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Hey everybody, I'm Doug Gordon and welcome to a special preview of a bonus episode of
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This one is available just for Patreon supporters, so if you want to sign up, go to patreon.com
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slash the war on cars pod.
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With Memorial Day just behind us, that means it's summer travel season, at least for US
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Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and his family. Secretary Duffy and his wife Rachel Campos
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Duffy have been making the rounds lately to promote The Great American Road Trip,
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a reality-style TV series that finds the first family of transportation behind the wheel
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of a Toyota SUV on a trip across the country in celebration of the nation's 250th birthday.
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But this being the Trump administration, there's a lot more to this tribute to American history
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and culture than meets the eye. The project is facing immense scrutiny and criticism from
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journalists and good government groups, all of whom note that the companies sponsoring
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The Great American Road Trip are probably motivated by more than just patriotism.
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Henry Burke is a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project where he writes on issues
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including financial regulation, corporate influence, government capacity, and economic media.
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His work is published in Rolling Stone, the Boston Review, Newsweek, The Lever, and more,
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and he has a new piece in the American Prospect outlining the money behind Sean Duffy's road
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trip and the nearly one dozen companies that have significant business before the United
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States Department of Transportation and that have sponsored the Duffy family's personal travel.
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Henry Burke, welcome to the war on cars. Thanks so much for having me.
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So Sean Duffy, along with his wife Rachel Campos Duffy, whom he met on MTV's Road Rules,
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and some combination of his nine kids went on what they're calling the Great American road trip.
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They're visiting cities, national parks, museums, and roadside attractions all across the country
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as a way, as Duffy says it, to celebrate America by seeing America, to see America is to love America,
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to celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary. But as you write your piece, this is not really just
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a love letter to America. It's a conflict of interest packaged inside a flashy reality show.
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You talk about how at one point in the trailer for this, Duffy says to his kids, you know,
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someone has to pay for this operation. I got to go to work. He's made a big deal of the fact that
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it took seven months and he was on some USDOT business. He would fly home. He would go out
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back on the road with his family. So people might think that he's paying for this out of his pocket.
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He and the family are just hopping in their car and going. But you reported that the costs were
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actually picked up by a 501c4 nonprofit group. Could you talk about that nonprofit and who they
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are, who's behind it? Yeah, definitely. And I can understand why people might assume that Sean
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Duffy, he's a very wealthy man, might have paid for this family vacation himself. He certainly
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seems to imply in the trailer. And also that's what normal people do. Normal people don't have
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nonprofit groups that pay for their travel. And it's a lot more egregious when a senior
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government official is having interest groups pay for their travel than normal people.
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But yeah, this is all being funded by a 501c4 nonprofit group that was registered
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fairly recently. So we don't actually have a whole lot of information on them other than what
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they tell us. 501c4s are not required to disclose donors legally. And we don't even have their 990,
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which is a disclosure form that every nonprofit has to put out. But usually it takes a couple
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years after the starting of a nonprofit group for that to get kind of published. So we're aligned
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just on what they're willing to tell us and what they put up on their website. But what we do know
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is this nonprofit group called the Great American Road Trip, it is the same name as the reality show
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that the Duffy's filmed, is led by a registered lobbyist, Tori Barnes, who has kind of business
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before the Department of Transportation. She's a longtime executive at the US Travel Association.
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She left a couple years ago to start her own consulting business where she lobbies on behalf
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of the US Travel Association. And she appears to be the one who was organizing this for the
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Duffy family and reaching out to companies that Sean Duffy regulates, asking them to pay for the
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Secretary of Transportation's family vacation. Barnes, we don't know a whole lot about her,
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both of her parents were actually members of Congress at one point. So she's very connected
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in the Trump administration. She used to work for General Motors before she worked for the US
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Travel Association. So she's very connected to the Department of Transportation, both through
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General Motors, which obviously has tons of business before the DOT, given the fact that
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they're a major car producer, but also the US Travel Association, which is a trade industry group
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that has members, including just about every major airline in the country, tons of hotel
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companies, a range of different firms from across different fields. But I think that the one that
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really stands out to me at least is the airline industry. They're major donors to the US Travel
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Association. So yeah, we have this 5-1-c-4. Tory Barnes is the one organizing it. And it's all
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set up. It appears to fund the family vacation for the Duffees and to allow them to film a reality
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show. Sean Duffy obviously has a soft spot in his heart for reality TV. I think his big breakout was
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on Real World Boston. So I don't actually know. I haven't gone back and watched that. I think it's
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a little bit before my time. I'm kind of curious about watching it now. But he did seem very excited
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to be back on camera the past few years. He's been a Fox News host. His wife is also employed
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by Fox News. And I guess he just kind of got tired of sitting in an office, doing important
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bureaucratic stuff and felt the itch to get back out there and film his own reality show.
