Less than two months after returning to the White House, convicted felon Donald Trump has reportedly played golf on 13 of the 48 days he has been back in office — and the cost of those trips to Florida has been mounting.
According to an analysis by HuffPost, Trump's March 8 trip to Mar-a-Lago was the tenth since his inauguration on January 20th. He has also golfed three times at Trump Doral, just east of Miami International Airport. Citing cost metrics from a 2019 Government Accountability Office report, Trump's insistence on spending his weekends (six out of seven so far) in Florida has now cost American taxpayers in excess of $18 million. During his first term in office, the total for these trips was put at $151.5 million over four years, with the first four trips costing $3,383,250 each in 2017 dollars — a sum that given inflation will have now increased.
Trump and his entourage fly down on Air Force One, while the military transports his motorcade vehicles using C-17 planes at a hefty cost. Since traveling from Mar-a-Lago to the golf club involves crossing back onto the mainland from the barrier island, police boats with machine guns mounted on the bows patrol the waterway, while a Coast Guard vessel remains stationed off the beach in the Atlantic. Additional expenses include local law enforcement and explosive-sniffing dogs.
After a week of inauguration events back in January, the president undertook his first trip, flying from Washington, D.C., to North Carolina, California, and Nevada before heading to Florida. When asked by reporters on Air Force One whether he would be golfing upon his arrival in Florida, Trump lied, saying: “No. I don’t think so. I’m busy.” He was then pictured playing at the Doral course in Miami in a tweet posted by a Fox News reporter.
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