Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has announced a plan to reunite with the reality TV producers who made his name for a new YouTube series as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations this year.
Prior to becoming one of the most can-do members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet, cheerily taking on multiple jobs, Duffy, 54, was a professional lumberjack and champion speed-climber. He went on to appear on the sixth season of the popular MTV show The Real World: Boston in 1997.
The series saw the Wisconsinite and future Republican congressman, then 25, join six other contestants living at close quarters inside a converted firehouse in the Massachusetts city.
He subsequently appeared on a spin-off series the following year, Road Rules: All Stars, on which he met his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, now a Fox News personality.
Those shows were made by Bunim/Murray Productions and Duffy will now revive his partnership with Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray for a new online travel show that will see the Cabinet official and his family touring the United States on an extended road trip across five episodes.
The five-part series will be paid for by “The Great American Road Trip,” a nonprofit organization set up by the Trump administration to develop and promote events tied to this summer’s celebrations honoring the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Founding Fathers.
The secretary told NOTUS the purpose of his new show will be to “encourage Americans to rediscover the country beyond their front doors, featuring everything from civics lessons about the nation’s founding to visits to national parks, local businesses, and thriving small-town communities.”
Duffy, who is also administrator of NASA and a father of nine, is currently enduring one of the most difficult moments of his tenure, having had to deal with long lines at the country’s major airports as a result of staff shortages caused by a partial-government shutdown impacting the Department of Homeland Security.
That has meant TSA staff facing intense pressure and having to work long hours without pay for several weeks while also dealing with understandably frustrated passengers anxious about missing their flights.
The situation is said to be improving since Trump signed an executive order ensuring paychecks are finally sent out but the consequences are likely to continue to be felt for some time.
Duffy also had to race to LaGuardia Airport in New York last week after an Air Canada Express flight collided with a fire truck on a runway, killing the plane’s pilots and leaving more than 40 people injured.
