Though having stepped up as the 20th US Secretary of Transportation in January 2025, Sean P Duffy is not just a politician. The former prosecutor who previously even made his name as an MTV reality star is now on his way to temporarily heading NASA as Janet Petro’s replacement.

Now that Donald Trump’s administration is believed to be on its way to cutting at least 2,145 senior NASA employees, according to documents obtained by Politico, the US president has already named his pick to lead the space agency. On Wednesday, the Republican leader announced on his Truth Social platform he was “directing our GREAT Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, to be Interim Administrator of NASA.”

Trump praised Duffy’s “TREMENDOUS” efforts in handling the country’s transportation, “including creating a state-of-the-art Air Traffic Control systems, while at the same time rebuilding our roads and bridges, making them efficient, and beautiful, again.”

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Naming Sean P Duffy to head NASA, even if for a short period of time, rolls out a major setback for Trump’s ex-‘first buddy’ Elon Musk, who was counting on his ally Jared Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut, but the US leader withdrew his nomination for the role in May.

Who is Sean Duffy?

Born on October 3, 1971, Sean P Duffy was raised in Hayward, Wisconsin, as the tenth of eleven siblings in a big Irish Catholic family.

As per the official US Transportation Department’s website, the Trump appointee has served as Congressman from Wisconsin’s 7th District in the US Congress for ten years. With local transportation as his prime priority, he has even co-chaired the Great Lakes Task Force.

Holding a marketing degree from St Mary’s University, and a JD degree from William Mitchell College of Law, Duffy has even been a world-champion lumberjack athlete.

Sean Duffy: TV and politics mayhem

The longtime Trump ally’s career took off following his appearance on MTV’s The Real World: Boston‘ in 1997. His eventual MTV’s Road Rules: All Stars association introduced him to his future wife and “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host, Rachel Campos-Duffy. Hailed “America’s first and longest-married reality TV couple” since 1999, they share nine children.

“Over three decades, Americans have watched him evolve from a sex-hungry 25-year-old on MTV’s “The Real World,” gyrating with a woman on a pool table, to Secretary Duffy, a devoutly Catholic husband and father at the helm of President Trump’s Transportation Department, pushing young Americans to have families as large as his own,” the New York Times profiles him.

In a topsy-turvy back and forth from politics to media, Duffy quit Congress in 2019 – nine years after his entry on a Republican ticket. Embracing his role as a key Fox News contributor thereafter, he ultimately got swooped back into the government as Trump’s transportation secretary in 2025.

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Sean Duffy, the subway-hating man to lead space agency

The former Road Rules champ recently went on Fox News to tell the public how scary the New York subway is. Pitching the public transport as a crime-ridden hellscape, he alleged, “It’s dangerous to ride the subway in New York. And again, if you’re Kathy Hochul, the governor, or if you’re MTA, you don’t ride the subway. This is a war on Middle Americans, working Americans who have to ride the subway, and these people don’t seem to want to make it safe.”

The transportation secretary has endlessly targeted NYC’s subway system almost ever since taking his big seat in the Trump government.

“This could be a non-issue, send law enforcement in, kick out the homeless, get rid of the drugs, put cops on the beat, making sure there is no violence, make sure people aren’t afraid of being punched or stabbed or pushed in front of a train. This isn’t hard — law enforcement is simple,” he said in March, as per NJ.com.

Critics and the Metropolitan Transport Authority alike have pushed back against Duffy’s claims, citing the falling stats of subway crime.