Trump tapped Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to lead the space program on an interim basis
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has vehemently described the New York City subway as a hellscape, has been named to oversee NASA — putting him in charge of rocket ships that are far more dangerous than public transit.
After Donald Trump pulled the nomination of tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman for the post, the president announced Duffy would be the interim NASA administrator. Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, praising the former Real World cast member: “Sean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country’s Transportation Affairs, 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.”
The president added, “He will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time.”
Following Elon Musk’s last day as an official employee of the federal government, Trump soon withdrew the nomination for Isaacman to lead NASA, just days before the Senate was set to confirm the entrepreneur. At the time of the withdrawal, Trump wrote in a statement that he had come to the decision after a “thorough review” of Isaacman’s “prior associations,” which appeared to allude to Isaacman’s previous donations to Democrats.
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Isaacman, a close friend of Musk who has joined two SpaceX missions, seems to have been caught in the public feud between the world’s richest man and the president. In June, Musk, no longer an official member of Trump’s administration, called the president’s “Big Beautiful Bill” a “disgusting abomination.” After the bill was signed into law, Musk announced that he has started a new political party — the “America Party” — and could begin by focusing on a few congressional races, although he did not specify which ones.
Meanwhile, let’s hope Duffy (who’s afraid to hop on the 6 train) is ready to take on a government agency that has launched humans to the moon and probes to interstellar space.