President Donald Trump’s administration is taking control of Washington D.C.’s Union Station after three of his top officials were loudly heckled during a botched PR stunt at the transit hub.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy—a former contestant in Road Rules—announced Wednesday that his department would reclaim management of the nation’s second-busiest rail terminal as part of the administration’s sweeping efforts to tighten control over the capital.
Duffy was at Union Station to launch a new fleet of high-speed Acela trains for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor route between D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston—trains which were first ordered under President Barack Obama in 2016, and which will benefit from infrastructure investments made as part of President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
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The controversial federal takeover of D.C. has included deploying National Guard soldiers to patrol the streets, assisting police in tackling crime, and picking up trash.
“Instead of being a point of pride, Washington’s Union Station has fallen into disrepair,” Duffy said in a statement reported by The Washington Post. “By reclaiming station management, we will help make this city safe and beautiful at a fraction of the cost.”
The move came a week after Vice President JD Vance, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were booed and jeered with chants of “Free D.C.” as they attempted a photo op with National Guard troops stationed at Union Station, complete with boxes of cheeseburgers.
The officials were also greeted with shouts of “f---ing Nazi” and “get the f--- out of my city.” One heckler even called Vance a “couch f---er,” a reference to a baseless meme claiming the vice president wrote about having sex with a couch in his Hillbilly Elegy memoir, which became a meme during the 2024 election.
During the chaotic visit, Vance was asked by the press why troops were being stationed in the rail station instead of areas of the city with higher crime rates.
In response, Vance suggested Union Square, one of the country’s biggest rail hubs, was full of “vagrants, drug addicts, the chronically homeless and the mentally ill,” which makes visitors to the capital feel unsafe.
He said he had brought his children there “a couple of years ago” and claimed, “they were being screamed at by violent vagrants.”
The station had been badly hit in 2020 by the collapse of travel but has been recovering since. It is second only to New York Penn Station for passenger use although with 70,000 a day using it, it is small by international standards.
The nonprofit Union Station Redevelopment Corp manages Union Station. The Trump administration’s plans for a full takeover of Union Station are expected to be completed in September, according to Reuters.
The Department of Transportation now plans upgrades to lighting, elevators, and the roof as part of its takeover. However the nonprofit was already working on an expansion and upgrade using money from the Biden administration’s spending plans.
The ownership and management of the station was handed to the nonprofit in 1983 after the building underwent a major restoration. Since then it has been responsible for its upkeep while it is now policed solely by Amtrak Police, already under the command of Duffy.
A year ago, while Joe Biden was still president, the DOJ published an article on declining crime and homelessness at the station.
But this year MAGA supporter Scott Jennings witnessed a fatal shooting inside the terminal and posted about it to X, while the Washington Post reported that Duffy’s wife—Fox News weekend anchor Rachel Campus Duffy—passed through the station not long after the killing.
The White House and Department of Transportation have been contacted for comment by the Daily Beast.
