WASHINGTON — They brought the gun show to the airport.
Passengers at Ronald Reagan National Airport were given an unexpected surprise Monday when fitness buff Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got into a pull-up contest with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy while flexing a billion-dollar investment.
Before testing their strength, the two cabinet secretaries were touting a $1 billion investment to make airports across the country more family-friendly, conducive to good health and better for breastfeeding.
“I don’t want you to have a full-body sweat going on till you stink,” Duffy told The Post after taking off his tie and jacket to pump out a set of pull-ups when asked about concerns that gym nuts will assail fellow travelers with workout funk.
“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.”
Weeks earlier, Duffy rolled out a civility campaign encouraging travelers to be more courteous and considerate of others. He ripped into passengers who show up to airports in their pajamas and put their feet up on the chair in front of them.
Ultimately, fitness guru Dr. Paul Saladino came out on top with 21 pull-ups, followed by Kennedy at 20 in the impromptu contest. Duffy eked out 10, but was bested by his daughter, who cranked out 13.
The Post’s lenient tabulation counted reps that didn’t go all the way up and involved swinging.
Duffy, 54, and Kennedy, 71, had teamed up to launch a “Make Travel Family Friendly Again” initiative, which seizes on $1 billion in funding previously passed by Congress.
“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.
The HHS and Transportation honchos stood in front of a Farmer’s Fridge dispensary, which sells salads and other healthy foods, and pointed to it as a model of what they want the public to eat in airports.
“I can tell you that this is where healthy diets go to die,” Kennedy grumbled to reporters about airports.
Kennedy, who claims to fly an average of about 250 days a year, railed against airports for being a hotbed of ultra-processed foods, sugar bombs and other junk food that will ” leave you sicker than before you ate it.”
Duffy and Kennedy were flanked by Saladino, Farmer’s Fridge CEO Luke Saunders, and influencer Isabel Brown in rolling out the “Make Travel Family Friendly Again” initiative.
Noting that he was a man, and it was therefore “awkward” for him to discuss the efforts to improve conditions for breastfeeding in airports, Duffy kicked the press conference over to Brown to discuss ways to improve nursing.
“I don’t think we have yet figured out a way for men to breastfeed,” she joked.
Brown recounted being stranded at airports with a baby and struggling to figure out a way to breastfeed, an experience she stressed was common for mothers across the country.
“It can be incredibly disheartening to see the rolled eyes and visible annoyance and anguish when we sit down with our babies on an airplane seat. But that pales in comparison to the jarring lack of support that many airports across the country provide for breastfeeding moms,” she said.
“The law does technically require every airport terminal to have a nursing room, but the context of the law says nothing about whether that space is clean, clearly marked, or actually monitored and maintained.”
Duffy stressed that his team is very open to public feedback and suggestions for ways to improve airports.
Under the Biden administration, the DOT rolled out a policy proposal to ban airlines from charging families for sitting together. Duffy said he has no update on that and that it is still under review.
Duffy also admitted he doesn’t currently have a plan to tackle the high costs of food at airports.
“It’s interesting. It’s market demand and supply. They have airports pretty tightly contained — there’s not a lot of options,” he said in response to a question from The Post.
“I don’t have a plan to reduce costs. What I am trying to do is provide healthier options for people.”
