A former Wisconsin congressman and Fox Business host, Sean Duffy, was selected by President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday to lead the Transportation Department.
In a statement announcing his choice, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Duffy as a “tremendous and well-liked public servant” with the experience needed to lead the department, which has an annual budget of more than $100 billion and a vast work force.
“Sean will use his experience and the relationships he has built over many years in Congress to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure and usher in a golden age of travel,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.
Mr. Duffy served in Congress from 2011 to 2019 as a Republican. He resigned in September 2019 to help care for a newborn daughter with a birth defect, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Mr. Duffy resigned from Fox News Media on Monday, according to a spokeswoman for the network. He had joined as a contributor in 2020, offering political analysis across all Fox News Media platforms, and had hosted “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business with Dagen McDowell since 2023. He originally rose to fame on the MTV reality show “The Real World: Boston.”
If confirmed, Mr. Duffy will oversee a Federal Aviation Administration struggling with air traffic control and a Federal Railroad Administration still pushing for safety reforms after a fiery derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023. He will also be in charge of assessing how to rebuild the country’s crumbling infrastructure.
Mr. Duffy would also be managing remaining funds from the 2021 $1 trillion infrastructure law, a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s efforts to prioritize rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, and would help to shape its priorities.
Mr. Duffy’s nomination did not appear to set off the sort of opposition that some of Mr. Trump’s other cabinet picks have.
“Transportation policy has a long bipartisan history,” said Representative Rick Larsen of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, “and I look forward to continuing to maintain the tradition under former Representative Sean Duffy’s leadership and working together to pass the next surface transportation authorization, creating more jobs, if he is confirmed.”
Airlines for America, which represents the country’s largest airlines, praised Mr. Duffy’s nomination. In a statement, Nicholas E. Calio, the president and chief executive of the trade group, said, “Congressman Duffy has a proven track record for getting things done, and we are eager to collaborate with him on key issues impacting the U.S. airline industry.”
A Wisconsin native, Mr. Duffy began his political career as a district attorney for Ashland County, in the northern part of the state. He resigned after winning his congressional election. During his time in Congress, Mr. Duffy served on the House Financial Services Committee.
Mr. Trump credited Mr. Duffy with clearing “extensive Legislative hurdles to build the largest road and bridge project in Minnesota History.” Mr. Duffy was a co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation, led by Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, to support the St. Croix River bridge project, which connects Wisconsin and Minnesota.
As a Fox News contributor, Mr. Duffy was critical of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. On the “Tucker Carlson Tonight” program in December 2022, Mr. Duffy said the holiday airline travel chaos at the time had been foreseeable, adding: “What’s striking is how often this happens. There’s a crisis, and Pete Buttigieg decides to ignore it.”
Before his stint at Fox, Mr. Duffy joined CNN in 2019 as a political commentator. He provoked pushback from his on-air colleagues by and about the special counsel investigation of Russian election interference.