{"id":210456,"date":"2026-05-12T03:07:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T03:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/transportation-secretary-sean-duffy-defends-new-reality-show-amid-backlash-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T03:07:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T03:07:46","slug":"transportation-secretary-sean-duffy-defends-new-reality-show-amid-backlash-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/transportation-secretary-sean-duffy-defends-new-reality-show-amid-backlash-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy defends new reality show amid backlash – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is making a controversial road trip back to reality TV.
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\u201cThe Great American Road Trip,\u201d a five-part reality series set to air on YouTube in celebration of the United States\u2019 250th anniversary, follows Duffy as he travels across the country with his wife, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, and their nine children.
\u201cThe motto is: To love America is to see America,\u201d Duffy says in the show\u2019s trailer<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s more than a road trip. It\u2019s a civic experience. It\u2019s one of the most powerful ways to understand the vast, beautiful, complicated place we call home.\u201d
The project marks a return to the couple\u2019s reality-TV roots. Before entering politics, Duffy was a cast member on MTV\u2019s \u201cThe Real World: Boston\u201d in 1997, then joined the channel\u2019s reality game show \u201cRoad Rules: All Stars,\u201d on which he and Campos-Duffy first met.
\u201cWe\u2019re encouraging everyone to go take a road trip to celebrate America\u2019s 250th birthday,\u201d Duffy says in the trailer, which also features the family meeting with President Donald Trump.
The show has drawn criticism from those who call it tone-deaf as average fuel prices have climbed to more than $4.50 per gallon<\/a>, up roughly 50% since the U.S. entered war with Iran in late February.
Some commenters on YouTube were blunt. One compared the trip to \u201cgoing on a foodie tour during the Great Depression.\u201d Another wrote: \u201cAmericans are struggling to afford gas and groceries but these two reality tv and Fox News stars are treated to free trips with celebrity visits and a cruise. Read the room, Mark and Marie Antoinette.\u201d
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was among the first prominent voices to weigh in. \u201cI love a good road trip, but this is brutally out of touch: a Trump Cabinet member making a documentary about himself while regular families can\u2019t afford road trips anymore, because Trump and his war put gas prices through the roof,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/a>
Other Democratic politicians, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker<\/a> and California Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> \u2014 who noted the multiple air travel accidents that occurred \u201con [Duffy\u2019s] watch\u201d while he was filming \u2014 echoed the criticism.
Transportation Department spokesperson Nathaniel Sizemore told NBC News that politicians criticizing soaring gas prices \u201cshould sit this one out.\u201d
\u201cThese 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,\u201d Sizemore wrote in an email. \u201cSecretary Duffy has already taken action to make cars for affordable and support the President energy dominance agenda.\u201d
The Transportation Department also pointed to positive responses from the likes of Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders<\/a>, a Republican, Sen. Roger Marshall<\/a> (R\u2014Ky.) and country musician John Rich<\/a>, who wrote the show\u2019s theme song.
\u201cLaina and I raised our kids to love this country and explore the incredible gift God gave us in America,\u201d Marshall wrote on X. \u201cGod bless the Duffy family for doing the same.\u201d
Duffy said on social media<\/a> that all of the show\u2019s production costs were covered by a nonprofit group, The Great American Road Trip Inc. \u2014 not taxpayers \u2014 and that neither he nor his family received a salary or production royalties. Sizemore said that covered costs included gas, car rentals, lodging and activities and that taxpayer funds were used only for official government travel.
Critics also raised conflict-of-interest concerns: Several of the show\u2019s sponsors \u2014 including Boeing, Toyota, Shell, Royal Caribbean Group and United Airlines \u2014 are companies that Duffy\u2019s department oversees and regulates. (Comcast\/NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News, is also listed as one of its sponsors.)
The Department of Transportation told NBC News that The Great American Road Trip Inc. is an independent organization, and \u201chow and who they accept donations from in furtherance of their mission to celebrate America\u2019s 250th birthday is their decision.\u201d
When asked about the sponsors, Tori Barnes, executive director of The Great American Road Trip Inc., said the nonprofit follows three key pillars.
\u201c1. To celebrate America\u2019s 250th<\/sup>birthday; 2. To promote travel and tourism and; 3. To bring focus to the transportation, infrastructure and ingenuity that built America over the past 250 years and will build America over the next 250 years,\u201d Barnes wrote in an email. \u201cOur partners are working with us for those reasons.\u201d
Toyota told NBC News in a statement that it \u201cis proud to support initiatives that celebrate America\u2019s history, people and the spirit of exploration.\u201d
Boeing, Shell, Royal Caribbean Group and United Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment
Questions also arose about how much time Duffy devoted to the project. In an interview, Duffy told Fox News<\/a> that he spent seven months filming \u2014 a disclosure that prompted criticism about his commitment to official duties. Campos-Duffy disputed that characterization, telling Pete Buttigieg\u2019s husband, Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, that filming took place in \u201csmall one and two day stops.\u201d
\u201cYou and I both know that my husband has done more in one year to transform the DOT and ATC than your husband did in over 4 years on the job,\u201d she wrote on X.<\/a>
In his own post, Duffy wrote that the \u201cradical, miserable left\u201d are \u201cupset because they don\u2019t want you to celebrate America! And they definitely don\u2019t want you to teach your kids civics & patriotism. So they tell lies to undermine the mission.\u201d
He added that career ethics and budget officials at the Transportation Department had reviewed and approved both his participation and travel \u201cin accordance with federal rules,\u201d and concluded: \u201cUnder my leadership, DOT has become the most responsive, productive, and transformational in its history.\u201d
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Angela Yang is a culture and trends reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeTransportation Secretary Sean Duffy is making a controversial road trip back to reality TV.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.\u201cThe Great American Road Trip,\u201d a five-part reality series set to air on YouTube in celebration of the United States\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-210456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}