Secretary Buttigieg Releases a Family Reality Show on YouTube, Sponsored by the Airline and the Plane-Maker He Regulates
'The Great American Road Trip' premiered this week after a two-month delay for what the Secretary described as ethics editing. The sponsor list was not edited
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
WASHINGTON — Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg released a multi-episode reality series this week in which he, his wife and their children travel the country in a recreational vehicle, visit national landmarks and are conveyed from stop to stop by a list of corporate sponsors that the Department of Transportation is, on weekdays, supposed to be regulating.
The show, which premiered on YouTube after a two-month delay, was produced at the President's request that cabinet members 'do something special' for the nation's 250th birthday. The Secretary's something special turned out to be a travel program underwritten by an aircraft manufacturer, an airline, an automaker, an oil company, a cruise line and a rental-car company, roughly the full roster of industries that file paperwork with his building.
The Secretary said the delay was to make sure the show complied with ethics rules, a process that appears to have involved editing the episodes and leaving the sponsors where they were. A watchdog group filed a complaint with the department's inspector general anyway, noting that the family received flights, hotel rooms and a cruise from companies with business before the Secretary, and that the phrase 'gift from a regulated entity' does not become a different phrase when it is filmed.
Supporters of Secretary Buttigieg noted that the show is wholesome, that the family is large and that nothing in the ethics code prohibits a cabinet official from being photogenic. Critics noted that the ethics code is fairly specific about who may pay for a cabinet official's cruise, and that the answer has historically not been the cruise line.
"This is about showing families what America has to offer," a department spokesperson said, standing near a vehicle that had been offered by a sponsor.
The Press's reality TV desk notes that the distance between 'a patriotic family adventure' and 'a regulator on a junket with a camera crew' is, as ever, measured by which party's secretary is holding the remote. At press time the series was available for free, which is also roughly what the Secretary's family paid for the trip.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's family reality series 'The Great American Road Trip' premiered on YouTube Aug. 19 after a delay from its planned June release; Duffy said the extra time was to ensure compliance with ethics rules. Sponsors include Boeing, United Airlines, Toyota, Shell, Comcast, Royal Caribbean, Enterprise and Lyft — several regulated by DOT — and CREW filed an inspector-general complaint over the family's sponsor-provided flights, hotels and cruise. The show follows Duffy, wife Rachel Campos-Duffy and their children across the country.