Retiring Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana is in talks with Donald Trump’s transition team about the possibility of him becoming secretary of transportation, according to two sources.
While there hasn’t been an official offer — and nothing is final until Trump says it — Graves is supposedly a contender to lead the Department of Transportation.
Graves, who is leaving Congress at the end of this year, is currently a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Before he ran for Congress, Graves served as a staffer for the Transportation committees in the House and Senate, among other congressional positions.
In 2008, Graves left Capitol Hill and then-Gov. Bobby Jindal appointed him to chair the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, where he was the lead trustee and negotiated on behalf of the state over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
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On Capitol Hill, Graves is known for his policy prowess on infrastructure and transportation issues, with President Joe Biden inviting him and seven other members to the White House in 2021 to start negotiations on a bipartisan infrastructure bill. (Graves eventually voted against the legislation.)
Selecting Graves would be one work-around for GOP reservations about taking any more Republicans out of the House for the administration, while also giving the House GOP another one of their own working for Trump. Graves chose not to run for reelection after redistricting left him with a deep blue seat.
Trump has already announced that he plans to nominate Rep. Mike Waltz to be his national security adviser and Rep. Elise Stefanik to be ambassador to the United Nations, leaving Speaker Mike Johnson to say on Tuesday that he didn’t think Trump intended to tap any more House Republicans for the administration given the tight numbers in the House.
“President Trump fully understands and appreciates the math here, and it’s just a numbers game,” Johnson said.
Trump already made major transition news Tuesday when he shared his intentions to nominate Fox News personality Peter Hegseth to become the secretary of defense, and said he wanted to create a new agency — the Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE” — that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead.
Meanwhile, asked for comment about Graves being considered for secretary of transportation, the Trump team recycled their standard transition statement.
“President-Elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration soon. Those decisions will be announced when they are made,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump, said.
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Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.
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