Duffy says he and his household filmed “The Nice American Highway Journey” in short home windows, like weekends and college holidays, throughout a seven-month interval.
Division of Transportation/Screenshot by NPR
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Division of Transportation/Screenshot by NPR
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has returned to his actuality tv roots, filming a cross-country street journey along with his household that can be launched as an unscripted sequence forward of America’s 250th birthday in July.
“The Nice American Highway Journey” follows Duffy, his spouse and 9 kids on what he calls “a civic expertise” — and encourages different households to comply with swimsuit.
“The motto is: to like America is to see America,” Duffy says within the four-minute trailer, which dropped Friday. “It is one of the highly effective methods to grasp this huge, stunning, difficult place we name house.”
The video reveals the household snowmobiling out West, visiting Philadelphia’s historic landmarks, thanking veterans at a diner and having fun with waterslides, interspersed with some backseat teasing and hints of a dramatic emergency-room go to. It additionally options cameos by Inside Secretary Doug Burgum, nation musicians Child Rock and John Wealthy, a Benjamin Franklin reenactor and President Trump, who describes their exploits as “just a little journey throughout.”
The trailer prompted backlash virtually instantly.
Critics — from distinguished Democrats to social media commenters — known as it out of contact, because the administration’s struggle in Iran has pushed gasoline costs to their highest stage since July 2022. Some brazenly questioned whether or not taxpayers had footed the invoice for Duffy’s household trip.
“The novel, depressing left has observed our superior Nice American Highway Journey trailer… and so they hate it,” Duffy wrote in a prolonged X response on Saturday. “They’re upset as a result of they do not need you to rejoice America! And so they positively don’t desire you to show your children civics & patriotism.”
These concerned say manufacturing prices had been lined by a nonprofit by the identical identify, The Nice American Highway Journey Inc. Its public checklist of sponsors is stacked with travel-related firms — like Toyota, Boeing and United Airways — with ties to the Division of Transportation, elevating extra questions.
On Monday, the nonprofit authorities watchdog group Residents for Ethics and Accountability in Washington (CREW) filed a grievance with Transportation’s Workplace of Inspector Normal, accusing Duffy of violating federal present and journey guidelines, and calling on the Division of Transportation’s Workplace of Inspector Normal to research.
“You’ve got on a regular basis People who’re combating the worth of gasoline, combating the prices of on a regular basis gadgets, and you’ve got the cupboard secretary saying that he’s going on a visit along with his whole household, which seems to have been funded by the industries that his division is overseeing,” CREW president Donald Sherman tells NPR.
Sherman desires to know the way a lot time the secretary — and authorities employees — spent on the undertaking. And he says Duffy’s insistence that it did not value taxpayers raises much more questions.
“If he is saying that this can be a work undertaking or that he did work on the undertaking, then taxpayer funds must be paying for it,” he provides. “And if it is a trip or some form of private journey, then definitely business shouldn’t be paying for it.”
Duffy mentioned on X that “profession ethics and price range officers” accredited his participation and journey “in accordance with federal guidelines.” Division of Transportation spokesperson Nathaniel Sizemore instructed NPR on Monday that its “regulatory choices are guided by profession security professionals, the legislation, and the info.”
What we all know concerning the present’s origins
Duffy was a actuality TV persona earlier than he entered politics. He starred on The Actual World: Boston in 1997, and met his spouse, Rachel Campos-Duffy on MTV’s Highway Guidelines: All Stars, the next yr.
In a joint Friday look on Fox & Associates — which Campos-Duffy co-hosts on weekends — Campos-Duffy mentioned they’d rebuffed “dozens of actuality TV folks” eager to do a present about their household over the past three many years.
Then, she mentioned, President Trump tasked Cupboard members with celebrating America’s 250th birthday. That impressed Duffy, who mentioned he grew up taking household street journeys from his native Wisconsin to Florida.
“I needed to lean into America’s 250th birthday; Rachel and I really met on a street journey on a actuality TV present,” Duffy mentioned. “And so over the course of seven months, we simply form of discovered these moments the place I’d be capable to do some work, take the children with me, do a street journey.”
Campos-Duffy mentioned they initially figured they’d simply doc their travels by social media movies.
“After which we began speaking about it, we had been like, ‘Let’s return to our roots. Let’s do that one totally free. We’ll put it on YouTube, we’ll let the entire nation see it,'” she mentioned. “If only one extra household says, ‘Load up the automotive and let’s go spend time collectively … let’s examine America throughout her birthday yr,’ then, we mentioned, we can have accomplished one thing fantastic.”
It isn’t clear when the five-part sequence will arrive on YouTube. Duffy instructed Fox & Associates that episodes will drop in June. Tori Barnes, the chief director of The Nice American Highway Journey Inc., instructed NPR on Monday that “the timing and cadence has not but been finalized.”
Duffy poses along with his spouse, Rachel Campos-Duffy, and a few of their kids after being sworn in by Vice President Vance in January 2025.
Rod Lamkey/AP
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Rod Lamkey/AP
Duffy says he was engaged on the street
Barnes says filming befell in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Tennessee, Montana, Wyoming, Florida, South Carolina, Arizona, Louisiana and Massachusetts.
“If I by no means lived on this home, none of you’d be right here,” Duffy, within the trailer, tells his children exterior the transformed Nineteenth-century Boston firehouse the place his season of The Actual World was filmed. Duffy reportedly labored with the identical manufacturing firm that did his season of The Actual World (Barnes didn’t handle NPR’s requests for affirmation).
Duffy has mentioned filming occurred in one- to two-day home windows like “weekends and the children’ spring break” over a seven-month interval. Each the Nice American Highway Journey Inc. and the Division of Transportation declined to substantiate when precisely that window was.
Sizemore, the Division of Transportation spokesperson, instructed NPR over e mail that “in these temporary stops, the Secretary additionally usually carried out extra visits like touring air visitors management towers and assessing port infrastructure.”
“Like with another official engagements, the Division lined the flight,” he added.
Duffy’s tenure has coincided with a chaotic time for air journey, from aviation disasters to shutdown shortages to monetary woes attributable to excessive jet gasoline costs. Sizemore mentioned celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday is a part of Duffy’s official duties, too.
At one level within the trailer, Duffy says to his household whereas sitting on a sofa: “Somebody has to pay for this operation; I gotta go to work.”
The journey was funded by firms Duffy oversees
The Toyota emblem on the road-trip automotive is displayed prominently within the four-minute trailer.
Division of Transportation / Screenshot by NPR
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Division of Transportation / Screenshot by NPR
Because the trailer made the rounds on social media, many commenters requested how the journey was paid for. Some anxious it was costing taxpayers, whereas others mentioned its product placement — just like the Toyota automotive, a Japanese model, prominently featured within the video — raised questions of corruption. Sherman, of CREW, agrees.
“One has to wonder if the choice to prominently function Toyota on this undertaking is as a result of Toyota paid for a sponsorship or as a result of the secretary really thinks that selling Toyota is in the very best curiosity of the American public, American automakers and the people who work for that business,” he mentioned.
Duffy wrote on social media — and the Division of Transportation reiterated — that “zero taxpayer {dollars} had been spent on my household.” None of them acquired a wage or manufacturing royalties, he mentioned, and the Nice American Highway Journey, Inc. lined manufacturing prices.
Barnes confirmed the nonprofit lined manufacturing prices, although didn’t specify what these amounted to. Sizemore, of the Division of Transportation, mentioned the nonprofit additionally lined “issues like gasoline, automotive leases, lodging and actions.”
“The Nice American Highway Journey Inc is an impartial group,” Sizemore mentioned. “How and who they settle for donations from in furtherance of their mission to rejoice America’s 250th birthday is their choice.”
The Nice American Highway Journey Inc. describes itself as an impartial nonprofit 501(c)(4) group, “absolutely funding its personal efforts to rejoice and share America’s story.” (An IRS database search didn’t yield any outcomes for a company by that identify, and Barnes didn’t reply to NPR’s requests for an identification quantity.)
The nonprofit’s web site lists over a dozen sponsors “powering America’s street journey,” most of that are within the journey or transportation business. They embrace Toyota, Boeing and Royal Caribbean, which Sherman says have been topic to investigation — and in some instances, fines — by the Division of Transportation in recent times “and definitely may very well be sooner or later.”
“[The nonprofit] has grow to be a car for offering entry, to its sponsors, to a cupboard secretary, which ought to make on a regular basis People who can not pay for related entry actually involved,” Sherman provides.
In one other signal of the closeness between authorities and business, Barnes, the director of The Nice American Highway Journey Inc., most not too long ago served as the chief vice chairman of public affairs and coverage on the U.S. Journey Affiliation.
She instructed NPR that the nonprofit has “three key pillars”: celebrating America’s 250th birthday, selling journey and tourism and highlighting “the transportation, infrastructure and ingenuity that constructed America over the previous 250 years and can construct America over the subsequent 250 years.”
“We’re supported by companions who share these targets and consider in encouraging People to rediscover the folks, locations and experiences that outline our nation,” Barnes wrote in response to questions on potential conflicts of curiosity.
Sherman hopes CREW’s nine-page grievance, in addition to the mounting public curiosity, will immediate the Division of Transportation’s inspector common to launch an investigation into whether or not Duffy violated authorities ethics guidelines.
He says the American folks need to know what occurred, and different authorities officers must be placed on discover, “particularly as a result of I think about as we get nearer to the 250th anniversary, there can be extra of those makes an attempt to form of muddy the waters between what’s official motion and what’s not.”
Fuel costs might crush cross-country street journey goals
“The Nice American Highway Journey” — each the sequence and the nonprofit — goals to focus on iconic locations throughout the nation and encourage households to go to them.
However Duffy’s name to “gasoline up the automotive, pack up the children, get behind the wheel and get out and see America” has gotten a blended reception. Fuel costs are skyrocketing because of the U.S. struggle in Iran, as many critics — from social media commenters to Duffy’s predecessor — had been fast to level out.
“I really like a great street journey, however that is brutally out of contact: a Trump Cupboard member making a documentary about himself whereas common households cannot afford street journeys anymore, as a result of Trump and his struggle put gasoline costs by the roof,” Pete Buttigieg, transportation secretary underneath President Biden, wrote on X.
Sizemore, the Division of Transportation spokesperson, blamed Democrats for having “compelled People into costly electrical autos” and praised Duffy for supporting Trump’s “power dominance agenda.”
Nonetheless, many YouTube and Instagram commenters lamented {that a} street journey just like the Duffys’ is financially out of attain for them, no less than for now.
When requested concerning the excessive value of gasoline, Barnes, the chief director of the nonprofit, pointed to shorter road-trip choices.
“Whether or not one goes simply two hours away from your own home or two days. You would go to the seaside, you may go to [a] campground,” Barnes instructed NPR over e mail. “It is concerning the journey of getting out and seeing America.”
Duffy made a really related case on Fox & Associates days earlier.
“You would go for 2 hours, you may drive for 2 days, you may do a day journey,” he mentioned. “It matches any price range to do a street journey.”
