Gavin Newsom pumped the brakes on Marco Rubio’s tracksuit troll of Venezuela’s ousted president while aboard Air Force One, calling it a violation of a Trump Cabinet member’s rules for flying.
The California governor on Wednesday commented on what White House Communications Director Steven Cheung called Rubio’s “Nike Tech ‘Venezuela’”—an identical gray outfit to what Nicolás Maduro wore in early January when U.S. forces were transporting him and his wife to the U.S. after their capture.
But that was the wrong kind of suit for the occasion, Newsom said, referencing Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s pre-Thanksgiving travel plea last year that airline passengers reflect “civility” in part by not dressing “like they’re going to bed.”
“Hey Sean,” Newsom’s press office wrote on X. “We found someone breaking your ‘fly dressed nice’ rule.”
Rubio, who was among those headed to China on Tuesday, had boarded the plane in a suit and changed once aboard. Upon his arrival in Beijing, he was back in formal attire.
The Transportation Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast, nor did the State Department.
Duffy, in a Fox Business Network interview last year, made clear he prefers suits over tracksuits as one way to improve the flying experience.
“If you just watch social media, you have brawls at the baggage claim, you have passengers berating gate agents. We have unruly passengers on airplanes. People dress up like they’re going to bed when they fly,” he said.
“I see people getting on airplanes and they’re having a hard time taking their luggage and getting in the oversize or the above bin,” he continued. “Help people out, be nice, be courteous. And so we want to push people, as we come into a really busy travel season: Help people out, be in a good mood, dress up, bring civility back to travel. And I think everyone’s experience is going to be that much better.”
Around that time, Duffy also posted a video on X encouraging the “golden age of air travel.”
Duffy, 54, did a fair share of traveling of his own over the last several months—not in the skies, but on the roads.
Duffy said he spent seven months filming the upcoming series The Great American Road Trip, which follows him, wife Rachel Campos-Duffy, and their family around the country.
Duffy said last week he wanted to “encourage all Americans to take a road trip, whether it be two hours or two days, to see your country.”
But the former MTV reality show participant’s decision drew backlash in part due to the rising price of gasoline during Donald Trump’s war against Iran.
In response, a DOT spokesperson previously told the Daily Beast that filming was done “in small, one-day or two stops,” and that “production costs were paid for by the Great American Road Trip, Inc., not taxpayers.”
That organization’s executive director, Tori Barnes, told Politico that the group was formed to celebrate the country’s 250-year mark, and to promote travel, tourism, and “the transportation, infrastructure, and ingenuity that built America over the past 250 years and will build America over the next 250 years.”
The organization, Politico reported, offered companies—some of which Duffy’s department regulates—the ability to pay for “partnership tiers” in exchange for VIP invitations, networking and logo placements.
A DOT spokesperson told that outlet that the department’s “regulatory decisions are guided by career safety professionals, the law, and the facts.”
