Golf can be an expensive hobby, especially if it requires traveling to another state to play. And it’s even more costly when you’re the president, and the taxpayers have to pay for those golfing jaunts.
After four years of Joe Biden, who golfed very rarely, we’re back to Trump, who has long been associated with golf and owns golf courses around the world. According to a report Monday, taxpayers have gotten the bill.
According to HuffPost, the taxpayer bill for Trump’s golfing has already reached more than $18 million for the brief time since he returned to office. The price tag for Trump’s first four years in office was $151.5 million, but Trump is on pace to exceed that.
The report says that Trump has golfed at his courses in Florida on six of the seven weekends since his second inauguration. And because they are Trump courses, that presumably means money is going directly from the federal government to Trump-owned businesses.
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Those numbers are extrapolated from a 2019 Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis, which estimated that each Trump golf trip to Florida costs $3,383,250. However, that sum is “based on 2017 dollars that is likely higher now.”
https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1898941507995914502
There are several reasons for the cost. Per HuffPost, “Trump and his entourage fly down on Air Force One while the military brings down the vehicles for his motorcade on C-17 transports. Because Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, straddles the width of the barrier island, police boats with machine guns mounted on the bows patrol the Intracoastal while a Coast Guard vessel is stationed off the beach in the Atlantic. Additional costs include law enforcement and explosive-sniffing dogs.”
Additionally, Politico reported last year that after a gunman was arrested at a golf course while Trump was playing, the incident “ignited longstanding concerns among security experts that Trump’s regular golf habit might make him vulnerable to assailants.” Golf courses are large and complicated to protect logistically. The New York Times reported last fall that Trump was planning to stop playing golf at his courses, although if that pause ever happened, it appears it was temporary.
Last week Ryan Routh, the man accused in the golf course assassination attempt, appeared in court in Florida, while his lawyers were permitted to visit the scene of the crime, which was Trump’s course in West Palm Beach.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
