The total cost of President Donald Trump's travel expenses — including trips to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and Bedminster, N.J. golf club — has now surpassed $13.5 million, according to a report by Judical Watch.
Through Freedom of Information Act requests, the conservative watchdog group accessed documents from the U.S. Department of the Air Force. Those data show that the president's non-official travel to rallies and vacations have cost $3.2 million alone since June of 2017.
All told, the president has amassed $13,533,937.28 in total first-year travel costs, the organization found. The government shutdown prevented Trump from making his latest sojourn to Mar-a-Lago, where he was scheduled to headline a fundraiser.
On June 30, Trump and First Lady Melania Trump took a trip to the Bedminster golf club, on a flight which cost $15,994 per hour. In total, the trip cost $44,783.
Since June, Trump also visited Alabama, Arizona and Missouri for campaign trips and rallies. The trip to Arizona alone, where he met with Marines and hosted a rally, cost over $1.5 million. Two trips by Trump to Mar-a-Lago, including a trip where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, cost over $1 million, Judicial Watch previously reported.
High costs for the travel and security of Trump, his wife, and his adult children led the Secret Service to meet budget constraints for the pay of hundreds of agents in August of 2017.
Estimates by the military say operation of the presidential plane costs about $206,000 an hour, The Washington Post reports.
Judicial Watch also tracked the cost of former U.S. President Barack Obama and his family throughout the former president's entire 8-year tenure. To date, the organization reported their travel costs reached a grand total of $114,691,322.17.