John Oliver tore into Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s “expensively produced” and “weird” reality series, The Great American Road Trip, exposing the Trump goon in the process.
This week, Duffy released his series, which he and his wife, Fox & Friends Weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy, have marketed as “a nationwide storytelling movement that invites Americans to explore the open road and connect with their communities.”
But Oliver didn’t think this was an apt way to describe the series, which was dumped onto YouTube after production delays. The show has received both severely low viewership numbers and bad reviews.
“It turns out it’s basically just an expensively produced test run of a Duffy family reality show, with each episode featuring a bare minimum about travel or America, but a ton of manufactured reality-TV drama around the Duffys doing stuff like planning a family party,” explained the HBO host on Last Week Tonight, playing a clip of the Duffys trying to dissuade their 18-year-old daughter from attenting Harvard University.
The New Yorker’s Jon Allsop shared this view, equally confused by how the Duffys presented their vanity project and what it actually turned out to be. Allsop said, “the show, as a whole, never seems to figure out whether it is primarily travel or reality, or whether the scenery or the people should be the star.”
“‘The Great American Road Trip’ certainly had me wondering whether the point was to promote American travel or Duffy himself,” Allsop added.
Oliver dedicated a significant portion of his weekend episode explaining Duffy’s rise to becoming one of the president’s top goons and questioning how—and why—the politician is returning to his reality TV roots (He notoriously appeared on The Real World: Boston, Road Rules: All Stars, and Battle of the Seasons).
“Before I talk about the show, a bit of context about why Duffy might have thought this was a good idea, because he has long loved being on camera,” said Oliver. “He was actually on The Real World: Boston back in the late ’90s, where he presented himself as deeply horny. In his audition, he reportedly said he wanted to be on the show because of his interest in cute girls.”
Oliver continued, “Anyway, Duffy eventually ran for Congress, where he served four terms, then became a TV pundit and co-host of a right-wing podcast with his wife, featuring episodes like ‘Is Wokeism the United States’ Cultural Revolution?’ and ‘Why Taylor Swift Is the Sign of a Declining Society.’”
“Then last year, he joined the Trump administration as transportation secretary, bringing all his culture-war energy to that job, including after a deadly plane crash outside D.C., absurdly suggesting DEI had played a role, saying, ‘You can’t focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion when you try to hire air traffic controllers,’” said the late-night host.
“And yet somehow, with all his responsibilities, Duffy still managed to find time to film The Great American Road Trip,” he joked.
Congress questioned Duffy about the road trip series in May. Senators told Duffy it was “incredibly out of touch,” given that everyday Americans are struggling amid rising gas prices, and raised concerns that transportation companies that donated to the project may expect preferential treatment in the future.
Boeing and Toyota each donated $1 million to fund Duffy’s show. Other sponsors include United Airlines, Shell and Comcast.
One of Duffy’s much-mocked answers included his insistence that the show was a celebration of America’s 250th birthday. “Don’t you want to celebrate America?” he told Congress.
Oliver responded, “You sound like a f---ing child! You do get that just because it’s America’s birthday doesn’t mean you get to do an ethics violation, right? Grow up, Sean!”
“The only worse answer to ‘Who paid for this?’ than ‘The American taxpayer’ is ‘a bunch of companies I oversee and regulate,’” quipped Oliver.
“Thankfully,” concluded Oliver, “A government watchdog group has filed both an official complaint and a FOIA request to find out more about how all of this happened, which is good because I’ve got to say, having watched all three hours of this god-awful show, from gender reveals to the Duffy’s renewing their vows for no clear reason, it feels less like the country’s been taken on a road trip by Sean Duffy, and a lot more like we’ve all been taken for a ride.”
