Sean Duffy and Family Lay an Egg

Sean Duffy. Photo from the US Government.

From the beginning, The Great American Road Trip was mired in controversy. There was a national furor over a member of Donald Trump‘s administration, Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT) and former Wisconsin congressman Sean Duffy, creating this travel series featuring him, his wife, Fox news TV host Rachel Campos-Duffy, and their nine children. Duffy said he and his family spent seven months on the road trip while he was serving as DOT secretary.

The trailer for the show was released in May, more than two months after President Trump launched his unpopular war with Iran, that raised the price of a gallon of gas to around $4.50 that month. “It is an embarrassment to have [Duffy] going around saying that a road trip — quote — ‘fits any budget’ at a time when more and more Americans cannot afford a road trip, because of the explosion in gas prices,” declared Democrat and former DOT secretary Pete Buttigieg.

In May, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington urged DOT’s inspector general to investigate who paid for Duffy and his family’s participation in the travel, whether the secretary provided payments for reimbursement involving personal expenses and if he violated any federal regulations or laws in filming the series. The watchdog group alleged the venture was sponsored by Toyota, United Airlines, Boeing and other members of the transportation industry that are regulated by DOT, and that this violates federal law.

“My husband is not a corrupt man,” Campos-Duffy told the media.

The show was supposed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence and was scheduled for release in June, in time for the summer travel season, but was delayed for three months to make editing changes. It “took a little longer than we would have liked,” Duffy told the media, with extra editing done to “make sure I come into compliance with all of the ethics rules now that we have in government.” Oh, those pesky ethics rules.

So it wasn’t until last week Wednesday that the show premiered on YouTube, and the critics were not kind. The New York Times’ James Poniewozik described it as “a family-reality-show-meets-sponsor-showcase-meets-political-branding-exercise starring the secretary of transportation.” The series is “a soft-focus family album with a faint whiff of advertising” that is “mostly about watching a Cabinet member Kardashianize his family while vacationing on the corporate dime, as the price of gas and nearly everything else has skyrocketed,” he wrote.

The New Yorker‘s Jon Allsop had a more brutal take: “If his show makes a compelling case for anything, it’s less screen time,” he  declared. The show “never seems to figure out whether it is primarily travel or reality, or whether the scenery or the people should be the star… Ultimately, I came away with no idea who the show is supposed to be for, although, if its paltry early view count is any guide, the answer might be ‘no one.'”

Paltry is putting it nicely. In its first 24 hours on YouTube, the show had fewer than 2,900 views, as Mediate reported.  “As is often the case with shows, viewership steadily declined from there,” the publication noted. “The second episode had approximately 1,700 views in the first day, but the final three had just 750, 625, and 659, respectively.”

But you really have to watch some of the series to appreciate its consistently cringeworthy level of mediocrity. We are more than halfway into the first 24-minute segment before we even get to Philadelphia, where the first travel begins. We get a seemingly endless introduction to the family, including Michael Alfonso, the Duffy son-in-law who is running for Sean’s old congressional seat in Wisconsin and who just won the Republican primary. We meet President Trump and later hear one of the Duffy children praise the president’s “pretty hair,” and meet the secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, whom the text below names as Secretary Bernhardt. It’s a promotional orgy of smiling Republicans.

As for celebrating America’s 250-year history, well, the Duffys often have other priorities. In one show, Paloma Duffy discusses where to attend college with her father. She wants to go to Harvard University, but daddy warns her that the country’s oldest university has “professionalized figuring out how they can take good young girls like you and, I think, corrupt their minds.”

“The Duffys may line dance through Texas, but you will learn more about that state’s history and culture by watching ‘Landman’ or ‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,’ Salon critic Melanie McFarland writes.

“They spend plenty of time visiting the ‘Real World: Boston’ house where Duffy reconnects with his erstwhile housemate, Montana McGlynn, and next to none discussing Boston’s pivotal role in igniting the American Revolution.

“The great state of Arizona is home to the Grand Canyon and hundreds of Waymo autonomous cars (made by Google…  proud sponsor of this American adventure!), but it’s also where Grandpa lives. Charlotte, N.C., is home to the restaurant of one of Campos-Duffy’s oldest friends…”

Another show has a visit to a factory run by Boeing factory, another sponsor. “Wring your hands, if you must, over the impropriety of the U.S. Department of Transportation attaching itself to a series paid for by companies it regulates, including United Airlines, Chase Travel, Toyota, Boeing and Royal Caribbean,” McFarland writes.

Yes, the whole enterprise screams of political promotion and conflicts of interest, but compared to what is going on elsewhere in the Trump administration on a nearly daily basis, The Great American Road Trip is as innocent as the smiles of the youngest Duffy children.