Stephen Rodrick
Contact Stephen Rodrick by Email View all posts by Stephen Rodrick August 21, 2026
Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy calls out "all aboard" before boarding Amtrak’s Freedom 250 Acela Train at Union Station on May 7, 2026 in Washington, D.C. Getty Images This is what happens when 11 family members and a nutty-eyebrowed son-in-law running for Congress stop being polite and start getting real on a sketchily funded junket across the United States. The Great American Road Trip released all six episodes Wednesday on YouTube after many delays. It tells the heartwarming story of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, his wife Rachel Campos-Duffy, and their nine children, three boys and six girls, as they travel across the country celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday.
Camera crews are not new to Sean and Rachel. The two met, as star-crossed lovers often do, on Road Rules: All Stars after starring, respectively, on The Real World: Boston and The Real World: San Francisco. Their show was supposed to drop before America’s octagon-laced 250th birthday celebration, but it was delayed by conflict of interest charges, namely that the trip is sponsored by a shit-ton of corporations — Boeing and Toyota each kicked in $1 million to the show through a nonprofit — that Duffy is supposedly overseeing in his day job. (Duffy insists his family wasn’t paid, and taxpayers didn’t fund their travel.)
Frankly, I have no clue why it was finally greenlit. Seems like a bad idea.
I watched all six episodes in an afternoon binge that left me uncertain of my place in the United States of America. You’ll start watching for the Duffys’ journey, but please stay for constipation, fat-shaming, and a surely coincidental $5,000 donation from a Texas-based asphalt company political action committee.
Let’s watch.
Episode 1: Trump Makes a Funny
The show begins with Sean and Rachel in a living room with a fire roaring behind them. He wears a crewneck sweater, she is all in denim. We learn that he is Transportation Secretary and she is a weekend anchor on Fox & Friends. They talk briefly and we are shown a cutaway clip of them meeting on a reality show.
“I’ve been carrying your luggage ever since,” says Sean.
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RacheI returns fire.
“I carry your babies, and you carry my luggage.”
Zing.
Duffy has been tasked with prepping the country for its 250th birthday and believes, perhaps incorrectly, the best way to do that is taking their nine children on a series of trips across America paid for by mega corporations.
The family piles into a SUV, a Toyota of course, and heads to the White House, where Sean and Rachel feel the need to inform President Donald Trump that they are, in fact, going on a road trip. (The family members repeatedly throw their hands together throughout the series and shout “road trip,” in case you lose the narrative.) Trump provides some much-needed humor by asking the kids if they are being forced against their will on the trip.
The children are silent.
We’ll meet the kids along the way — including John Paul, who looms wordlessly in some scenes before returning to college when all he really wants to be is a plumber.
For now, let me introduce the Duffy Two, the kids that I see having the greatest potential to split from the clan and leave no forwarding address.
Meet Maria-Victoria Margarita Duffy, who is all 15 and braces. She goes by the nickname of Mud, as if she is a goddamn character in a Harper Lee short story. The Duffys are a high-achieving family in Trump zip-up fleeces. That is not Mud. She is a free spirit in DGAF mode. Mud rolls her eyes a lot and, when asked what she wants to do on vacation, replies in a mock-sincere voice, “More family time.”
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Mud is the best.
She also has precocious gaslighting skills. After the family visits Trump, Mud asks her youngest sister, who is six, a question.
Mud: Valentina, Does the president have pretty hair?
Valentina: Yeah.
Mud: Did you tell him that?
Valentina: Yeah.
I’ve watched this scene in slow motion many times. I would bet all of Trump’s crypto millions that Mud does not actually think the president has pretty hair. No. Fucking. Way.
The other human is nine-year-old Patrick. He doesn’t like to wear shirts. In fact, he returned from his grandmother’s funeral without a shirt. Patrick is a no-bullshit young man. He’s asked about the excitement of meeting the president.
“It’s kind of boring because you’re just sitting there watching your parents talk.”
The family is headed to Philly but first stops at the Silver Diner in D.C. for a bite.
The Duffys are actively Catholic and the family grasps hands and says grace as cameras capture them from various angles. Dad then talks to John Paul and Mud about college. JP wonders why he must go to college if he already knows he wants to make $150,000 unclogging drains.
Mud says she doesn’t want to go to college and just wants to be one of those “people who sell houses.”
Her eyes light up with delight as she gauges her parents’ horrified reaction. They sputter and tell Mud that her true skill is that she is a “people person.”
Lame.
Mud is unamused. Rachel then tells her and John Paul that they can be plumbers and realtors, but they are going to be the best- read realtors and plumbers.
Dad casually drops into conversation that they want to go to a dude ranch as part of the family road trip.
Mud looks like she has just witnessed a murder.
The next morning, the family hits Philly tourist spots, the Liberty Bell — Doug Burgum shows up as the Most Boring Man in America — and the day is only saved by a charmingly mouthy Betsy Ross impersonator.
Sean Duffy and Rachel Campos-Duffy getting ready to set out on a road trip, which also apparently includes a lot of air travel. The Great American Road Trip / U.S. Transportation Department Then, an intriguing postscript. The sponsors’ names are flashed: Boeing, Shell, Toyota, Waymo, Royal Caribbean, Electronic Payments Coalition, and something called CRH.
Chekov’s gun is placed on the table.
Episode 2: The Highway to Hell/Harvard
Things take a dark turn. The gang is about to set off for Boston. Dad, in a plaid flannel shirt, has a quiet moment with 17-year-old Paloma in the kitchen as he waits for the other girls to get ready. (They’re always making Dad wait!)
Paloma is applying to 10 colleges and the two talk about their plans to visit Boston College and Harvard this weekend. Paloma suggests that if, somehow, she got into Harvard, she’d have to go because, well, it’s Harvard. Dad has other ideas.
“Me and Mom can say no.”
We cut to Rachel looking worried.
“Catholicism to us is everything. It’s the basis of our marriage, it’s the basis of our family,” says Rachel, who first came to national prominence for snogging Puck, reality TV’s original bad boy, known for eating community peanut butter with his filthy fingers.
Rachel sighs.
“The idea of dropping her off at a place that would undermine that or try to undo all those things makes me worried.”
Sean tells his daughter his concerns.
“I think what happens is they have professionalized figuring out how they can take good young girls, like you, and corrupt their minds,” says Sean, who first came to national prominence for shirking his minimal responsibilities on The Real World: Boston.
Sean sighs.
“You don’t have to believe what I believe. You don’t have to have the political viewpoints that I have, but I do think it’s important that you make those choices for yourself.”
I curse loudly and marvel that America is truly the land of dreams if Sean Duffy, once a competitive log roller, can be a Cabinet member.
The family begins driving north toward Boston. The sun is shining. Rachel makes an observation.
“I’m sorry, but New Jersey is so pretty.”
The comment comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. We are in Manchurian Candidate territory. New Jersey is never referenced again.
The drive continues and Rachel natters on how schools like Harvard and the University of Chicago woo the innocent with their beautiful campuses. Evita, the eldest, chimes in and says she maintained her values while at the University of Chicago despite being canceled for holding a sign saying socialism was worse than Covid. (Evita mentions being canceled, I had to look up why.)
The Duffys arrive in Boston and stop in at Beantown’s Number One historical site: the fire station where Sean lived on The Real World.
Dad solemnly informs his family that none of them would exist if he had not lived here. Montana, a former castmate, stops by for hugs, but she never loses the baffled look of a normie trying to communicate with the aliens.
The family heads up to very Catholic Boston College — inexplicably, Rachel thought they were going to Boston University. The parents are wowed by the piety of the place, but Paloma can only muster excitement for the gym. They head over to Harvard in all its autumnal splendor, but the parents insist on dragging Paloma to the nearest Catholic church. A young priest politely tries to tell the Duffy parents that their fear of Harvard is, well, cray-cray.
“I don’t think there’s anything nefarious going on,” says the priest. “You come here because it’s the best opportunity, and if someone has a sense of themselves and a sense of God before coming, I think that will only flower.”
Sean is impressed. Dad now believes a smart, grounded young woman like Paloma could survive Harvard without succumbing to its temptation, presumably abortion on demand and vegan meal plans.
The ogre has evolved into a caveman.
Episode 3: Constipation and Conception
You know that feeling when you’re watching a show and there’s one character that appears like he is from a totally different show? I get that feeling watching Michael, Evita’s husband. He never says anything remotely interesting, but I feel like I know him. I am haunted. Then it hits me.
Dude is the eyebrow meme guy!
It all comes flooding back. Michael Alfonso is 26, has impeccable drag queen brows and is running for his father-in-law’s old congressional seat back in Wisconsin. (This race and the fact his father-in-law transferred $1 million to his campaign is never mentioned.)
Michael’s work-experience consists of a year producing old friend Dan Bongino’s podcast and surviving his immersion into Duffy World.
When you think about it, maybe that does qualify you for Congress.
Michael and the Duffys are in Montana — the Duffys use ‘road trip’ loosely and seem to be on a lot of planes — for some winter wonderland action. The family preps for a snowmobiling trip into Yellowstone, an environmental no-no for the nattering nabobs of negativism that despise this American family.
Normally, that would be an episode’s focus, but there’s serious batshit behavior going on that distracts from the pursuit of snow-covered bison.
Michael and Evita confess they are expecting a baby. But that’s not all. They have hired a nurse to bring her ultrasound machine to their remote cabin and rub goo on Evita’s belly so they can have a Yellowstone gender reveal moment. (Somewhere, Taylor Sheridan shakes his fist at the gods before cold plunging into a pool filled with gold coins.)
I’ve been to Montana a few times in the winter. I could be wrong, but my calculation is that the nearest ultrasound machine in wintertime is maybe 90 minutes away. I am taken out of the narrative and overwhelmed with the thought of who freaking paid for that?
We may never know. The nurse arrives at Evita and Michael’s cabin trudging her machinery through the snow and ice in the dark. The couple invites Valentina, the youngest daughter, to watch the procedure. Valentina is six and a complete delight. I could watch her outtakes for a week. She has Down syndrome and is easily the most relatable member of the family after Mud.
The ultrasound is done and it’s a girl. At the same time (or I should say in the fungible time that is reality-television editing) Patrick is in real trouble. He collapses while snowmobiling — at first his siblings think he is faking — and Dad takes him to a faraway hospital. Patrick proceeds to vomit all over the SUV taking him to the hospital and is rushed into the ER for a CAT scan. John Paul reports that it looks like appendicitis. Evita and Michael hold off revealing their baby’s gender out of respect for Patrick’s condition.
There are some tense moments and then finally Sean rings back from the hospital.
It is not appendicitis. Patrick is severely constipated.
Everyone laughs and makes “full of shit” jokes.
[There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.]
Evita and Michael wait for Patrick and Sean to return and reveal they are having a girl. Everyone rejoices.
The next day, Michael must leave and return to his never-mentioned job — i.e. campaigning. The family, including Valentina, go skiing at Jackson Hole. Roll credits.
I take a break and check the news. Gas is still more than $4 a gallon.
I hope the nurse was reimbursed for mileage.
Episode 4: God Always Has a Plan
When originally announced, it sounded like The Great American Road Trip would be 10 episodes and debut on a snazzy streaming service like Netflix. Instead, we got six YouTube episodes including a family trip to a version of Charleston that seems like AI.
The family goes to the aquarium where they meet a crabby bald eagle who may be crabby because he is being held hostage at an aquarium. Adding to Baldy’s indignity is the fact that his image is clumsily superimposed over an American flag in the show’s top cringe moment thus far. (Not for long!)
The family adjourns to a fancy restaurant for breakfast, and everyone orders cheese grits. (One order is ruled inedible after Patrick ‘accidentally’ spits in it). Paloma announces she has received a shocking email: The University of Chicago has told her she is a high-priority applicant, but they need to know in a day or two if she is committed to attending if she is admitted. There is debate on whether she should hold out for Harvard where she also is on the waitlist.
Mom comes in hot with an idea.
“This town has beautiful churches. You should go in there and pray and see if God answers where you should go.”
But first there is a boat trip on Charleston Bay — one of the sites is Ft. Sumter, where the South started the Civil War, but it is never mentioned again.
Now it’s time to pray. It’s Mom, Dad, Paloma, and a trying-very-hard-not-to-crack Mud. Mom monologues on the way to church and tells her daughters that The University of Chicago is a ‘little soulless.’
Mom asks Mud what she thinks. Her response speaks for a tired nation.
“I zoned out, sorry.”
The church scene is reminiscent of The Bachelor. Mom lights votive candles and the angelic girls — as if cued! — look up to heaven. Dad arrives and prays for a while.
Back to Paloma’s God-aided decision on her future. She admits she did not hear God’s voice ordering her to move to Chicago’s Hyde Park.
“I don’t think I got the clarity I needed.”
While God refuses to tell Paloma what to do, Sean and Rachel know their next mission. They cart the kids to the United Airlines plant in Charleston. They arrive, but not before Rachel can provide one of her trademark random comments:
“Boeing’s massive Washington State location is open year-round for anyone who wants a tour.”
I’m betting that ticked off the Charleston guys! Anyway, Sean gamely works the plant, shakes some hands, and corrals the kids who looked bored. He talks up the troubled aviation giant.
“The technology around the materials they use is making airplanes stronger but also lighter, which means they’re more fuel-efficient,” says Duffy.
I often find myself on Boeing planes and silently cheer for Duffy, whose job is to regulate and insure the safety of the American airline industry, to ask the Boeing execs about the crashes of two Boeing 737 Maxes or maybe the skinny on the Alaska Airlines’ Boeing plane that lost a door mid-flight in 2024.
Twas not meant to be.
Instead, the entire family climbs into the Dreamlifter, a massive plane used to move enormous parts from one Boeing plant to another plant. It is definitely not fuel-efficient.
“I thought the kids loved the Dream Lifter,” says Duffy with a smile. “To have my kids there with me makes my job that much more enjoyable.”
Especially if someone else is paying for it.
Episode 5: The Texas Two-Step and Other Shenanigans
Today we learn that watching asphalt get made is somehow worse than watching paint dry.
We’re in Texas for the long-threatened visit to a dude ranch. The Duffy entourage makes their way to Billy Bob’s Texas, billed as the world’s largest honky-tonk. An old guy teaches them line dancing and after much cringe declares them official Billy Bob’s Texas dancers. Dad ponders all he has learned and concludes that everyone may have “a little dance in our human heart.”
Bring on the asphalt.
The wheels of Sean’s Toyota SUV spin and we end up at a Texas Materials plant out by the Fort Worth railroad tracks. Giant piles of gray matter surround us. Duffy appears and gives a hearty handshake to a man in a hard hat.
“What’s up, brother?”
I’m curious about Duffy’s overly familiar tone with a gravel pit guy.
The man is identified as Ryan Lindsey, so I looked him up. Turns out he is not a pit guy, but the executive vice president for government relations at CRH Americas, Texas Materials’ parent company. His Chamber of Commerce bio reads, “He oversees federal and state advocacy as well as political engagement for…CRH, the leading supplier in building materials solutions, employs 79,800 people across 28 countries and is committed to building, connecting and improving our world.”
Dang, Lindsey is a lobbyist.
We cut back to Duffy on the couch in his house. He is wearing a powder blue shirt and Rachel gazes at him with adoring eyes. Sean gives us real talk.
“As the secretary of the Department of Transportation, part of my job is to stop by and see the businesses that actually make construction and projects work,” says Duffy. “CRH is the leading company that provides asphalt and concrete in America. Without those two things, you don’t have roads.”
I get it. CRH is one of the show’s sponsors, but this all reads like a 3 a.m. infomercial on Channel 578. Mercifully, we cut to a scene of Patrick urging Mom to buy him “flashy” cowboy boots.
Unfortunately, the respite ends and we are back at the gravel pit.
Lindsey speaks again.
“CRH is the largest building materials business in the world,” says Lindsey. “Obviously, hot mix and asphalt production is a big part of what we do. The road trip would not be complete without roads. We gotta have those.”
The show cuts to the Duffy kids watching the daily cattle march through downtown Fort Worth. They love it. Dad offers a voiceover from the family couch.
“Texas, cowboys, ranches — like, that is America.”
You know what else is America? A third soundbite from a lobbyist.
“There’s a lot of recycling going on,” says Lindsey as he and Duffy walk through the plant’s dark satanic mills. “From a sustainability standpoint, it makes complete sense, and then we’re able to maximize those DOT dollars in a lot of cases.”
Lindsey has now had more camera time than John Paul.
We are now past corporate sponsorship, and I’m concerned that Lindsey is holding one of the Duffy kids for ransom which, admittedly, would be a much needed plot twist.
I hit pause and open another screen. A little research suggests Duffy visited Fort Worth on or near March 25. I have a crazy idea, but it seems too obvious, something out of a dumb movie. Or a reality show. I go to the Federal Elections Commission website and look at contributions made by CRH Americas, the company’s political action committee.
And there it is.
On March 31, 2026, CRH Americas donated $5,000 to Alfonso for Congress, the campaign fund of Duffy’s son-in-law Michael Alfonso.
My eyebrows go full Alfonso.
There’s 10 minutes to go. Sean hits the dude ranch and gets assigned real cowboy tasks including vaccinating cattle. I am sure there is a good MAHA/RFK Jr. joke in there, but my spirit is broken. I watch Duffy go about his fake cowboy day. He sums things up perfectly in a conversation with an actual rancher.
Duffy getting ready to watch some cows get vaccinated. “You know what they say? Guys like me, we’re all hat and no cattle.”
Agreed.
Episode Six: Arizona Agonistes
Our final episode begins with most of the Duffys visiting Rachel’s parents in Scottsdale, Arizona. There’s no John Paul or Eyebrow Guy, but Ryan Lindsey is on the trip, which seems strange.
I kid.
Anyway, a very pregnant Evita goes in for a hug from her grandpa. He makes an observation.
“You’re getting a little fat there, lady.”
Good times. A pissed-off Evita brings it up over breakfast but the old man will not apologize. The Duffys reminisce about their wedding in nearby Tempe. There is some dispute over whether Rachel was an hour late or an hour and 20 minutes late.
Rachel then drops a stunner.
“Guess what today is? Today is Sean and my 27th anniversary.”
It is the Duffys’ anniversary, and they just happen to be with her parents and a half dozen of their kids! What are the chances?
Maybe it is the fresh memory of the $5,000 donation or Mud’s decreasing screen time, but I sigh in anguish when Rachel says, “We’re thinking of taking you guys and seeing the church where me and dad got married.” My only succor is that their older kids look like this is the final indignity that makes them join antifa.
First, Dad must stop and visit the good folks at Waymo, the Google-owned self-driving car company that happens to be a show sponsor. There is an impressive moment where we see a Waymo, a Toyota, and a passenger bus reading “America 250,” provided by a third sponsor, in the same shot.
The Waymo is straight ‘gee-whiz there’s no driver’ product promotion. Well, except for the moment when Mud slides back the seat of Evita who freaks out because she is in a ghost car. God bless Mud.
We get to the church. Alas, the chapel is no more. Rachel is crushed. (She is not cheered up by the fact it is now a study room for seminarians who will serve her Catholic faith.) In another amazing coincidence, the priest who married them is there. They move to the adjacent church, where Rachel has the totally spontaneous idea that they should renew their vows.
Oh, brother.
I wonder if Rachel doesn’t realize reality TV has changed in the three decades since her Real World debut. We all get it, it’s not real. But I want Rachel to throw me a wink and let me know she is in on the joke. Nope, she plays it straight.
Afterward, Mud says what we are all thinking.
“That was so cringey.”
The family then makes the four-hour drive to the Grand Canyon. Along the way, Paloma opens her email and learns she has been admitted to the University of Chicago. It seems like her happiness is a second or third take, but that just might be the Duffy fatigue talking.
The next morning, the family takes a bus with a couple of rangers to the lip of the Grand Canyon. Along the way, Sean confides that when he was kid his recently passed mother took the family on a 20-mile roundtrip hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back to the top with just a little water. The Duffy kids were so sore they couldn’t walk the next day. Sean remembers, “One of the fondest moments we had was what we thought was a horrible experience.”
Maybe that is what I will feel on my deathbed about binging The Great American Family Road Trip.
The family arrives at the lip of the canyon and split into two groups, the pregnant and little kids go one way and the rest jump on mules to ride down a rutted path overlooking endless drops.
Almost immediately, Rachel freaks out and when I say “freaks out” I mean at a level that I fear her hysterics will compel her mule to jump off and end the madness. I didn’t know Sean’s mom, but I feel like she would have given Rachel the Cher-in-Moonstruck “snap out of it” slap.
Eventually, Rachel calms down and has a blissful experience. But I will be forever haunted by her words.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
I couldn’t agree more.
POSTSCRIPT: Before the credits, a photo of Evita and baby appears on the screen:
Welcome to Our Family Rosita Alfonso. May 27, 3 p.m., 7 lb. 3 oz.
I wait for another one:
Congratulations Michael Alfonso. Aug. 11 primary won. $1,351,546.03 raised.
