Unsurprisingly, Duffy’s name had not been on the transition’s list of possible transportation secretaries. Lutnick had recommended a former senior executive at Uber named Emil Michael for the role, and Elon Musk had seconded that suggestion, believing Michael’s experience at a big tech company that had revolutionized urban transportation would make him an ideal candidate to shake up the federal agency. Trump, however, had never heard of the guy—and that made him a nonstarter.
When Lutnick found out Trump was leaning toward Duffy for the role, he tried to shut the idea down. Making a case against him on the lack of merits wasn’t working—sir, the man has no relevant experience—so Lutnick tried to appeal to the president‑elect’s ego instead, tasking his team with searching through Duffy’s hundreds of television appearances to find any criticism of Trump. It took a while, as Duffy and his wife, Rachel, were unabashed Trump enthusiasts and had been for years. Lutnick’s team had to go back nearly a decade—to the early days of the 2016 Republican presidential primary—to find anything Duffy had said that was remotely negative about Donald Trump.
Lutnick finally found a September 2015 interview in which the then‑congressman had said he didn’t believe Trump was a real conservative and didn’t think he would win the party’s nomination. But even back then, Duffy had praised Trump for “boldly speaking and saying things that the conservative wing wished that their leaders would say.”
As weak as Lutnick’s effort to dig up dirt turned out to be, that one stray comment from almost ten years earlier nearly cost Duffy the job. Trump, reconsidering the pick, called Duffy and his wife, Rachel, and they were able to convince the president‑elect that Sean had long since changed his views on Trump’s conservative bona fides. On November 18, Trump made his decision final: “The husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos‑Duffy, a STAR on Fox News, and the father of nine incredible children, Sean knows how important it is for families to be able to travel safely, and with peace of mind.”
Excerpted from Retribution by Jonathan Karl. Copyright © 2025 by Jonathan Karl. Reprinted by permission of Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Group. All rights reserved.
