Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blasted Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) for refusing to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ensuring truck drivers can speak and read English and emphasized withholding federal funding is just one of several “pain points” the Department of Transportation (DOT) can inflict on the Golden State for failing to comply with the guidance.
During Tuesday’s White House Cabinet meeting, Duffy said that California, New Mexico, and Washington had refused to comply with the directive, which Breitbart News broke the news of in April, and noted later in the evening on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle that they have 30 days to comply or face losing federal funding, which he said is “just step one.”
During a press gaggle with Duffy on Wednesday aboard the next-gen Acela on its maiden voyage to New York, Breitbart News asked the secretary if he had spoken with officials from any of the three states since setting the 30-day deadline. While New Mexico appears willing to come into compliance, according to Duffy, California remains indignant.
“In regard to Washington, California, and New Mexico–and I think New Mexico wants to come into compliance, or that is what we’re picking up from them–but specifically with regard to California, in essence, Gavin Newscum, as the president would say, sent out a tweet yesterday, basically thumbing his nose at us. That’s fine,” Duffy said. “But what Gavin’s doing is he’s putting illegals and unsafe drivers on the roadway in, I think, direct conflict with the safety of not just Californians, but those people who get a California driver’s license, they can drive in all 50 states, and so you’re endangering the people around the country.”
“We’re going to start phase one…There are multiple other phases and pain points that we can inflict on California that will make it very difficult for them. I don’t want to do that,” he added. “What I love about my job is infrastructure is bipartisan. I get along with Democrats and Republicans. They all want roads and bridges. They want them faster. They all want rail. All of them love their rail projects. They want our investments in ports. They want safe pipelines. They want better air travel in the country. Everyone agrees on that. A lot of stuff we fight about, but infrastructure really isn’t one of them. And I don’t know why they want to pick a fight on this.”
Duffy emphasized that truckers who are unable to read English road signs pose a major threat to public safety:
Again, you see the consequence of a driver that isn’t proficient in the English language, whether it’s, again, verbally, but also… really unable to understand road signs. That’s a huge risk as all of you get in your cars, or your families get in their cars, or your loved ones or friends, travel on roadways with people who aren’t licensed in a way that I think is safe.
“By the way, it also begs the question, if you look at the process in which they got the license, how did they pass the written test, number one? But there’s a skills test…but it should be clear to the examiner that they can’t speak the language,” he added. “So we’re looking at what kind of shenanigans are going on where the people who can’t understand the language are getting CDLs. That’s a deeper dive that we have to do, but we’re very concerned about it.”
