Sean Duffy's Grifty, Corporate-Sponsored Road Trip Show Simply Proves Devotion To 'Transportation'
How are YOU celebrating America and $5 gas this summer?
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is doing his part to cozy up to the companies his agency regulates — or to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, same thing — by returning to his reality show roots, in The Great American Road Trip, a 5-part YouTube show that will be released sometime in the leadup to July 4.
In the series, Duffy, his wife (Fox Stepford Unit Rachel Campos-Duffy) and their nine kids pretend to take a cross-country road trip to great American landmarks, except the “road trip” was filmed in bits and pieces over seven months, not two weeks in a station wagon. Still, it’s patriotic AF, and didn’t cost taxpayers anything, he says, because it was all paid for by private donations to a nonprofit, The Great American Road Trip Inc., which lists as its sponsors a whole bunch of travel-related companies — including Toyota, Boeing, United Airlines, Shell, and Royal Caribbean Group — that are regulated by the Department of Transportation.
DOT and the nonprofit released a very slick trailer for the series last week, promising family fun, backseat kibitzing, and probably not any DUIs since Uncle Pete and Uncle Kash weren’t along for the ride. The kids even get to meet Donald Trump! (It’s unclear who’ll pick up the tab for any resulting psychotherapy.)
For some reason, those “clean government” schoolmarms at Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) went and filed a 9-page complaint Monday, demanding that DOT’s Inspector General investigate the deal.
Probably because they just hate fun. Or maybe it was the prominent placement of the Toyota logo and other brands in several shots.
Oh, and the kids got to meet Kid Rock, so that was pretty cool, too. This show’s gonna be great, and we’re sure there’s no way its call for Americans to “gas up the car, pack up the kids, get behind the wheel and get out and see America” could backfire because of average gas prices that keep edging up towards $5 a gallon. Maybe by the time the thing is up on YouTube next month, gas will be $2 again.
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Those no-fun fuddy-duddies at CREW say that it’s not ethical for a Cabinet secretary’s family to be getting free travel and goodies paid for by the companies Duffy’s agency regulates, but that’s actually not a problem at all! For one thing, Duffy’s family wasn’t paid for being in the series. And for another thing, the travel and goodies didn’t come directly from the corporate sponsors, but from the nonprofit that laundered all the gifts from the corporate sponsors, making it all 100 percent ethical.
Plus, Duffy always made sure that during the one or two days he went somewhere to record the show, he’d do a little government work in that location, like visiting an airport control tower so he could inspect things. We bet he also wowed the air traffic control staff with his dead-on delivery of lines like “Guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.” And because he was “working” during those visits, Duffy’s trips to meet the fam at filming locations were ethically paid for by taxpayers.
As a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization, The Great American Road Trip Inc. doesn’t have to disclose the identities of donors other than the corporate sponsors on that one page. That way, if a lot of money from individual executives happened to pay for parts of the Duffy Family Grift Tour and maybe some gifts, we won’t need to worry about it. Won’t it be fun to see the Duffys take their new luxury motorhome to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to race against Clarence and Ginny Thomas in theirs? (OK, I might watch that. Also, the “new motorhome” is a satirical invention for this paragraph, not an actionable falsehood under the “actual malice” standard.)
Here’s our favorite detail, from the Atlantic (gift link): The agreement between the Transportation Department and The Great American Road Trip Inc. includes very ethical language making clear that “the donor” will not receive “any favorable consideration for any future federal assistance” in exchange for its generosity. But there’s a catch, and it’s a doozy:
The problem is that the “donor” in this case is the nonprofit—but the agreement makes no mention of the sponsoring companies and their role in the show. Those companies, not the Great American Road Trip Inc., could stand to gain from funding this project.
Don’t worry, though, it’s all fine, ethics-wise, because the government ethics lawyers say it’s all on the up and up.
But wait! Over at Newsmax, host Greg Kelly sees a sinister plot in all this! Not, of course, in Duffy’s family getting some nice treats from companies Daddy might have to give some favors. Only libs think that’s a problem. No, Kelly is worried that poor innocent Sean Duffy is being set up by the Deep State to take a fall!
Kelly acknowledged that the trailer for the series was maybe not all that appropriate, saying “it does disappoint me when he makes a demo reel for a reality show on basically our time.” But his greater concern was that this could be bad for Duffy:
I don't think this should be happening when you have a job in the cabinet. That's a big deal. It's administrative job, and it's a political job too.
So, here's where I think the Deep State set him up: He asked for permission from the men and women of the Department of Transportation.
Noting a tweet where Duffy explained, “Career and ethics budget officials at the Department of Transportation reviewed and approved both my participation and individual travel in accordance with federal rules,” Kelly pointed out that was the entire problem!!!
“Career ethics and budget officials,” Kelly scoffed scornfully, looking askance.
Look, if you gotta talk to “career ethics and budget officials” to find out if you can do something or not, if you actually have to ask the question, maybe you just shouldn't do it in the first place. OK?
I think they set him up. They gave the OK to this knowing that he could go down. A lot of people don't like it.
Kelly was pretty sure it was just like how they put Kristi Noem on that horse so she could be fired for it later, so the problem isn’t the grift, it’s the fact that the grift could put you out of the excellent job that you’re doing in service of Donald Trump and America.
Look, having to be “ethical” is just such a minefield for Republicans that they’re safest just not dealing with such unfamiliar and tricksy territory. Better to do the “right thing,” if only to keep the Deep State from destroying you.
[NPR / Atlantic (gift link) / CREW / Media Matters]
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My travel plans include gassing up, driving to Sean Duffy's house and letting the air out of his tires.
Then ...Waffle House.
I don’t know why I subjected myself to that video, but: 9 kids, seriously?! And you took them to visit Kid Rock?!
I just want it to stop.