“Wildly out of touch” — that’s how MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace described Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s newly announced reality show, “The Great American Road Trip.”
The five-part series follows Duffy and his wife, along with their nine children, as they travel across the United States to mark the country’s 250th birthday.
The announcement of Duffy’s cross-country road trip comes as Americans continue to struggle with the rising cost of gas due to Donald Trump’s war in Iran. According to AAA, the average price per gallon has exceeded $4.50.
On Monday’s “Deadline: White House,” Wallace blasted Duffy’s return to reality TV (he was a cast member on “The Real World: Boston” in 1997) as “tone deaf and offensive,” adding it was “something you have to see to believe.”
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The MS NOW host questioned how the secretary could balance a cross-country road trip with his responsibilities as secretary of transportation, noting he spent “seven months, while he’s being paid by the American taxpayer, making a reality show.”
The venture also raised ethical concerns. While those involved in the production say the show’s costs were covered by a nonprofit, not by taxpayers, several of those sponsors, including Boeing, Shell, Toyota and United Airlines, are companies regulated by the Department of Transportation.
Wallace said Duffy was effectively doing “double duty as the country’s transportation secretary and a reality TV show person,” and asked, “How far from anything normal in the area of ethics are we?”
You can watch Wallace’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”