Topline
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy claims funding for his upcoming YouTube video series was above board—but a lack of transparency from sponsors with key issues in front of the Trump administration continues to raise questions of ethics and conflicts of interest.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s family filmed a reality TV show that portrays a road trip that never actually happened.
The Great American Road Trip, Inc./Screenshot
Key Facts
The Great American Road Trip, Inc., a non-profit organization set up for the Duffys’ road trip reality series, sold top-tier “platinum” partnerships for $1 million, with “gold” ($500,000), “silver” ($250,000) and “bronze” ($100,000) levels also available, according to the pitch deck obtained by Politico earlier this month.
The road trip series website displays the British oil and gas company Shell alongside Boeing and Toyota, but Shell declined to confirm to Forbes whether it had also contributed $1 million for the project.
Electronic Payments Coalition, a lobbying group representing the interests of major payment card networks, confirmed it “was a sponsor of the road trip” but would not say how much it had contributed.
Google, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and CRH, a provider of building materials for highways and other critical infrastructure, did not respond to Forbes’ inquiries on how much they contributed to the road trip.
The American Bus Association told Forbes it was a bronze-level ($100,000) sponsor—but other organizations displayed at the same level told Forbes they had not made financial contributions and instead provided logistical support as “in-kind contributions.”
Tangent
Bunim/Murray Productions, the reality-TV company that produced the road trip series as well as the 1990s show where the Duffys met, declined to share The Great American Road Trip production budget.
What Is The Great American Road Trip?
The Transportation Secretary, once a lobbyist for the U.S. airline industry, said promoting summer road trips as a “civic experience” is part of his job. The Great American Road Trip, Inc., is a non-profit run by Tori Barnes, a former lobbyist for the U.S. travel industry. Barnes told The Wall Street Journal she was surprised by the blowback the project has received, while declining to provide financial details for the project or the Duffys’ itineraries. The five-part series, which is slated to air on YouTube in June, was filmed over eight separate mini trips over a seven-month period stretching from September through April.
Which Sponsors Will—and Won’t—say What They’ve Spent On Duffy’s Road Trip
At the “platinum” sponsor level are Toyota and Boeing (each contributed $1 million, according to The Wall Street Journal) and Shell (declined to confirm how much it donated). At the next tier are Google, EPC, CRH and Royal Caribbean (each declined to say whether they were “gold” or “silver” sponsors—or how much they paid). At the bottom tier are the American Bus Association (confirmed to be “bronze” sponsor for $100,000); NBC/Comcast, United Airlines and Enterprise Rent-A-Car (all declined to respond); Visit Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Vacations and the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau (each said provided in-kind contributions rather than cash); and the U.S. Travel Association (said it’s a “proud sponsor” but declined to clarify whether it provided funding or in-kind contributions). Brand USA, a public-private partnership that markets the U.S. as a destination to the world, told Forbes it “did not provide cash funding and had no role in the filming or production of Secretary Duffy’s series.”
Ethical Concerns Surrounding Sean Duffy’s Road Trip
The Transportation department told Forbes that Duffy and his family didn’t earn a salary or royalties from the project, but critics argue the Duffy family was compensated in corporate-sponsored perks, including flights, hotel stays, a cruise, whitewater rafting, snowmobiling and skiing. “The reason why people have questions is because [Duffy] has mixed his work with this quasi-personal, quasi-official travel,” Donald Sherman, president and CEO of the liberal-leaning legal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told Forbes. His organization filed a complaint with the DOT inspector general last week. Another concern , Sherman said, is that many of the road trip’s corporate sponsors—including Boeing, United Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Toyota, Shell and Enterprise Rent-A-Car—are in the travel arena, which Duffy’s department is in charge of regulating. “The industry this secretary is supposed to be overseeing appears to be footing the bill,” he said. “Also, it shouldn’t be lost on people that you have the great American road trip where a Japanese Motor Company is being promoted by the Secretary of Transportation.” The three top-tier sponsors listed on The Great American Road Trip website—Boeing, Toyota and Shell—have collectively spent $5.2 million lobbying the U.S. government so far in 2026.
What About Sponsors Outside The Travel Industry?
Every major sponsor of the Duffys’ road trip has at least one policy issue before the Trump administration. Google, which has spent $4.1 million lobbying the government so far in 2026, is facing multiple major antitrust lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and various state attorneys general, while its Waymo business has a vested interest in the automated-vehicle framework Duffy’s DOT is creating. So far in 2026, the Electronic Payments Coalition, whose members include major airlines, has spent $2.5 million lobbying the U.S. government. The “big four” U.S. airlines—American, Delta, Southwest and United—collectively raked in roughly $24 billion through their co-branded rewards credit cards last year. “Credit cards and credit card rewards help make journeys possible through cashback programs, savings at the pump, complimentary hotel stays, and airline miles,” EPC’s executive chairman Richard Hunt said in a statement provided to Forbes, though he did not confirm how much his company spent on the sponsorship. The Irish building material firm CRH, which spent $190,000 lobbying the U.S. government in the first quarter of 2026, noted in its 2025 annual report that about half of expected federal highway funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 “has yet to be deployed, highlighting the potential runway ahead.”
Contra
“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,” the DOT told Forbes in an email. The agency said officials reviewed “and approved both the Secretary’s participation and individual travel in accordance with federal rules” and Duffy often combined work and vacation time, for example, “meeting with air traffic controllers and assessing port infrastructure.” Production costs were covered by the non-profit organization, Duffy’s wife, Fox News personality Rachel Campos-Duffy wrote on X. “No one in my family—including my husband—were paid to do this.”
Others Donated Support, Not Funds
The Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau told Forbes it “did not provide any funding” related to the production. “Our involvement was limited to standard tourism support and staff assistance, including making introductions to Philadelphia attractions of interest during their visit,” according to a statement shared with Forbes, adding, “Our understanding is that organizations providing logistical and in-kind support were recognized as ‘sponsors’ merely as an acknowledgement.” The U.S. Travel Association (USTA), the lobby group representing the nation’s $1.3 trillion tourism industry, is “proud to support an effort that highlights the beauty and attractions of our country from coast to coast,” Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the USTA, said in a statement shared with Forbes. The non-profit group declined to confirm whether it provided funds for the project. The parent company of two other sponsors, Visit Grand Canyon and Yellowstone Vacations, told Forbes it “was not a financial sponsor” and had provided “minimal in-kind assistance” to The Great American Road Trip series.
What We Don’t Know
How much driving the Duffys actually did. Both the DOT and The Great American Road Trip, Inc. declined to share details of the itinerary, but the segments of the trip suggest the Duffy family flew into convenient airports and did minimal driving between destinations. The trailer shows the family meeting President Trump in the Oval Office, viewing the Liberty Bell and running up the “Rocky Steps” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, enjoying a cruise, meeting with Kid Rock in Nashville and snowmobiling in Montana, among other activities. It would be difficult for average Americans to replicate the Duffys’ travels on a single road trip, as the states visited by the family—Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Wyoming, Montana, Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Arizona, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C.—are not contiguous.
Tangent
Rachel Campos-Duffy’s book, “All-American Patriotism,” will be published by Fox News Books later this month. It includes a dedication to President Trump and a forward from Erika Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA.
Further Reading
Here’s How Much Multimillionaire Transport Secretary Sean Duffy Got Paid While Taking A Corporate-Sponsored Family Road Trip (Forbes)
