Comcast sponsored Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s reality TV-style show promoting America’s birthday
Comcast is one of more than a dozen companies and organizations listed as sponsors on a website promoting “The Great American Road Trip.”
Comcast is sponsoring a reality TV-style show on YouTube promoting America’s 250th birthday this summer — featuring U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and his family on a cross-country road trip.
A trailer for the series shows Duffy — a former reality television star on MTV’s The Real World — and his family touring the Liberty Bell and racing up the Rocky steps during their swing through Philly. Other destinations include the Grand Canyon, Fenway Park in Boston, and a White House visit with President Donald Trump.
The trip will “inspire families to step away from the noise, hit the open road, and reconnect with what matters most — each other,” Duffy’s wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, says in the May 8 trailer.
Comcast is one of more than a dozen companies and organizations listed as sponsors on a website promoting The Great American Road Trip.
They include companies that are regulated by the department Duffy oversees, such as automaker Toyota and aircraft manufacturer Boeing. The companies each donated $1 million to a nonprofit that is funding the YouTube series, the Wall Street Journal reported. The nonprofit paid for the Duffy family’s gas, lodging, and car rentals, according to Politico.
Comcast declined to say how much money it contributed to the Great American Road Trip Inc., a nonprofit registered in Delaware last year. The nonprofit isn’t required to disclose its donors, and its executive director declined to share a list.
The private funding has drawn pushback from a watchdog group that said Duffy may have violated ethics rules. The Department of Transportation has said that ethics officials approved the arrangement and that no donor gets special treatment.
Duffy’s predecessor, Democrat Pete Buttigieg, said on X this month that the trip was “brutally out of touch,” citing high gas prices he attributed to “Trump and his war” in Iran.
The Great American Road Trip Inc. pitched potential sponsors with partner tiers based on their contribution, ranging from $100,000 for “bronze partner” to $1 million for “platinum partner,” according to a slide deck reported by Politico. Top donors were offered premium logo placement on the nonprofit’s website, as well as perks including more VIP invitations to networking events and branding in the show’s programming.
Boeing, Toyota, and oil and gas company Shell had the biggest logos on The Great American Road Trip’s website.
The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, a taxpayer-funded city tourism agency, was also listed as a sponsor. The agency said that it didn’t provide any funding related to production and that its involvement was limited to “standard tourism support and staff assistance, including making introductions to Philadelphia attractions of interest.”
“Our understanding is that organizations providing logistical and in-kind support were recognized as ‘sponsors’ merely as an acknowledgment,” the bureau said in a statement.
Tori Barnes, executive director of The Great American Road Trip Inc., said her organization aims to celebrate America’s birthday, promote travel and tourism, and “bring a focus to transportation, infrastructure and the ingenuity that built America over the past 250 years.”
“We are supported by partners who share these goals and believe in encouraging Americans to rediscover the people, places, and experiences that define our country,” she said.
Episodes are expected to start streaming on YouTube in June, Duffy has said.
The Department of Transportation told Politico no taxpayer money was spent on production costs or on Duffy’s family and that neither the secretary nor his family receive any salary or production royalties.
Last week, Washington, D.C.-based watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Department of Transportation’s inspector general requesting an investigation into potential violations of ethics rules. The group cited a federal gift ban that it said largely prohibits executive branch officials from soliciting anything of value from “an entity involved with their agency.”
CREW noted that Toyota and Boeing had been fined or audited by the department in recent years. In 2019, federal officials announced Toyota had agreed to pay $32 million in civil penalties related to its handling of auto recalls.
Also that year, then-Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao asked the department’s inspector general to conduct an audit of the certification process for a Boeing aircraft that had been involved in two fatal accidents.
Neither company responded to requests for comment.
Comcast, a telecommunications and entertainment giant, isn’t regulated by the Transportation Department.
However, the company does have a government contracting unit, and its sponsorship of the road trip show could help it compete for contracts to provide internet service to the department and win favor with the Trump administration more broadly, said Jordan Libowitz, CREW’s vice president for communications.
“It would make a lot of sense if it was, ‘Hey look, we backed your thing, you think good thoughts about us, and next time it comes up that some agency in the department needs an internet contract, hopefully we’ll be thought of fondly,’” he said.
“It’s not a strict quid pro quo,” Libowitz said. “But it’s kind of a way to curry favor that goes beyond just direct regulation.”
The Trump administration has sought to raise money from industry for other projects, including a planned $400 million White House ballroom. Comcast was among several dozen companies mentioned on a list of ballroom donors that was released by the White House in October.
“Comcast made the donation with no expectations of receiving anything in return,” Michael D. Bopp, Comcast’s outside counsel, wrote in December in response to questions from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.).
The donation to the nonprofit backing the ballroom project — the Trust for the National Mall — “is in keeping with its extensive history of philanthropic efforts in and around the Washington, D.C., region,” he said.
In addition to The Great American Road Trip, Comcast is also a sponsor of Philadelphia’s festival celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, an event for which Wawa is the title sponsor.
Comcast is also supporting the committee charged with planning and hosting Philadelphia’s World Cup matches.
