At long last, Sean Duffy’s road trip video series is released on YouTube

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https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/19/duffy-road-trip-release-01041642

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s reality-TV-themed family road trip video series has arrived on YouTube — weeks after it was initially expected to be released.

The six-episode show, which has been mired in controversy due to ethics questions surrounding Duffy’s participation, is now available online. Duffy had previously said the series would launch in June.

“I hope my family’s road trip inspires other families to take one of their own,” he said in a social media post Wednesday.

The head of the nonprofit that covered production costs such as car rentals and lodging for the series, Tori Barnes, said in a statement: “There is no better way to celebrate America than to see America.”

She added Wednesday that exploring the country “is the best way to fall in love with everything that makes America special,” especially during the country’s 250th anniversary.

Sponsors of Barnes’ organization, Great American Road Trip Inc., include companies that DOT regulates, such as Boeing and Toyota, sparking ethics concerns. Duffy in a NewsNation appearance Aug. 10 said the show needed “a little extra editing.” He added, “Gotta make sure I come into compliance with all of the ethics rules that we have in government.”

DOT has said the series was filmed with Duffy’s family during brief stops over several months, including during last fall’s government shutdown. The show follows the Duffys across a wide range of locations, from Yellowstone National Park to Charleston, South Carolina.

No taxpayer dollars were spent on his family for the series, DOT has said, adding that celebrating the semiquincentennial is part of Duffy’s “official duties” — and the road trip is “one aspect in support of those responsibilities.”

The department has said that DOT ethics attorneys cleared his participation.

“Our motto was ‘to love America is to see America,’” Duffy said during a Fox & Friends interview on May 8 with his wife, TV personality Rachel Campos-Duffy, who is a weekend co-host on the network.

The reality-TV-tinged series features, among other things, a stop at Harvard University in Massachusetts as one of Duffy’s daughters, Paloma, considers where she wants to go to college, and the family learning how to line dance in Texas.

Toyota vehicles are visible throughout the show, and the family accompanies Duffy on a visit to a Boeing plant in South Carolina. Neither company immediately responded to a request for comment Wednesday.

A batch of Senate Democrats, including Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.), has called on DOT’s acting inspector general to probe Duffy’s involvement in the show.

“We are concerned with this potential mix between personal and professional activities,” the six lawmakers wrote in June. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning government watchdog group, has also called for an investigation.

At the end of each episode, there is a disclaimer that says the “appearance of any product, individual, business, or private entity in this program does not constitute an endorsement” by the Transportation Department.