Here’s Who Funded Trump Secretary’s Family Reality TV Show |
Here’s Who Funded Trump Secretary’s Family Reality TV Show
Sean Duffy went on an all-expenses-paid vacation over the course of seven months—and kept collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck too.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s glamorous road trip across the U.S. was paid for by corporate titans.
The former Fox News host claimed that over the course of seven months, he filmed an upcoming reality television show with his wife and their nine children, called The Great American Roadtrip. His wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, referred to their time on the road as “really wholesome, good family stuff.”
But Duffy—a multimillionaire with a taxpayer-funded salary—did not pay for the extravagant trip himself. Instead, the money came from a supposedly independent nonprofit, a 501(c)4 called Great American Road Trip Inc.
In a statement to The New Republic, Duffy’s office described GART as an “independent” entity.
GART was established around August 2025 by Tori Barnes, reported Forbes Thursday. Barnes, according to her LinkedIn profile, spent nearly two decades working as a lobbyist for General Motors before moving to the U.S. Travel Association.
A Department of Transportation memo dated March 6 described GART as a “multi-platform storytelling initiative” that was launched by Duffy and the Transportation Department as part of a “series of initiatives in partnership with Freedom250 to further contribute to this historic year.” Freedom250 is the Trump administration’s effort commemorating the U.S.’s 250th birthday.
Behind the nonprofit’s funding is a medley of industry giants, including aircraft manufacturer Boeing, carmaker Toyota, and gas giant Shell, all proudly displayed on the nonprofit’s website. Other funders were Google, the cruise company Royal Caribbean Group, United Airlines, Chase Travel, and the U.S. Travel Association, among other companies that rely on the regulatory systems of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Politico reported Tuesday that sponsorships ranged in price from $100,000 to $1 million.
The reality-TV series was launched in partnership with Fox News, and is set to be released on YouTube in the lead-up to America’s 250th birthday. Not all 50 states will get airtime. Duffy’s multimonth trip hit just eight states: Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Montana, Massachusetts, as well as Washington, D.C.
In a promotional interview on Fox News last week, Duffy confessed that the trek was his idea.
“I wanted to lean in to America’s 250th birthday,” Duffy said, reminding the panel that he and Campos-Duffy met on a road trip for MTV’s Real World spinoff, Road Rules: All Stars in 1998.
“And so over the course of seven months we just kind of found these moments where I might be able to do some work, take the kids with me, do a road trip—and our motto is to love America is to see America,” Duffy continued, “and there’s so much to see in this beautiful country.”
Campos-Duffy later clarified that the straight-to-streaming family vacation emerged out of a prompt from Donald Trump, who urged his Cabinet to find ways to celebrate America ahead of the 250th anniversary.
The adventure has since received enormous backlash, which Duffy has attributed to the “the radical, miserable left.”
In an extensive statement shared with TNR, DOT spokesperson Nathaniel Sizemore affirmed that “no taxpayer dollars were spent on Secretary Duffy’s family,” and that “the Secretary and his family do not receive any salary or production royalties” from the show.
“Further, celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary is part of Secretary Duffy’s official duties, and The Great American Road Trip is one aspect in support of those responsibilities,” Sizemore wrote.
Sizemore’s note also specified that Duffy’s trip occurred over 24 days between September and May, a span of nine months—not seven, as the secretary himself claimed.
The four-page note also included pre-written verbiage about whether the nonprofit’s donors presented a “conflict of interest.”
“There is a formal agreement between USDOT and the non-profit that expressly states the non-profit will not receive ‘any favorable consideration for any future federal financial assistance,’ action, contract, or other financial award,” Sizemore wrote, adding that Duffy’s participation in the project was “approved by USDOT ethics attorneys.”
This story has been updated.
Trump’s Lawsuit Against The Wall Street Journal Isn’t Going Well
A U.S. district judge ruled that the president can’t use the discovery process in his ridiculous lawsuit against the newspaper.
President Trump’s attempt to sue The Wall Street Journal for defamation has hit a snag.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles ruled Wednesday that Trump can’t seek discovery based on actual malice from the publication in his lawsuit, calling it “improper” and saying the court couldn’t allow Trump to use the legal process “to help him properly plead his claims.”
“Thus, allowing President Trump to conduct discovery on actual malice, where his initial attempt at pleading a defamation claim fell short, is exactly the type of ‘expensive yet groundless litigation’ the Eleventh Circuit has cautioned against,” Gayles wrote in his ruling.
Trump sued the Journal in July 2025, claiming that the newspaper’s reporting that Trump submitted a letter and explicit drawing to a birthday album for Jeffrey Epstein was defamatory, denying the report’s accuracy. In April, Gayles dismissed the lawsuit, saying that Trump didn’t make a plausible allegation that the newspaper acted with “actual malice,” but allowed Trump the ability to file an amended complaint, which he did.
But now, Trump can’t use the discovery process to gather evidence that the Journal defamed him, although Gayles did leave the door open for him to file another amended complaint. It doesn’t seem likely that he’d succeed a third time, as the House Oversight Committee included the birthday book, complete with the drawing from Trump, in a September release of Epstein materials from his estate in September.
Earlier this week, Trump’s Justice Department subpoenaed the Journal’s reporters over leaks from the Department of Defense related to the Iran war, which its publisher, Dow Jones, said “represent an attack on constitutionally protected news gathering.” The president’s continued attacks on the Journal, as well as any other news outlet that criticizes him, not only violate the freedom of the press but are meritless.
MTG Locks Horns With MAGA Influencer as Trump’s Base Fractures
Marjorie Taylor Green tore into her former friend Benny Johnson.
The MAGA movement is splitting at the seams.
Two of the faction’s biggest names—ex-Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and podcaster Benny Johnson—traded blows online Wednesday, airing one another’s rumored dirty laundry after Johnson attacked Kentucky........