Following the Money on Sean Duffy’s Road Trip

The Revolving Door Project, a Prospect partner, scrutinizes the executive branch and presidential power. Follow them at therevolvingdoorproject.org.

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Nearly three decades after starring on MTV’s The Real World: Boston, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is returning to reality television. Despite a cabinet-level appointment, a responsibility to oversee the nation’s transportation infrastructure, airports around the country struggling with a critical shortage of air traffic controllers, and multiple deadly commercial airline crashes, Duffy has apparently found time over the last seven months to film a five-part series about his family of 11 traveling across the country on what he calls The Great American Road Trip.

The announcement, which took place on Fox News—Duffy’s former employer, and the current employer of Duffy’s wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy—was accompanied by clips of the series trailer featuring laughing children and panoramic shots from around the country as the family celebrated America’s 250th anniversary. In one moment, Campos-Duffy excitedly compared the family atmosphere of a road trip to normal life: “This is really wholesome good family stuff. This is what families need to do.” At one point, Campos-Duffy excitedly contrasted the family atmosphere of a road trip to what she described as the “Pornhub world” of normal life. “This is really wholesome good family stuff. This is what families need to do.”

But amid the good clean family fun, even distracted viewers were sure to spot the extended product placement cutaways, like the conspicuous shot of the family Toyota or the extended advertisement for Royal Caribbean Cruises’ Icon of the Seas (which is mentioned by name).

At one point in the trailer, Duffy tells his kids, “someone has to pay for this operation, I gotta go to work.” Viewers might understandably assume this means that Duffy paid for this vacation out of his $253,000 salary as the secretary of transportation. Yet costs were actually picked up by a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group led by a registered lobbyist and funded by over a dozen large corporations—including Royal Caribbean and Toyota—many of which are actively lobbying the department Duffy runs.

The nonprofit organization, also called The Great American Road Trip, is not required to disclose donors because of its structure as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization. But the website thanks 17 corporations for their sponsorship, including Boeing, Toyota, Shell, Google, Royal Caribbean, the American Bus Association, United Airlines, the U.S. Travel Association, Chase Travel, Brand USA, and CRH, a building materials conglomerate.

The organization is led by Victoria (Tori) Barnes, a registered lobbyist for the U.S. Travel Association and Hilton Worldwide and the daughter of former Congressman Bill Emerson (R-MO) and Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO). In addition to her current lobbying, Barnes is a former longtime executive at both the U.S. Travel Association and at General Motors, where she frequently interacted with the Department of Transportation. Barnes also has ties to Boom Supersonic, an airline manufacturing firm that hopes to bring back supersonic passenger jets and has lobbied the Department of Transportation nine times since early 2025.

The Barnes-led organization not only funded Duffy’s road trip, but also encourages Americans to embark on their own road trips to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. Among the many sites featured as potential road trip destinations are Boeing’s Everett, Washington, factory and museum. Boeing is a sponsor of The Great American Road Trip.

A Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesperson confirmed to Politico that the nonprofit group covered “gas, car rentals, lodging, and activities,” though Politico also confirmed that Duffy availed himself of DOT transportation at times, making additional stops for “touring air traffic control towers and assessing port infrastructure” in order to justify the use of public funds for Duffy’s transportation. DOT spokesperson Nathaniel Sizemore defended the use of government funds to pay for Duffy’s travel on these occasions, telling the Prospect, “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.” Despite this, the spokesperson maintained that no taxpayer funds were used on Secretary Duffy’s family.

The Duffy-led DOT has been a reliable ally for many of the corporations listed as sponsors of The Great American Road Trip, eliminating consumer protections and abandoning regulatory actions that had begun under his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg.

According to a pitch deck obtained by Politico, Great American Road Trip sponsors contributed between $100,000 and $1 million each, receiving more prominent recognition on the website (hence the sponsor disclosure) and the series in return for larger donations. Firms donating higher amounts were also promised “logo placement in up to 10 produced video features” and “opportunity for strategically placed speaking roles within program segments,” presumably in reference to the not-so-subtle product placement that featured heavily in the show’s trailer.

But brand prominence was not the big sell of the slide deck. Larger donors were also allowed “up to 6 VIP invitations to receptions, roundtables, or networking events,” presumably giving company insiders or their lobbyists exclusive access to Secretary Duffy and his team during filming. How this insider access and the donations to the Duffy family vacation fund may have altered decisions being made by Duffy’s Department of Transportation is unknowable, but the ways in which Duffy has worked in these firms’ favor are all too apparent.

UNITED AIRLINES IS A SPONSOR of The Great American Road Trip, as is the U.S. Travel Association (USTA), which includes American, Delta, and United among its highest-tier, “Engage-level” members. These airlines and the USTA lobbied hard against consumer protection regulations enacted under the Buttigieg DOT, with Barnes herself writing multiple letters to Buttigieg on behalf of the USTA and its members opposing proposed rulemaking by the department.

Under Duffy’s leadership, the DOT has stalled several of those rulemakings, including a rule that would require airlines to allow children under 13 to sit beside their accompanying adult at no extra charge, despite Congress mandating the rule back in 2016 and Consumer Reports finding in 2020 that airlines were upcharging parents for sitting with children as young as one.

Duffy’s DOT has also withdrawn a proposed rulemaking on airline passenger rights that would have guaranteed passengers cash compensation for flight delays that were a result of controllable factors. A Biden-era rule mandating airlines disclose junk fees to consumers was struck down for procedural reasons by the Fifth Circuit in January of last year, and the Duffy-led DOT has shown no interest in reimposing the rule. All of these policies were staunchly opposed by the airline industry.

Last July, the DOT approved United’s partnership with JetBlue, allowing the larger airline to make use of JetBlue’s coveted flight slots at JFK Airport, while also allowing customers to book flights on either airline on each other’s websites and to accrue frequent-flier miles through flights operated by the other firm. In 2023, a similar partnership between JetBlue and American Airlines was struck down in court after being challenged by the Biden Justice Department for the effect it would have on a consolidated market.

Perhaps most glaring of all, DOT enforcement orders against airlines have fallen off a cliff since Duffy took over. The agency did not issue a single fine in 2025 for the first time since 1996 (the first year for which DOT electronic records exist). In fact, of the four orders issued by the Duffy-led DOT, three issue credits to the airlines in the amount of their outstanding penalties, functionally forgiving the remainder of the debt owed for infractions. The final one dismissed a complaint without penalty.

Incidentally, in March it was revealed that Duffy’s son-in-law, Michael Alfonso, a candidate for Congress in Duffy’s old seat in Wisconsin’s Seventh Congressional District, was receiving thousands of dollars in campaign donations from lobbyists interested in the Department of Transportation, including Delta.

As airlines have become increasingly reliant on frequent-flier programs and co-branded credit cards to pad their profits, credit card companies have had to pay increased attention to the DOT as well, despite it not being a financial regulator. Two of these firms were donors to The Great American Road Trip: Chase Travel and the Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC). The EPC is a credit card trade association with members including JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, and Visa, while Chase Travel is the rewards portal for Chase-branded credit cards. The EPC was displayed on the larger second tier of sponsors on the website, presumably indicating that the EPC had bought in at either the gold or silver partner level (it is unclear which) for between $250,000 and $500,000, while Chase is featured on the lower third tier of sponsors.

In 2024, the Buttigieg-led DOT launched an inquiry into the four largest airlines’ rewards programs. These programs, which are closely tied to major credit card companies through co-branded cards (for instance, the Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards credit card, the Chase United Explorer Card, and the Delta SkyMiles American Express Credit Card), have flourished under relatively lax oversight. In 2025, Delta made over $8 billion from co-branded credit cards, while American Airlines made over $6 billion, with credit card companies like Chase and EPC members also making substantial profits. The Department of Transportation’s inquiry into the devaluation of rewards points, hidden fees, and surveillance pricing threatened to throw a wrench in the gears of the gravy train, though. Luckily for the airlines and the credit card firms, with Duffy at the helm, the inquiry appears to have stalled.

The largest and first sponsor listed on the Great American Road Trip website, Boeing, appears to have committed to either a gold or platinum partnership, donating between $500,000 and $1 million. Boeing reported five contacts with the DOT between 2025 and 2026, but VIP access to the secretary in return for the embattled company’s substantial donation appears to be paying off in more ways than just getting the Everett, Washington, factory featured on the guide for prospective road-trippers.

After a 2024 incident where a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX mid-flight, the FAA imposed a strict cap on the number of MAX planes Boeing would be allowed to make per month. That cap, designed to ensure that corners were not cut and that Boeing planes would meet strict safety guidelines, was lifted by the FAA last October. Boeing has been able to increase the production of its 737 MAX jet from 38 to 42 per month, which means hundreds of millions of dollars a month in increased output.

Last September, the FAA also restored Boeing’s ability to perform final safety inspections and certify its own aircraft after the company was stripped of the right to do so as a result of multiple crashes resulting in over 300 deaths. The certification process had been turned over to the FAA by the first Trump administration in 2019, while the company was stripped of the ability to certify its 787 Dreamliners in 2022, after a series of safety incidents.

WHILE PERHAPS THE MOST BLATANT conflicts of interest are with the aviation industry, those are far from the only ones inherent in The Great American Road Trip.

The specific regulatory requests being made by Toyota are less apparent than those of the airline industry. But the secretary of transportation oversees the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency in charge of vehicle safety, recalls, and associated penalties. NHTSA also regulates vehicle fuel efficiency standards, which the Duffy-led DOT has rolled back to great fanfare from both the auto industry and oil and gas companies. (Shell is also a top-level sponsor of The Great American Road Trip.) Any enforcement actions against Toyota (or lack thereof) invite the question, was this affected by their paying for a Duffy family getaway?

Google, which is listed in the second tier of sponsors, owns the autonomous vehicle subsidiary Waymo, whose lobbyists reported eight contacts with the Department of Transportation in 2025 and another two so far in 2026. With autonomous vehicles (AVs) increasingly becoming a reality on the streets of cities across the country, Waymo could be hoping for federal preemption of state and local laws that block the deployment of AVs, or simply a leg up over its other AV competitors.

The American Bus Association, another sponsor, is governed by the DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. In Trump’s first term, the DOT ended a California regulation that would have mandated a 30-minute lunch break for bus drivers working five hours, with an additional 30-minute break for those who work ten hours. While any specific ask is still unknown, the American Bus Association has lobbied DOT five times since 2025.

Cement Roadstone Holdings is just as reliant on the Department of Transportation for its business as other sponsors. CRH is a building materials company that is closely tied to infrastructure work across the country. The firm, which is listed in the second tier of sponsors, has reported lobbyist contact with the DOT four times in 2025 and an additional time so far in 2026, all for the purpose of discussing federal infrastructure funds. In the company’s Q1 earnings highlights, the firm stated that ongoing expenditures from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act were keeping demand robust, and that additional money from a possible highway funding bill could bring in additional revenue. The firm stands to benefit handsomely from Sean Duffy’s proposed highway expansions.

While the Department of Transportation has relatively little oversight over cruise ship regulations, Royal Caribbean Cruises bought a spot on the second tier of the Great American Road Trip sponsors list. While the specific asks of Royal Caribbean are still unknown, it is possible that the cruise industry hopes to avail itself of DOT port infrastructure development program funding for the expansion of cruise ship facilities.

Perhaps the most confusing and little-known sponsor of Duffy’s trip is Brand USA, a private-public partnership program to promote U.S. tourism abroad. Brand USA is funded through both private-sector contributions and government matching funds obtained from fees collected from international tourists seeking to visit the United States. This makes the Duffy spokesperson claim that no taxpayer dollars were spent on the effort technically true, though some amount of public funds were likely spent on the effort through Brand USA.

Brand USA’s matching funds were cut severely in the Big Beautiful Bill, from $100 million to $20 million, but despite the severe funding cuts, it appears to have sponsored the Duffy family road trip at either a bronze or silver level, for a cost somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000.

The quasi-governmental entity has close ties to the U.S. Travel Association, listing it as a partner, with the USTA supporting the group in turn. The U.S. Travel Association has lobbied extensively on increasing the funding for Brand USA, including through the association’s registered lobbyist Tori Barnes, the executive director of The Great American Road Trip. In the lobbying disclosure Barnes filed on the 20th of April, Brand USA funding was listed as the sole “specific lobbying issue.”

IN RESPONSE TO THE REVELATION, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a complaint to the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General demanding an investigation. CREW highlighted that Duffy’s behavior may have violated multiple federal ethics statutes, including the federal gift ban and the Standards of Ethical Conduct, saying that the behavior “raises questions about whether his official time is being used for public purposes, whether he accepted or solicited gifts from companies with businesses subject to regulation by the Department, the appropriate use of government travel and the potential promotion of private products.”

Duffy, who made headlines in 2011 for complaining about his meager congressional salary of $174,000, reported an income of more than $1,596,000 on his financial disclosure form last year, from lobbying, consulting, and appearing on Fox News. While in Congress, he similarly took advantage of a practice all too common on Capitol Hill: privately sponsored travel.

Members of the House, their staff, and family members or guests are allowed to participate in trips sponsored by private organizations so long as they “relate to the traveler’s official or representational duties” and are approved by the House Ethics Committee. During his eight years in office, Duffy took five trips sponsored by private organizations to places like Israel and Sea Island, Georgia. Under the rules, trips organized by groups that employ a registered lobbyist, like the Duffy family road trip, are limited to a single day’s events and one night of lodging.

No hearings have been scheduled to investigate Duffy’s latest foray on The Great American Road Trip, and what sponsors really got for the privilege of paying up to $1 million. It goes on a long list of potential ethical minefields that an incoming Democratic majority could follow up on.