Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has claimed that his sponsored road trip reality show was meant to unite the country.
In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, Duffy and his family filmed themselves on a cross-country road trip in a forthcoming YouTube series titled The Great American Road Trip.
“I want to encourage Americans to see their beautiful country, and as we can see from this hearing, there’s a lot of partisanship in America,” Duffy told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday. “Experiencing your country through the window of a car is a beautiful thing. It actually unites America.”
Senate Democrats shared concerns about how the Duffy family vacation was being funded — through companies with potential business before federal transportation regulators.
Sponsors for the trip, which reportedly paid up to $1 million, included Boeing, United Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Toyota, Enterprise and Shell.
The Independent has reached out to the companies for comment.
Boeing is one of the biggest government contractors, with more than $15 billion in contracts, according to federal spending watchdog OpenSpending.
The $1 million “Platinum Partner” package for the project included “up to 6 VIP invitations to receptions, roundtables, or networking events,” according to a pitch deck obtained by Politico.
Defending the project, Duffy told the Senate subcommittee, “This body told me that I’m supposed to promote tourism and travel.”
“Then it shouldn’t be paid for by people that you oversee,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York responded.
Another Democrat, Senator Patty Murray from Washington state, also pointed out that promoting a road trip was “out of touch” given that Americans are struggling with soaring gas prices amid President Donald Trump’s Iran war.
Murray asked Duffy if he knew how much gas his family used on their road trip. He said he didn’t know, but “I know it was not as much as it was under [former President Joe] Biden, which was $5 a gallon. It’s only $4.50 now.”
Gas prices have more than doubled since the war began at the end of February. Iran retaliated against U.S. and Israeli strikes with the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil passageway in the Middle East, causing prices to skyrocket.
“Americans don’t have corporation sponsors to pay for their gas,” Murray said, adding, “I echo Senator Gillibrand’s concerns that it really raises some serious ethics concerns about who you answer to.”
Duffy denied that there were ethical concerns with his reality show, telling Murray, “There’s a memo of understanding that says no one gets any benefit for anything they do to participate.”
It’s unclear when Duffy’s road trip series will debut, but a trailer for the show was posted to YouTube earlier this month.
In the teaser, the transportation secretary encouraged Americans to “gas up the car, pack up the kids, get behind the wheel and get out and see America.”
