So now we know precisely where the world-champion tree-climber ranks in the MAGA pecking order: at the bottom, holding whatever the more favored nominees declined to take.<\/p>\n
To his credit, Duffy tried to smooth it over, insisting the president had assured him, \u201cIf I wasn\u2019t the president, I would pick the Department of Transportation over any department. It\u2019s the best department, and I\u2019m gonna give it to you.\u201d Sure, Jan. And Campos-Duffy, for her part, closed the loop with Trump\u2019s parting instruction, \u201cDon\u2019t F it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen, as a proud fan of the MTV reality TV genre, I\u2019ve followed the Duffys since before they were the Duffys<\/a>, and the dynamic checks out. Duffy first entered public life as a competitive lumberjack on MTV\u2019s The Real World: Boston<\/em>, back when his official cast bio billed him as \u201ca true lumberjack\u201d and a 25-year-old aspiring lawyer. He met Campos, a veteran of The Real World: San Francisco<\/em>, the following year on Road Rules: All Stars<\/em>, the inaugural season of what would become The Challenge<\/em>. The two fell for each other somewhere between shearing sheep in New Zealand and proving the existence of ghosts<\/a> in an abandoned Connecticut mental hospital, which is at least an interesting origin story.<\/p>\n Somewhere in there, he picked up the law degree he\u2019d been eyeing, from William Mitchell College of Law, and spent eight years as the district attorney of Ashland County, Wisconsin. And that prosecutor detail matters, because Duffy\u2019s tenure at DOT has produced exactly the sort of ethics questions a former DA might once have charged out. This spring, he and his family returned to their reality TV roots and starred in a corporate-financed travel series, The Great American Road Trip<\/em>, a seven-month, 10-state jaunt underwritten by a nonprofit whose donors happen to include Boeing, Toyota, Shell, United Airlines, and Royal Caribbean, all companies regulated by, you guessed it, the Department of Transportation. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint asking the DOT inspector general to examine whether accepting hotel stays, a cruise, and assorted ski and rafting excursions from your own regulated industries runs afoul of federal gift and travel rules.<\/p>\n \u2026 And it is not the first time a Duffy expense report has raised eyebrows<\/a> or that his department made news for the wrong reasons<\/a>.<\/p>\n But when his wife says Duffy took Transportation because it was all that was left\u2026 you\u2019ve gotta believe her \u2014 and who better to know it than a lumberjack, the one guy in the Cabinet trained to measure exactly how far he sits from the top of the pole.<\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong> Donald Trump Adds To His Clown Show, Erm, That Is, Cabinet With Attorney\/Reality TV Star<\/a> Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Sean Duffy\u2019s Wife Just Told Everyone Where He Sits In The MAGA Pecking Order<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Ever wonder how a MAGAland reality TV star turned prosecutor wound up running the Department of Transportation? Wonder no more. According to his own wife, it\u2019s because that\u2019s the one nobody else wanted.<\/p>\n Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy sat down with her husband<\/a>, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, on The Katie Miller Podcast<\/em> \u2014 the interview series hosted by Stephen Miller\u2019s wife, in which the spouses of Cabinet officials swing by to humanize the men dismantling the administrative state, and offered a refreshingly candid account of how Duffy landed his gig. Asked what the conversation was like when Trump offered him the job, Campos-Duffy said, \u201cHe said he wanted to serve the president in any way. He ended up in transportation because that was all that\u2019s left.\u201d<\/p>\n So now we know precisely where the world-champion tree-climber ranks in the MAGA pecking order: at the bottom, holding whatever the more favored nominees declined to take.<\/p>\n To his credit, Duffy tried to smooth it over, insisting the president had assured him, \u201cIf I wasn\u2019t the president, I would pick the Department of Transportation over any department. It\u2019s the best department, and I\u2019m gonna give it to you.\u201d Sure, Jan. And Campos-Duffy, for her part, closed the loop with Trump\u2019s parting instruction, \u201cDon\u2019t F it up.\u201d<\/p>\n Listen, as a proud fan of the MTV reality TV genre, I\u2019ve followed the Duffys since before they were the Duffys<\/a>, and the dynamic checks out. Duffy first entered public life as a competitive lumberjack on MTV\u2019s The Real World: Boston<\/em>, back when his official cast bio billed him as \u201ca true lumberjack\u201d and a 25-year-old aspiring lawyer. He met Campos, a veteran of The Real World: San Francisco<\/em>, the following year on Road Rules: All Stars<\/em>, the inaugural season of what would become The Challenge<\/em>. The two fell for each other somewhere between shearing sheep in New Zealand and proving the existence of ghosts<\/a> in an abandoned Connecticut mental hospital, which is at least an interesting origin story.<\/p>\n Somewhere in there, he picked up the law degree he\u2019d been eyeing, from William Mitchell College of Law, and spent eight years as the district attorney of Ashland County, Wisconsin. And that prosecutor detail matters, because Duffy\u2019s tenure at DOT has produced exactly the sort of ethics questions a former DA might once have charged out. This spring, he and his family returned to their reality TV roots and starred in a corporate-financed travel series, The Great American Road Trip<\/em>, a seven-month, 10-state jaunt underwritten by a nonprofit whose donors happen to include Boeing, Toyota, Shell, United Airlines, and Royal Caribbean, all companies regulated by, you guessed it, the Department of Transportation. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint asking the DOT inspector general to examine whether accepting hotel stays, a cruise, and assorted ski and rafting excursions from your own regulated industries runs afoul of federal gift and travel rules.<\/p>\n \u2026 And it is not the first time a Duffy expense report has raised eyebrows<\/a> or that his department made news for the wrong reasons<\/a>.<\/p>\n But when his wife says Duffy took Transportation because it was all that was left\u2026 you\u2019ve gotta believe her \u2014 and who better to know it than a lumberjack, the one guy in the Cabinet trained to measure exactly how far he sits from the top of the pole.<\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong> Donald Trump Adds To His Clown Show, Erm, That Is, Cabinet With Attorney\/Reality TV Star<\/a> Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Sean Duffy\u2019s Wife Just Told Everyone Where He Sits In The MAGA Pecking Order<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ever wonder how a MAGAland reality TV star turned prosecutor wound up running the Department of Transportation? Wonder no more. According to his own wife, it\u2019s because that\u2019s the one nobody else wanted. Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy sat down with her husband, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, on The Katie Miller Podcast \u2014 the interview […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-Bw2myv.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Wait, Whose Checkbook Did This Former Real World Star Use To Pay For Expenses At The Ritz-Carlton?<\/a>
DOJ Scores Spectacular Own Goal In NY Congestion Pricing Case<\/a><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568.jpg?resize=174%2C160&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n
Wait, Whose Checkbook Did This Former Real World Star Use To Pay For Expenses At The Ritz-Carlton?<\/a>
DOJ Scores Spectacular Own Goal In NY Congestion Pricing Case<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n