Weekend Plans With Rachel Campos-Duffy

“Weekend Plans” is Upstream’s exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture. 

This weekend, “FOX & Friends Weekend” host Rachel Campos-Duffy tells The Daily Wire about life with nine kids, her mom’s secret to getting dinner on the table, how to carve out family time everyone enjoys, and why her new book “All American Patriotism: Celebrating 250 Years of America’s Greatness” spotlights stars-and-stripes spirit at the perfect moment.

Let’s be honest, Rachel Campos-Duffy never really goes “off duty.” She sat down for our virtual chat at her home looking like relaxed luxury in a denim button-down and delicate jewelry. Admitting she threw on a little makeup (she looks stunning, of course) after dropping her daughter off at the bus, she says she’s usually fresh-faced and wearing leggings and a ponytail when she’s hanging out at her New Jersey home. 

I ask about the piano in the background. She laughs as she tells me it came with the house. “I had this fantasy that all the kids would take piano lessons, and of course that didn’t happen,” she says. “No one plays it other than Valentina who bangs on it.” 

As Campos-Duffy’s youngest daughter, six-year-old Valentina steals the show with her unfiltered joy. “You get to the last one, who ends up having Down syndrome, and she turns out to be the cherry on top, the family favorite. She brings us all together. It’s just awesome.”

Campos-Duffy hopes her kids grow up to love their country, something that’s not a given for kids today. Just in time for America’s big two-five-oh, Campos-Duffy hopes her latest release, “All American Patriotism: Celebrating 250 Years of America’s Greatness,” will inspire families to revel in Americana. 

Stacked with personal essays from Campos-Duffy and other FOX News hosts, it has photos and candid stories from all across our nation. It’s this tradition of storytelling that Campos-Duffy hopes will right the ship. “I think it’ll inspire moms and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles to start telling their own American dream stories to their kids,” she says. “Sadly, our kids have been getting a message that they should be embarrassed of who we are as a country, that our founding was a bad thing. Our founding documents had trigger warnings on them at the archives at one point a few years ago.”

There’s a reason why American citizenship retains unprecedented demand. “It’s the lottery ticket that everyone in the world wants,” she says.

“America has been so good and generous to so many of us,” Campos-Duffy shares. “I dedicated the book to President Trump because I feel like he saved us from the woke nightmare we were in where statues of Washington and Lincoln were coming down and flags were being burned.” She attributes the president’s reelection to teaching us “to serve, love, and fight, fight, fight for America.”

Rachel Campos-Duffy and her family visit President Trump. Photo courtesy Rachel Campos-Duffy

On-camera versus off-duty

Campos-Duffy’s upbeat personality shines from the FOX weekend curvy couch. But she’s just as genuinely kind without set lights and cameras in the room. When I ask about what contrast stands out to her most when it comes to her work-life balance, she doesn’t hesitate.

“At work, people get me coffee. At home, I’m getting everybody everything,” she jokes. Adding a little color to the picture, she says of domestic life, “I’m ordering people around to help me with all the pickup, the cleanup, and everything. I am the CEO here, but I’m also the person who’s serving everyone.” She sees the humor in the dueling mom roles. “I’m the intern and the CEO.”

Cooking for a crowd

Campos-Duffy says her husband, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, cooks family meals on days when she works: barbecue ribs or smashburgers. But this devoted mom happily takes the reins for the rest of the family’s meals.

“I love to cook, and my family loves when I make Mexican food. I make lamb, salmon, chicken, everything. My kids literally call me on the way home from school to ask me what I’m making for dinner that day.”

She welcomes her kids home from school with a neat house and a warm, satisfying meal instead of snacks. It’s a strategy she picked up from her mother, who once commented about the afternoon snack-before-dinner situation, “‘This is the dumbest thing ever. What are you doing? You’re making so much work for yourself.’”

Loving the efficiency of an afternoon dinner schedule, Campos-Duffy says, “You feed them as soon as they come home, you clean up or they clean up, and then you’re done, and they can move on. It changed my life.”

Getting the whole family together

The Duffy gang loves cooking together, but they share another kitchen-centered tradition that they could probably do in their pajamas. 

“When we’re all together on a Saturday, we love to just get up and have coffee together,” Campos-Duffy describes. “Everyone loves to just sit around, and the older kids come during vacation. At night they’ll go, ‘OK, meet you downstairs for coffee in the morning,’ and we all just like to sit around and hang out together. I mean, genuinely do nothing but sit around and talk.”

If this sounds too perfect to be true, she claims they’ve tried other, less successful attempts at family bonding: movie nights. (Totally relatable.) “What happens with a big family is we spend about an hour arguing about what movie to watch, and then someone’s always pissed off that their movie wasn’t chosen, and then they’re like, ‘I’m not watching.’” That’ll be a no on board games, too. She adds, “Monopoly and movies end in fights or isolation.”

Carving out time to relax

With her filming schedule locked into Saturdays and Sundays, Campos-Duffy’s “weekend” happens during the week. But she’s got a quick fix if she needs a little time to herself.

“I love a good bath. There’s nothing like a hot bath by yourself, you know, playing music or a podcast, no one bothering you,” she shares. “We have a sauna in our house, and that’s also a great way to relax. The only problem is the sauna shortens the life of the Botox.” 

Advice from a seasoned pro 

It’s no secret that Campos-Duffy’s life revolves around her kids. And while she acknowledges that she started her family “the Catholic way,” looking back, she has no regrets. 

Photo courtesy Rachel Campos-Duffy

“Somebody told me a long time ago: Don’t think about how many kids you want right now because you’re so busy or you don’t have enough money — Think about how many kids you want around the table 20 years from now.”

As their 27-year-old daughter, Evita, prepares to welcome her own baby girl, the Duffys’ holiday table will probably need a few more chairs. But even though the dynamics are ever-changing, this mother’s love only gets stronger with time.

“I love every single one of them,” Campos-Duffy says. “I love watching them bond with each other, and I love all the different ways that they contribute to the family with their personalities and their energy. It’s literally the one thing in life I don’t regret. I can’t imagine my life without them.”