining the hiring process—shortening it by four months—and increasing pay for those in training.
In the interview, Duffy said that the primary role of his department was safety. The Federal Aviation Administration, he stressed, only wants the “best and brightest” and hiring for “other reasons” has no place in aviation—a clear reference to the diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that the president and Musk blamed for the D.C. crash.
Duffy took direct aim at former President Joe Biden.
“The last administration, they focused on a lot on green, they focused on a lot of social justice,” Duffy said. “And we’re focused on actual infrastructure.”
Trump zeroed in on the technology used by air traffic controllers, which Duffy has previously described as “outdated, World War II-era” and Musk has called “extremely dire.”
Duffy said outdated technology used by air traffic control includes copper wires, floppy disks, and old radios. The Transportation Department hopes to receive further funding quickly so that it can implement necessary changes, he said.
“If we can get the money up front and move fast, we think we can get it done very quickly,” Duffy said. “But if we don’t do something now, we won’t have five, 10 years. This system truly will have failures, and people’s lives will be in danger.”
Earlier this week, Duffy clashed with Musk over the Department of Government Efficiency’s purported attempts to fire air traffic controllers—an accusation Musk called a lie, though Duffy claimed to have heard it directly from DOGE staffers. When Musk asked Duffy to provide names of fired employees, he responded that there were none because he had intervened.
Musk begged retired air traffic controllers to return to work, tweeting on Feb. 27, “There is a shortage of top notch air traffic controllers. If you have retired, but are open to returning to work, please consider doing so.”
