LOS ANGELES — “To love America is to see America,” says U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in the first episode of his six-part reality TV travel series, “Great American Road Trip.” And the country sure does look splendid through the windows of brand new cars, upscale hotels and expensive ski resorts.

Funded by corporate sponsors that just happen to be regulated by Duffy’s department, the YouTube series that premiered Wednesday follows Duffy, his wife, Fox News weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy, and seven of their nine children as they traverse the nation in search of adventure (they visit their two other kids in Texas, where they attend college).

This series is designed “to inspire and motivate Americans” to travel during the country’s semiquincentennial celebration, never mind the astronomical gas prices. The Duffys don’t have to top up the tanks in their roomy lender vehicles because the trip is paid for by corporate sponsors that include Boeing, Toyota, Shell, United Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Lyft and the U.S. Travel Association. There is a disclaimer before each episode stating that their cross-country excursion is funded by a nonprofit and no taxpayer dollars were used to pay for the series.

In the three episodes reviewed for this story, the Duffys are provided with different Toyota vehicles for each segment. With their kids, ranging in age from 6 to 26, they visit the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Sean Duffy’s old digs in Boston and the snowy splendor of Montana and Wyoming. Their travels will bring them as far as a dude ranch in Texas and the Grand Canyon.

The family start their trip by stopping by the White House to say goodbye to another reality TV veteran, President Donald Trump. Surrounded by the gold-leaf flourishes that now line the walls of the Oval Office, they tell him they’re headed out on the great American road trip, and he looks like he couldn’t care less.

At the Liberty Bell, Sean Duffy says, “It’s a great symbol of religious and political freedom in America,” and it’s there they inexplicably meet the secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum. Apparently everyone’s taken time off work for the show.

Later, a tour guide brings them through Independence Hall. Duffy points out a chair with a sun symbol painted on its crest. “Ben Franklin [might] look at that sun on the top of the chair and think, ‘Is this a rising sun or setting sun?’ He concluded it’s a rising sun,” said Duffy. “Now 150 years after the formation of this country, that sun is still rising.”

As are the donations to the Republican Party.

Collectively, the sponsors of “The Great American Road Trip” spent more than $100 million in federal lobbying in 2025, according to a Forbes review of quarterly LD-2 filings.

It was probably a mere coincidence that moments later, Sean Duffy name-checked one of the country’s most prominent Republican megadonors when the family stopped at the National Constitution Center. “Ken Griffin [Citadel CEO] bought one of the original copies on the Constitution. It’s so cool because we have American patriots who love the Constitution and love history who are willing to invest their money to buy a copy and not hide them away but have them be here in Philadelphia, the birthplace of democracy to be preserved for generations to come.”

Griffin has poured tens of millions of dollars into GOP congressional and Senate races over the years. He purchased a rare first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution for $43.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction in November 2021, loaning it to the center for display this year.

The dubious nature of Duffy’s show hasn’t gone unnoticed. Democratic senators called on the Department of Transportation inspector general to open an official investigation into Duffy’s involvement in the show due to “potential misconduct and violations of federal laws, rules, and regulations,” alleging “the Secretary accepted gas, lodging, and other travel expenses from a non-profit funded by the very companies the Secretary regulates.”

But who wants to think of work stressors on a family road trip?

Episode 2 opens with Rachel narrating their trip to Boston, “where American history helped shape the nation.”

The family visits “The Real World” house where dad got his start. Sean starred in the 1997 Boston season, while Rachel starred in the 1994 San Francisco edition. They met in 1998 while filming the MTV spinoff show, “Road Rules: All Stars.” It’s how he met his “Latina Butterfly,” he tells the kids.

Montana McGlynn, a former castmate and roommate, greets them at the door. Nothing much happens inside, except one of Duffy’s daughters reminds him of what he said to one of his castmates on the show: “You called Kameelah [Phillips] a bitch.”

“I didn’t…” he protests.

Rachel jumps in: “It was a different time.”

(He did, during an argument. It was 1997.)

Truly disturbing are the conversations the Duffy’s have with their daughter Paloma about where she plans to go to college. She wants to go to Harvard. Her parents, who have raised their kids in a conservative Catholic household, want her to go to a religious college. They are “nervous” about “dropping her off at a place that would undermine that or try and undo” her conservative upbringing.

“I want [my kids] to get a lot of viewpoints, but I don’t want them fed only one viewpoint that’s contrary to the way my kids were raised,” says Duffy. “They [Harvard] have professionalized how they can take good young girls like you and corrupt their minds.”

“I went to extremely conservative school in an extremely conservative family,” argues their daughter. “If I go to a liberal setting, that’s a way more well-rounded education than if I went … to a conservative college.”

“But they’re so good at it,” answers dad. “You’ll see people go to a conservative school from a conservative family, and they get perverted and contorted.”

A disdain for secular education and a mistrust of those outside their belief system are part of this American road trip.

Episode 3 takes them to Montana and Wyoming, this time in two new Toyota trucks. It features a snowmobile adventure and a trip to the ER for their son Patrick, who was diagnosed with severe constipation. The only redeeming aspect of the show happens here, on a ski slope, when their youngest daughter Valentina, who was born with Down syndrome, is treated to a lesson via an adaptive ski school.

Otherwise the “Great American Road Trip” is Trump-era grift, wrapped in a reality show and paid for by organizations Duffy’s department is meant to oversee.

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(Lorraine Ali is news and culture critic of the Los Angeles Times.)

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