A Manhattan congressmember and the U.S. secretary of transportation accused each other of lying about subway safety as they presented competing statistics at a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing Wednesday.
Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a senior member of the House’s transportation committee, questioned Sean Duffy, who leads the federal Department of Transportation, over Duffy’s public criticism of the MTA. Duffy has accused the MTA of allowing crime to fester in the subway, despite police statistics showing overall subway crime declining.
Duffy and Nadler each accused the other of lying as they talked over each other and eventually started shouting in the hearing room.
Data from the New York Police Department shows that, generally, subways are far safer than critics and media portray. Major crime — including murder, rape and assault — in New York’s subways was down 3% from last year and down 8% from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nader said Duffy was ignoring the data to make the subway appear more dangerous.
“Secretary Duffy, as recently as last week, you again attacked the MTA, claiming there’s a surge in subway assaults and accusing the agency of withholding information, but many of your statements misrepresent the facts and ignore documentation already provided to your department,” Nadler said.
Nadler asked if Duffy was aware of the trend, to which Duffy replied, “No, that’s wrong.”
Duffy pointed to an outlier in the data that shows a recent surge in assaults, which critics have said demonstrates the danger of the subway.
Nadler said Duffy’s testimony and data misrepresented the overall trend of New York’s subways.
“Why do you continue to ignore this and lie about this in your public comments?” Nadler said.
Duffy then raised his voice at Nadler and returned the question: “Why do you continue to lie about people being lit on fire in subways or pushed in front of trains? You should be fighting to make sure your subways are safe.”
Duffy, a former reality TV star, has repeatedly criticized the New York subway throughout his tenure as transportation secretary, relying on a few high-profile cases that propelled the city’s subway safety to national attention, including when a woman was burned alive in December.
But subway crime makes up less than 2% of total crime in New York City in 2025, and the chances of facing crime on the subway are as remote as being injured in a car crash on a two-mile drive, according to a New York Times analysis of data from 2022.
Danny Pearlstein, director of communications and policy for the pro-transit group Riders Alliance, said Duffy is more interested in political posturing than solving crime.
“Sean Duffy has no sympathy for anyone victimized underground or he would invest in safety,” Pearlstein wrote on social media. “He’s using riders as props to tear down transit, boost fossil fuel consumption, and turn Americans against one another.”
Nadler also accused Duffy of misrepresenting New York’s congestion pricing program, a toll scheme designed to reduce traffic and fund public transportation. The city won a court case against the federal government after Duffy tried to halt funding to the MTA because of the program earlier this year.
Nadler and Duffy continued to talk over each other, with Nadler claiming Duffy had ignored procedure and attempted to stop congestion pricing even after it passed federal review.
In turn, Duffy said congestion pricing is an “elitist” policy that hurts the working class by segregating the road.
Car-owning households have twice the average annual income as households without cars, according to a 2024 analysis from Hunter College. And a 2017 report from the Community Service Society of New York, an anti-poverty group, found that only 4% of residents in the outer boroughs commute to a Manhattan job and would be subject to congestion pricing.
When Duffy continued to rail against congestion pricing in his testimony, Nadler interrupted him to ask: “Secretary Duffy, why do you continue to lie about New York City.”
Duffy replied by saying Nadler lied, after which Nadler doubled down on his statement.
“I’m calling you a liar because you lied, continually,” Nadler said.
On social media after the hearing, Nadler said New York City and its transit system are safe.
“The data shows that New York is the safest big city in America, and it has the safest big city transit system in America,” Nadler wrote. “Secretary Duffy knows this, and he’s lying to the public anyway.”
“I won’t stand for it, and I’ll keep calling out their lies,” Nadler added.
