President Donald Trump’s administration has spent almost a year scrutinizing, and then dismantling, and then trying to rewrite history at one of Independence Mall’s most informative exhibits on slavery.
All for one of Trump’s Cabinet secretaries to promote the President’s House in a new video ahead of July Fourth.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has been one of the Trump administration’s biggest cheerleaders for this week’s 250th anniversary celebrations, produced a video asking Mayor Cherelle L. Parker which historical sites visitors to Philadelphia should check out.
Parker listed the highlights — the Constitution Center, Independence Mall, the Liberty Bell, and ended her list of recommendations with the President’s House, which memorializes the nine people enslaved by George Washington in Philadelphia.
“Reconnect with our history, recommit to the democratic values that we stand on, and have an amazing time,” Parker said.
Cue Duffy showcasing pictures of the very panels at the President’s House that his boss wants to take down.
The video, which was posted Wednesday to Duffy’s social media, appears to have been filmed in May when Duffy visited to Philadelphia while the city and the Trump administration were in the midst of a legal battle over President’s House after the federal government remove the site’s exhibits earlier this year.
A February court order allowed some of the panels to be reinstalled, though a ruling from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in June said the Trump administration could replace the exhibits with their own materials, which have been posted online.
After the Third Circuit’s ruling, Parker said in a statement that: “I will pursue every legal action possible to reverse this decision. We cannot and WILL not rest until the full story of American history — including the existence of slavery at the President’s House here in Philadelphia — is told, for our Nation and the World to see.”
This is not Duffy’s only visit to Philadelphia that coincides with a key event in the President’s House saga. Duffy joined Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a visit to Independence National Historical Park in September 2025, just days after reports that the Interior Department planned to make changes to the President’s House.
The secretaries were preparing for the Semiquincentennial celebrations, of which Duffy has been a huge proponent. The Transportation Department has promoted road trips to a number of sites targeted by Interior for changes, including Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park in Virginia, in addition to the sites in Philadelphia.
Duffy has faced backlash for shooting a reality-TV-style travel series with his family over the span of several months called “The Great American Road Trip,” meant to encourage celebrating the United States ahead of the 250th.
A trailer for the series shows that he stopped in Philadelphia and made visits to LOVE Park and the Liberty Bell.
In Wednesday’s video, which does not appear to be related to the series, Duffy says “There’s no better place to go than where it all began in Philadelphia.”
“This city is truly amazing, and the history that exists here,” Duffy said, “No one has it.”