Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is facing criticism over his upcoming “Great American Road Trip” reality television show with his family filmed over the last seven months while he was serving as a member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet—but the former MTV reality star is insisting his family spent no taxpayer money on the program and won’t receive a paycheck for their participation.
The transportation secretary, a former “Real World” star, is facing criticism for filming the program while gas prices remain high.
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Speaking to “Fox and Friends” on Friday, Duffy, a former reality television star of MTV’s “The Real World” and “Road Rules: All Stars,” said he spent the last seven months intermittently filming a road trip reality television show with his wife, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy.
The trip with some of their nine children is “a civic experience” to highlight destinations across the U.S. as part of the country’s 250th anniversary celebration, according to Duffy, who encouraged Americans to “gas up the car, pack up the kids, get behind the wheel and get out and see America.”
Duffy’s announcement was quickly met with criticism from Democrats and other online commentators—with Duffy’s predecessor Pete Buttigieg calling the show “brutally out of touch” due to rising gas prices caused by disruptions in the oil market from the Trump administration’s war in Iran.
In response, Duffy insisted the program was funded by the Great American Road Trip nonprofit organization and that “zero taxpayer dollars were spent on my family.”
Duffy and Campos-Duffy, also a former “Real World” and “Road Rules” cast member, said the program was filmed in “short” production windows like weekends and their childrens’ breaks from school, and that their family would not receive a salary or royalties from the show.
News of the upcoming reality series, which Duffy says will be posted for free on YouTube, was first reported by TMZ in March.
The Great American Road Trip says it is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization that is “fully funding its own efforts to celebrate and share America’s story.” It lists several major sponsors, including Boeing, Toyota, Shell, Royal Caribbean, United Airlines, Google and Enterprise, but it is unclear how much money these companies have contributed and if those funds were used for the reality show. It is also unclear how much the production cost for the show was. In his statement on X on Saturday, Duffy said ethics officials at the Department of Transportation “reviewed and approved” his participation in the show. When asked for comment, Tori Barnes, the executive director of Great American Road Trip, Inc., said the organization “fully paid” for the show, which was “filmed mostly during nights and weekends,” and also included “the kids’ spring break.” Nathaniel Sizemore, a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, confirmed the federal department spent no taxpayer dollars on the production, and the Great American Road Trip covered expenses including “gas, car rentals, lodging, and activities.”
Due to the rising gas prices, Buttigieg criticized the show, noting “regular families can’t afford road trips anymore.” His husband, Chasten Buttigieg, later joined in the criticism, calling Duffy and Campos-Duffy “unfocused, unserious, and out of touch.” Campos-Duffy responded directly to Chasten, insisting her husband “has done more in one year to transform the DOT and ATC than your husband did in over 4 years on the job.”
$4.49 per gallon. That was the average gas price in the United States as of Sunday at 2 p.m. EDT, according to data from GasBuddy. The price per gallon reached as high as $6.13 in California and $5.76 per gallon in Washington.
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