John Oliver has a penchant for reality TV, but his enthusiasm doesn’t extend to this former “Real World” participant.
On Sunday’s episode of “Last Week Tonight,” Oliver directed his criticism at Sean Duffy, who serves as President Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, is a former congressman, and a past cast member of “The Real World: Boston.” Recently, Duffy released all six episodes of “The Great American Road Trip” on YouTube. Despite being marketed as a reality show commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, Oliver noted it resembles a trial run for a Duffy family reality series, focusing minimally on travel or America and more on staged family drama, such as party planning or their daughter’s college decision. Duffy’s wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a Fox News contributor, was also part of MTV’s “Road Rules: All Stars,” where the couple met.
One clip from the show, widely ridiculed online, features Duffy discussing whether his daughter should attend Harvard. He comments, “If I send you there, I think what happens is they have professionalized figuring out how they can take good, young girls like you and, I think, corrupt their minds.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” exclaimed Oliver. “First, this was supposed to be a road trip — why are we still in your kitchen? Second, is there anything less relatable than a family whose conflict is, how do I tell my daughter she can’t go to Harvard because we did too good of a job raising her?”
Duffy asserted that the show was filmed over seven months without taxpayer funding; instead, it was financed by Great American Road Trip Inc., an independent company with 17 sponsors, including Boeing, Toyota, Shell, and United Airlines — all companies regulated by Duffy’s Department of Transportation.
“That’s not great! The only worse answer to ‘Who paid for this?’ than ‘The American taxpayer’ is ‘a bunch of companies I oversee and regulate,’” Oliver quipped.
When questioned in Congress about the potential conflict of interest, Duffy responded, “Don’t you want to celebrate America?” adding, “It’s our birthday!”
“It’s our birthday? You sound like a fucking child!” Oliver retorted. “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 show was initially set for release in June, but Duffy stated it needed re-editing to comply with ethics guidelines. Duffy is no stranger to reality TV.
“[Duffy] has long loved being on camera. He was actually on ‘The Real World: Boston’ in the late-90s, where he presented himself as deeply horny,” explained Oliver. “In his audition, he reportedly said that he wanted to be on the show because of his interest in ‘cute girls,’ and when asked by a producer how many times he’d had sex in the last six months, he — and I’m quoting here — flashed a big smile and said, ‘Three times. Three different individuals, yeah. And three different times,’ adding, ‘I’m sort of starving right now, guys.’”
Oliver remarked, “And I’ve got to say: I had sex with three different women, none of whom were interested in an encore, says a lot more about you than I think you wanted to reveal there.”
Worse still, during his stint on “The Real World: Boston,” Duffy “got attention for annoying the fuck out of his Black castmate Kameelah, who he fought with over affirmative action, complaining he would have gotten into a better college ‘if I were a Black male,’ and at another point, ‘compared [her] to Adolf Hitler while accusing her of reverse racism,’” Oliver recounted.
As for “The Great American Road Trip,” its viewership on YouTube is declining, with the channel having fewer than 3,000 subscribers at the time of writing.
“Everyone involved in ‘The Great American Road Trip’ seems like they’d rather sweep it under the rug,” Oliver observed. “Since it came out, the Duffy’s have barely promoted the show and the Department of Transportation hasn’t posted about it at all… But even if everyone involved wants to move on and act like it never happened, I’m not sure the rest of us should, because the appearance of a conflict of interest here is not going to go away.”
Oliver further mentioned that the Department of Transportation has two ongoing investigations into Waymo, which is featured in the series, including one incident involving a child being struck near a school.
“Having watched all three hours of this godawful 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 fucking ride,” he concluded.
