Since President Trump entered into office, his travel expenses have already reached roughly $10 million. For the past three weekends, he has spent time at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Taxpayer dollars pay for White House travel, Coast Guard units to patrol the exposed shoreline, military, Secret Service protection and staffing whenever a president travels.
President Obama had spent a little over that amount in his entire first year as president. Trump had criticized Obama’s use of Air Force One while he was still president:
Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Crooked Hillary. A total disgrace!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016
I say we cannot continue to let Obama fly around on Air Force 1, at a cost of millions of dollars a day, for the purpose of politics & play!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2014
He had even promised during his campaign, he would rarely leave the White House cutting those travel expenses. “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,” Trump told a reporter in 2015. “I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off. … You don’t have time to take time off.”
Taxpayers also pay for protecting First Lady Melania Trump, who has decided to continue to live in New York, as well as protection for Trump’s other family members when they travel.
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