When you pair two individuals with widely varying experience to host a television show, you’d better be sure you’ve found the right duo or you could be facing a disastrous time slot. Since January Sean Duffy has co-hosted The Bottom Line With Dagen & Duffy on Fox Business, along with Dagen McDowell.
The show started in January and is finding its way with audiences.
“Dagen is wickedly smart and funny,” Duffy said. “It’s interesting because she’s from a small town in Virginia and I’m from a small town in Wisconsin. She’s a wonderful human being.”
While a member of congress, Duffy said he used to make the rounds of morning shows, as politicians often do.
“I’d do hits on Mornings with Maria Bartiromo and Dagen always seemed to be on the show,” Duffy explained. “We’d go at it back and forth with her saying something like, ‘That’s not going to make any difference’. I’m glad we’re on the same show together. I’m kind of an older guy doing this. Dagen has a lot of experience and does it well. I’ll learn a lot from her.”
Born in Hayward, Wisconsin, Duffy is the 10th of 11 kids. Parents Carol Ann and Thomas Walter Duffy supported their son and children as best they could with a brood of that magnitude. Duffy earned his undergraduate degree from St. Mary’s University and J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law.
“My parents weren’t in the position to write huge checks for my education,” Duffy said. “They did help me at times.” Thomas Walter Duffy was a successful lawyer and had some real estate interests.
“Did we have a fancy house? No, not at all. But we did have a cabin on a lake in Hayward, Wisconsin. We love that part of Wisconsin. We fish, ski, and tube.”
He met his wife Rachel Campos-Duffy while both appeared on MTV’s The Real World, a wildly popular show in the 90s.
Duffy was a U.S. representative for Wisconsin from 2011-2019 in the 7th congressional district, and before that, he served as DA of Ashland County, Wisconsin.
He resigned from his position as DA to run for Congress. He went back to his father’s law practice. He won his seat in congress by beating Kelly Westlund.
“I get asked about Wisconsin a lot,” Duffy said. “People seem infatuated with Green Bay and how such a small city has an NFL franchise. That public ownership situation just doesn’t happen anywhere else. The snow also makes people hearty, and generous.”
Duffy finds it interesting he had a very different set of parents than his older siblings. After six or seven kids, any parent could be forgiven if they took their foot off the child-rearing accelerator.
“They were more chill with us. They went from raising kids in their 30s to raising kids when they were in their 50s.”
Practicing law was something Duffy always wanted to be involved with. He said he doesn’t hold himself out as a legal scholar and said he was ‘brutally horrible’ when he first started.
“It was bad,” Duffy said. “For my first cases, I’d present my opening and closing statements in front of Rachel. Sometimes she’d tell me to do it again. She’s a patient and wonderful woman. In the end, I think I was a pretty damned good prosecutor. You’re always thinking through legal issues that could pop up during a trial.”
Duffy loved being a prosecutor.
“After the defense has rested you watch the jury leave with the case and deliberate. They come in with a decision. These are just a bunch of random people thrown together deciding guilt or innocence. It’s imperfect, but the best we can put together.”
His oratory skills as a lawyer helped him when he pursued a career in politics.
“I built a lot of skills as a prosecutor, ” Duffy said. “For one thing I became better at standing up and talking to a group. When I started campaigning I was not extremely outgoing. I couldn’t walk through a parade and start introducing myself to people on the curbs. I couldn’t walk through a dinner party shaking hands and introducing myself. But once I got into politics, it started to become easier. Something changed within me.”
He went to all the obligatory dairy breakfasts and shook hands with everybody in attendance. He said sometimes constituents would want to talk, but most didn’t have a lot to say.
“If someone had an issue I’d talk with them,” Duffy said. “Most didn’t. I believe they would have comfortably come up to me to talk if they had one. I wanted them to know I was there for them either way.”
His interactions with constituents were genuine.
“Even if people didn’t like me I’d walk with them and talk,” Duffy said. “I’d thank people who disagreed with me. I think some politicians don’t really listen to their district, and don’t care what people say. I have always liked to keep my finger on their pulse.”
Tucker Carlson’s reimagining of the January 6th riots in the U.S. Capitol has prompted criticism from Republicans and Democrats. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said he was concerned how the scene was depicted by footage selected by Carlson. Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer was more forceful and said Carlson was lying to his audience.
Duffy doesn’t see it that way at all.
“I don’t have a problem with what Carlson did,” Duffy said. “The January 6th Committee only showed one part of the story. Tucker tried to tell the whole story.”
Duffy believes the committee only showed the outrageous parts. People breaking down doors, pushing barricades, and storming the building.
“Of course, it happened, but aren’t people entitled to the full story?” Duffy said.
“I want to be clear. Do I support what happened on January 6th? Not at all. I’ve had a reverence for the Capitol since the first time I walked in. Here I was, a poor country boy, a congressman-elect, and I’m standing in this historic building.”
For Duffy, a source of frustration stems from how citizens have lost faith in basic American tenets. He said the paradigm has shifted when you blur truth and push disinformation.
“You’ve shattered the concepts of the founders,” Duffy said. “As a country we need more debate, to talk about the different sides of issues. There’s a pressure release of ideas, but I’d rather have people release through words than other forms of releasing pressure. There’s a peacefulness that’s lost.”
With all the pressure rioters were releasing upon Capitol police and the Capitol itself, Duffy said it stems from deeply-held issues.
“Masks didn’t work,” Duffy said. “The lab leak looks more true than not. We’ve got to recognize what we’re doing with kids, which is not effective. There’s not a strong track record regarding truth.”
What Carlson presented did not cross the line, Duffy said.
“Don’t try to sell me on something,” Duffy said. “Tucker said I’m going to give you another side of what happened. People are losing their minds. By the way, the security apparatus is going to be damaged. The Capitol was at risk, but if you watched Carlson’s video selections, you also saw people meandering throughout the Capitol. You got a fuller picture of what happened.”
In totality, Duffy said the Right isn’t doing anything the Left doesn’t do.
What would have happened if the mob reached the chambers?
“I’m assuming they wouldn’t have hurt people,” Duffy said. “Nobody died during the Capitol riots. Tucker pointed out lies about Sicknick. Some people did commit suicide, for whatever reason. They didn’t bring guns into the Capitol.”
He recalled the first time he went to the Capitol with his wife and he cried.
“When I saw how disrespectfully the protesters were treating the building, I was angry about what happened. But I also want people treated fairly. If people did something wrong, throw the book at them. I’m okay with that. But when you have people who didn’t do anything get prison sentences, that’s not right.”
Duffy didn’t see anybody running inside the Capitol with a gun.
“The police were escorting the Shaman guy,” he said. “I was wildly offended when he was in the chamber, but he was presented as a certain radical leader. In the footage, you see he wasn’t a threat. I’m about truth and justice.”
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
