Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s new reality show, filmed with his family over the last seven months, has sparked criticism amid high gas prices, in addition to raising ethics questions.
Duffy said that costs for the five-part series titled “The Great American Road Trip,” which will air for free on YouTube ahead of America’s 250th birthday, were paid for by a nonprofit, the Great American Road Trip Inc., and that “zero taxpayer dollars were spent on my family.” He said his family did not receive a salary or production royalties.
The project’s sponsors, according to its website, include Boeing, Shell, Toyota, United Airlines and Royal Caribbean — all companies that intersect with the Department of Transportation.
“As everyday Americans struggle with the price of gas and raise concerns about airline safety, the Secretary announces that he spent work time going on a road trip that appears to have been funded by the very industries his agency oversees,” Donald K. Sherman, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a statement.
This show brings Duffy and his wife, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, back to their entertainment roots. The pair, who have nine children together, met while filming the MTV reality show “Road Rules: All Stars.”
“To love America is to see America,” Duffy says in the trailer that released Friday.
“It’s one of the most powerful ways to understand the vast, beautiful, complicated place we call home,” he says over video of destinations spanning from sweeping fields to bustling cities.
The Duffy family said they filmed the show one to two days at a time over the course of seven months. Trip activities included running up the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, snowmobiling in Montana, and a stop at “The Real World: Boston” house where Duffy first gained reality television fame.
Duffy and his family embarked on the journey with a kickoff from President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
“Taking a little trip? A little trip all over?” Trump says to the Duffys in the trailer.
Source: Drudge Report
