BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. – Donald Trump’s presidential golf expenses have topped $ hundred and ten million in his 2 1/2 years in office – extra than $4 million additional than a conservative group’s estimate for predecessor Barack Obama’s general travel fees over two complete phrases.
Trump arrived at his golf membership in Bedminster, New Jersey, Friday night and is scheduled to remain there through Sunday afternoon. It is his 18th golf experience there because of taking office. Sunday will mark his 67th day at that path and his 199th day at a golf path he owns.
The White House on Saturday did now not reply to queries approximately Trump’s golfing activities.
Each president’s trips to Bedminster cost taxpayers at least $1.1 million in tour and protection fees, keeping with a HuffPost analysis. Each journey to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida – of which Trump has made 24 – fees taxpayers $3.Four million.
Since taking workplace, Trump additionally has visited his golf motels in Los Angeles; Doral, Florida; Doonbeg, Ireland; and Turnberry, Scotland ― all at the taxpayer dime. He also has made 64-day journeys to his path in northern Virginia.
Judicial Watch, a tax-exempt conservative institution, 2017 said that its tally of Obama’s tour costs, primarily based on files received via Freedom of Information Act complaints, had hit $one hundred and five.7 million. That general, even though, seems to encompass authentic journeys of Obama and former first girl Michelle Obama and a few marketing campaign-associated journeys that changed into in part reimbursed by the Democratic Party.
Trump’s $ hundred and ten. Three million general in HuffPost’s evaluation is for the journey to and from golfing vacations and no longer encompasses reliable or marketing campaign travel. It is primarily based on price elements derived from a Government Accountability Office record launched in January that distinctive 4 Mar-a-Lago trips Trump took simply weeks after entering Judicial Watch did no longer respond to a HuffPost request for remark. A review of its website indicates that it remains focused on attacking 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, former FBI director James Comey and former special recommend Robert Mueller.
During Obama’s presidency, Trump frequently criticizes Obama’s golf hobby. “Can you agree with that? With all the problems and problems dealing with the U.S., President Obama spent the day gambling and golfing. Worse than Carter,” he wrote on Twitter in 2014.
During his presidential campaign, Trump claimed he could be too busy running to have time for vacations. “I love golf; however, if I had been inside the White House, I would never see Turnberry again. I don’t suppose I’d ever see Doral again,” he instructed a rally target audience in February 2016. “I don’t ever assume I’d see something. I must live within the White House and work my ass off.”
Instead, Trump has been at the golf course for half instances as an awful lot as Obama turned the identical time in his presidency. And, because he insists on playing on his studies in Florida and New Jersey so much, his golf-associated charges to taxpayers are triple that of Obama’s inside the equal term.
Most of Obama’s golfing rounds were performed at army bases inside the White House’s motorcade range, which price taxpayers incredibly little. In contrast, sixty-eight% of Trump’s golf days had been at his lodges requiring Air Force jets, Marine Corps helicopters, and Air Force shipping planes to move his motorcade cars. His journeys to Mar-a-Lago require Coast Guard boats and ships to patrol the Atlantic Ocean and Intracoastal Waterway. On his distant places golf outings, the travel footprint is even large.
For instance, Trump’s journey to Doonbeg, Ireland, cost taxpayers $three.6 million, although it worried surprisingly quick flights to and from southern England and northern France.
