The Trump Administration is showing Washington, DC how real leadership works.
Pete Buttigieg spent four years talking while problems piled up.
And RFK Jr and Sean Duffy just mortified Pete Buttigieg with this display in the middle of a major airport.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr cranked out 20 pull-ups at Ronald Reagan National Airport on Monday.
The 71-year-old proved the "Make America Healthy Again" movement isn't just talk.
And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy showed Pete Buttigieg what actual leadership at DOT looks like.
Trump Cabinet puts Biden team to shame with $1 billion in real action
Kennedy and Duffy rolled out their $1 billion "Make Travel Family Friendly Again" initiative at Reagan Airport with a fitness demonstration that symbolized everything wrong with the Biden Administration.
While Pete Buttigieg spent four years proposing rules and holding press conferences, Trump's team is deploying actual funding and leading by example.
The two Trump Cabinet secretaries stood in front of a Farmer's Fridge healthy food dispensary announcing concrete plans for airport mini-gyms, expanded play areas for kids, and nursing pods for mothers.
Then Kennedy walked over to a pull-up bar and showed he practices what he preaches about American health.
"Health and Human Services! This is what they do. They just do pull-ups all day," Duffy joked as Kennedy executed rep after rep.¹
The 54-year-old Duffy stripped off his jacket and tie to join Kennedy for 10 pull-ups of his own.
"I don't want you to have a full-body sweat going on till you stink," Duffy told reporters. "But if you do a few good pull-ups, get your blood flowing, I think that's positive. This is not like go to the gym, sweat and get on an airplane."²
The contrast with Buttigieg's tenure couldn't be starker.
Buttigieg's failed four years exposed by Trump Cabinet action
Pete Buttigieg became Transportation Secretary in February 2021 with Democrats praising the job as a perfect platform for his political future.
Instead, the 43-year-old spent four years lurching from crisis to crisis while hiding behind press releases.
The East Palestine, Ohio train derailment in February 2023 exposed Buttigieg's incompetence when he waited 20 days to visit the site of a toxic chemical spill that devastated an entire community.
Even CNN forced Buttigieg to admit he "should have gone to East Palestine sooner."³
Southwest Airlines' December 2022 holiday meltdown stranded 2 million passengers when the airline canceled 16,900 flights.
Buttigieg's response? He fined Southwest $140 million months later after political pressure forced him to act.
Biden's Transportation Secretary spent endless hours on television touting a proposed rule to ban airlines from charging families extra to sit together.
The proposal went nowhere.
Now Sean Duffy revealed the rule is "still under review" with no timeline for action.⁴
That's the difference between Biden bureaucrats who talk and Trump Cabinet members who deliver.
Kennedy attacks airport junk food Buttigieg ignored
Kennedy attacked the airport food situation Buttigieg never addressed during his four years at DOT.
The HHS Secretary, who travels approximately 250 days per year, ripped into ultra-processed foods and sugar bombs that dominate airport concessions.
Duffy announced the Department of Transportation has $1 billion in grant funding available immediately for airports to make terminals more family-friendly.
"I'm announcing at DOT that we have $1 billion in funding for grant programs to make the experience better in airports," Duffy explained. "I want to expand the play areas for kids. I want additional nursing pods for nursing mothers. Maybe I want a workout area where people might get some blood flowing, doing some pull-ups or some step-ups."⁶
That's real money deployed right now.
Not another Biden Administration proposal that goes nowhere.
The Trump team's initiative launched weeks after Duffy rolled out his "Golden Age of Travel Starts With You" campaign encouraging travelers to dress respectfully and control their children.
Duffy told Fox Business he wanted to return to "an era where we didn't wear our pajamas to the airport."⁷
That cultural shift toward higher standards represents everything the Trump Administration brings to Washington, DC.
Buttigieg never would have dared suggest Americans should dress better or behave with more decorum.
That kind of common-sense leadership terrifies Democrats.
Real results versus empty promises
When pressed about Buttigieg's proposed ban on family seating fees, Duffy was honest.
The Biden rule remains "under review" with no update on when or if it will ever be implemented.
Four airlines — Alaska, American, Frontier, and JetBlue — voluntarily eliminated family seating fees after Biden's 2023 State of the Union appeal.
But most major carriers continue charging parents extra because Buttigieg's DOT never forced them to stop.
Duffy also admitted he doesn't have a magic solution to sky-high airport food prices.
"It's interesting. It's market demand and supply. They have airports pretty tightly contained — there's not a lot of options," Duffy explained. "I don't have a plan to reduce costs. What I am trying to do is provide healthier options for people."⁸
At least Duffy's honest about what government can and cannot do.
Airport food prices run 10 to 15 percent higher than street prices due to premium rent for retail space, security costs, and limited competition.
The Trump Administration is tackling what's actually possible — making terminals healthier and more family-friendly — rather than making empty promises about fighting market economics.
That $1 billion in grant funding represents more concrete action for American travelers than Buttigieg accomplished in four years of press conferences and proposed rules.
Kennedy beating Duffy by 10 pull-ups while both men put Biden's Cabinet to shame sent a clear message.
The Trump Administration leads by example.
The Biden Administration led with excuses.
¹ CSPAN, "Pull-up competition between Secretaries Kennedy and Duffy," CSPAN.org, December 8, 2025.
² Ryan King, "RFK Jr., Sean Duffy have pull-up competition while touting $1B bid to add mini-gyms, healthier food options at airports," New York Post, December 8, 2025.
³ Edward-Isaac Dovere, "Pete Buttigieg starts to rethink how he does his job in wake of East Palestine train disaster," CNN, March 7, 2023.
⁴ King, New York Post.
⁵ USDOT Rapid Response, "@SecDuffy: 'I'm announcing at DOT that we have $1 billion in funding for grant programs to make the experience better in airports,'" X.com, December 8, 2025.
⁶ RedState, "Sec Duffy Does Some Heavy Lifting (Literally) to Make Air Travel Better," RedState.com, December 8, 2025.
⁷ King, New York Post.
