{"id":25281,"date":"2025-04-06T15:56:25","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T15:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=25281"},"modified":"2025-04-06T15:56:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T15:56:25","slug":"eye-watering-amount-donald-trumps-golf-trips-actually-cost-us-taxpayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=25281","title":{"rendered":"Eye-watering amount Donald Trump\u2019s golf trips actually cost US taxpayers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Donald Trump is known to enjoy a round of golf or two \u2013 so much so, in fact, that he owns courses across the globe so that he can go and play regularly on his own turf.<\/p>\n

The most famous is arguably the course at his sprawling Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach,\u00a0Florida<\/a>, which\u00a0Trump<\/a>\u00a0lovingly refers to as his \u2018winter\u00a0White House<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

He bought the complex back in 1985, later converting it into a members-only club with guest rooms and amenities like a luxury spa, tennis courts, private beach access and pool.<\/p>\n

Over the years, it\u2019s become Trump’s ultimate schmoozing hotspot \u2013 and unlikely\u00a0political<\/a>\u00a0base – with previous invitees including everyone from\u00a0TikTok<\/a>\u00a0CEO Shou Zi Chew to Argentina’s President Javier Milei.<\/p>\n

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Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate (Marc Serota\/Getty images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

But while it\u2019s often used for genuine political and business meetings, it is also the chosen location for many of Trump\u2019s golfing trips \u2013 something, it turns out, is costing US taxpayers a lot of money.<\/p>\n

A 2019 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) crunched the numbers on four trips Trump took to Mar-a-Lago during his first term.<\/p>\n

The report put the total cost at $13.6 million, which works out at around $3.4m a pop.<\/p>\n

According to<\/a>\u00a0the Guardian, the cost includes flying Air Force One – plus a separate cargo plane to carry the presidential motorcade \u2013 between Washington and Palm Beach International Airport.<\/p>\n

For his current term, he\u2019s been on seven trips so far, meaning the US government is thought to have splashed out more than $23m on his golfing hobby.<\/p>\n

The Guardian added that this figure may not even be the full picture, as the GAO report doesn\u2019t account for \u2018additional federal funds to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for protecting Trump while he\u2019s in Florida\u2019.<\/p>\n

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\"Trump\"Trump<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Trump at the Trump International Golf Course in Mar-a-Lago (NICHOLAS KAMM\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

Indeed, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw has previously said his department spends $240,000 a day to help protect Trump alongside the Secret Service.<\/p>\n

Of course, Trump isn\u2019t the first sitting US president to play golf, with the likes of Barack Obama and George W Bush also known to dabble.<\/p>\n

However, he\u00a0did\u00a0<\/em>regularly mock Obama for jetting out of Washington at the expense of taxpayers, once tweeting: \u201cPresident Barack Obama\u2019s vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars \u2014 unbelievable!\u201d<\/p>\n

During an August 2016 rally in Virginia for his first presidential campaign, he also memorably told crowds: \u201cI\u2019m going to be working for you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to have time to go play golf.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Donald Trump is known to enjoy a round of golf or two \u2013 so much so, in fact, that he owns courses across the globe so that he … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25283,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25281\/revisions\/25283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}