Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is taking his family on television again. His new five-part reality series, “The Great American Road Trip,” is set to air on YouTube as part of a celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary.
The series follows Duffy as he travels across the country with his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, and their nine children, and the trailer features a meeting with President Donald Trump. In the preview, Duffy frames the project as a patriotic travelogue, saying, “The motto is: To love America is to see America,” and adding that “It’s more than a road trip. It’s a civic experience. It’s one of the most powerful ways to understand the vast, beautiful, complicated place we call home.” He also says, “We’re encouraging everyone to go take a road trip to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.”
The project marks a return to the couple’s reality-TV roots. Before entering politics, Duffy appeared on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston” in 1997 and later joined MTV’s “Road Rules: All Stars,” where he and Campos-Duffy first met. Campos-Duffy is now a host.
The timing has drawn sharp criticism as average fuel prices climbed to more than $4.50 per gallon, roughly 50% higher than when the U.S. entered war with Iran in late February. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wrote on X that he loved a road trip but called the project “brutally out of touch,” saying it showed “a Trump Cabinet member making a documentary about himself while regular families can’t afford road trips anymore, because Trump and his war put gas prices through the roof.” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also criticized the show, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom said multiple air travel accidents happened “on [Duffy’s] watch” while he was filming.
A Transportation Department spokesperson, Nathaniel Sizemore, said critics of soaring gas prices “should sit this one out.” He wrote that “These are the same people who waged a war on fossil fuels, pushed gas to over $5 a gallon, and forced American families into expensive electric vehicles,” and said Duffy “has already taken action to make cars for affordable and support the President energy dominance agenda.” The department also pointed to support from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sen. Roger Marshall and country musician John Rich. Marshall posted that he and his wife raised their kids “to love this country and explore the incredible gift God gave us in America,” and added, “God bless the Duffy family for doing the same.”
Duffy said all production costs were covered by a nonprofit called The Great American Road Trip Inc. and said neither he nor his family received a salary or production royalties. Sizemore said the covered costs included gas, car rentals, lodging and activities. That leaves the central fact of the rollout intact: a Cabinet secretary is using a taxpayer-free reality series to pitch a patriotic message at the same moment many Americans are being told that a family road trip costs too much to take.
