{"id":406580,"date":"2025-11-26T18:40:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T18:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/406580\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T18:40:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T18:40:13","slug":"second-term-tab-for-trumps-golf-hobby-tops-70-million-on-track-to-exceed-300-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/406580\/","title":{"rendered":"Second-Term Tab For Trump\u2019s Golf Hobby Tops $70 Million, On Track To Exceed $300 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Taxpayers have now shelled out nearly $71 million for President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s golf hobby since he retook office in January, with his second-term total on pace to break $300 million, according to a HuffPost analysis.<\/p>\n

His visit to his course adjacent to the Palm Beach County jail Wednesday was on his 16th trip to his Mar-a-Lago country club home four miles away. Each of those trips cost $3.4 million in travel and security expenses.<\/p>\n

If he makes just two more trips to Mar-a-Lago in December \u2014 he made four in November, including the one over Halloween weekend \u2014 his golf expenses will top $75 million in 2025. On that pace, he would exceed $300 million over this four-year term.<\/p>\n

In contrast, he spent $151.5 million of taxpayer money in golf-related travel and security expenses during his first term<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wish I could tell you that it would make anyone in America change their mind about him, but the corruption is so baked in, so endemic, and so ludicrous that it feels like the collective reaction will be a shrug,\u201d said longtime Republican consultant Rick Wilson, now a Trump critic. \u201cIt\u2019s one more example of Trump defining the presidency down. Way, way down.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the trips to Mar-a-Lago \u2014 which has no golf course of its own, but is close to his courses in West Palm Beach and Jupiter \u2014 Trump has made nine trips to his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, which cost about $1.1 million each; and a trip to promote a new course he opened at his resort in Aberdeen, Scotland. That cost taxpayers nearly $10 million.<\/p>\n

In all, his golf trips have cost Americans $70.8 million in travel and security expenses thus far in 2025.<\/p>\n

HuffPost uses in its analysis cost estimates derived from a 2019 Government Accountability Office report<\/a> on Trump\u2019s trips to Mar-a-Lago early in his first term. Because the bulk of the expenses are salaries for military service members and law enforcement officers, which generally have not kept pace with the consumer price index, those figures are not inflated to current dollars. Nevertheless, the actual costs and totals are almost certainly higher than HuffPost\u2019s unadjusted 2019 numbers.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe motorcade for President Donald Trump arrives at Trump International Golf Club on Nov. 26 in West Palm Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n

Mar-a-Lago trips create particularly expensive security challenges. It sits on the barrier island with the Intracoastal Waterway to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. When Trump visits, small boats with machine guns on their bow patrol the waterway while Coast Guard ships cruise offshore.<\/p>\n

The single biggest expense, though, is Air Force One. The modified Boeing 747 Trump uses to travel from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to Palm Beach International Airport costs $273,063 per hour to fly, the GAO report found, meaning each four-hour round trip costs Americans $1.1 million.<\/p>\n

His trips to his course in Bedminster are far less expensive \u2015 $1.1 million, rather than $3.4 million \u2015 because the nearby airport cannot accommodate a 747. Trump instead flies the smaller, far cheaper modified 757.<\/p>\n

That less expensive rate is also why former President Joe Biden<\/a>\u2019s frequent trips to Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, cost taxpayers far less money than Trump\u2019s golf outings. The airport runway in Wilmington is also too short for a 747, so Biden used the smaller 757 or Marine One helicopters to get there and back.<\/p>\n

Former President Barack Obama<\/a>, who played golf frequently, nevertheless also spent far less on that hobby than Trump because he played the majority of his rounds on the course at Joint Base Andrews.<\/p>\n

Trump has never played golf on that course, but did take an aerial tour of it on Saturday aboard Marine One. That survey cost taxpayers approximately $115,000, based on the amount calculated by the GAO in 2019. It is not included in HuffPost\u2019s $70.8 million overall golf total.<\/p>\n

Prior to his first election in 2016, Trump promised that, unlike Obama, he would not play golf as president. \u201cI love golf, but if I were in the White House, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d ever see Turnberry again. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d ever see Doral again,\u201d he told rallygoers that February, referring to his courses in Scotland and South Florida. \u201cI don\u2019t ever think I\u2019d see anything. I just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump broke that promise within days of taking office, though, and through the end of that term, played golf on one of his courses on 293 days.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s outing on his West Palm Beach course was his 29th day there since returning to office and his 82nd day on a course he owns. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Taxpayers have now shelled out nearly $71 million for President Donald Trump\u2019s golf…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":406581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[69,1430,39156,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-406580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-golf","10":"tag-mar-a-lago","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115617466029934790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}