President Donald Trump’s first month travel expenses have cost the American taxpayers just less than what Obama spent in a year, it has been reported.
Ironically, those were local trips to his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he has spent the last three weekends.
According to The Washington Post, the three trips “probably cost the federal treasury about $10m, based on figures used in an October government report analysing White House travel, including money for Coast Guard units to patrol the exposed shoreline and other military, security and staffing expenses associated with moving the apparatus of the presidency.”
The paper reports that, so far, the highlight of Trump’s trips has been him and his aides struggling to deal with an international crisis in full view of diners and staff during the evening of February 11.
The three Mar-a-Lago getaways, combined with the hundreds of thousands of public dollars spent on Secret Service protection during two international trips which Trump’s adult sons have taken to promote their father’s business, cost taxpayers about $11.3m over the first month of Trump’s presidency, The Post notes.
The paper adds that ex-President Barack Obama, by contrast, spent an average of $12.1m on travel each year.
