Trump's Golf-Property Travel Has Cost Taxpayers Over $100 Million While Vance's Family Demands Last-Minute Perks Like a Marine Helicopter to a Golf Lesson

Details

President Donald Trump's frequent travel to golf properties he owns—primarily Mar-a-Lago and the nearby Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Trump National Doral in Miami—has generated substantial taxpayer-funded aviation, motorcade, and security expenses. According to a HuffPost analysis published November 26, 2025, those costs reached roughly $70.8 million in the first ten months of his second term. By late March 2026, an updated HuffPost analysis put the running total at $101.2 million across 110 confirmed golf days. The independent tracker DidTrumpGolfToday.com, which uses broader cost categories, places the figure higher—around $144 million as of April 2026.

If the current pace continues across the full term, projections estimate cumulative second-term costs could exceed $300 million—roughly double the $151.5 million estimated for his first term using the same methodology.

Methodology and the GAO Benchmark

No federal agency has published an audited total of second-term presidential travel costs. The estimates rely on Government Accountability Office report GAO-19-178, published in January 2019, which audited four Trump trips to Mar-a-Lago in early 2017 and found they cost taxpayers approximately $13.6 million combined—an average of $3.4 million per trip. Key cost drivers identified in the audit include:

• Air Force One operations: The modified Boeing 747 used for Florida trips operates at $273,063 per hour. A four-hour round trip between Joint Base Andrews and Palm Beach International Airport costs roughly $1.1 million in aircraft time alone.
• C-17 cargo flights to transport armored motorcade vehicles
• Coast Guard patrols in the waterways surrounding Mar-a-Lago, a barrier-island property
• Protective staffing salaries for Secret Service and military personnel
• Local law enforcement overtime reimbursements

Analysts apply these per-trip figures to public schedules and pool reports of presidential movements. Because military and law enforcement salaries have not been adjusted for inflation in the calculations, HuffPost has noted that the actual costs are almost certainly higher than the unadjusted estimates suggest.

Bedminster trips are estimated at roughly $1.1 million each because the local airport cannot accommodate the 747 and Trump uses a smaller 757 instead. Doral trips run approximately $2.7 million each.

Reference Operating and Per-Trip Costs

The figures below are the documented per-hour operating rates and per-trip estimates that underlie the totals in this entry. They mix hourly rates with whole-trip estimates and combine presidential and vice-presidential assets, so they function as operating-cost benchmarks rather than a head-to-head spending comparison.

Asset or trip	Estimated cost	Unit	Source
Air Force One (modified Boeing 747)	$273,063	per flight hour	GAO-19-178
Marine Two (U.S. Marine Corps helicopter)	$16,000–$24,600	per flight hour	2022 DoD budget estimates
Trump trip to Mar-a-Lago (average)	~$3.4 million	per trip	GAO-19-178 (4 trips, ~$13.6M total)
Trump trip to Bedminster, N.J.	~$1.1 million	per trip	HuffPost
Trump trip to Trump National Doral, Fla.	~$2.7 million	per trip	HuffPost
Obama trip to Illinois and Florida (Feb. 2013, included golf)	~$3.6 million	per trip	GAO-17-24
Trump trip to Scotland (Jul. 2025)	~$9.7–10 million	per trip	HuffPost / DNC

The Scotland Trip

The most expensive single excursion documented to date was a five-day trip to Scotland from July 25–29, 2025, during which Trump opened the New Course at Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire, named for his late mother, Mary Anne MacLeod. According to HuffPost reporting cited by the DNC, the trip cost taxpayers approximately $9.7–$10 million. The White House classified it as a working trip that included meetings with European Union and United Kingdom officials, but the centerpiece was the ribbon-cutting at the new course, attended by Trump Organization employees and professional golfers. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) characterized the trip as substantially a marketing event for Trump's private business.

According to CREW, the Secret Service alone billed taxpayers more than $53,000 in hotel costs at Trump's Scottish properties during this single trip.

Secret Service Payments to Trump-Owned Businesses

Beyond the aviation and security operating costs, federal agencies are again paying Trump-owned businesses directly. In a February 2026 report based on Freedom of Information Act records, CREW documented that the Secret Service had spent nearly $100,000 at Trump properties in the first months of the second term. Documented payments included:

• Roughly $50,000 at Trump National Doral in Miami
• $14,000 at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas
• Smaller amounts at properties associated with travel by Eric, Lara, and Don Jr. Trump

CREW noted that the records exclude most international travel and rental car expenses, meaning the actual figure is likely higher.

First-Term Context

The second-term spending pattern continues practices documented extensively in Trump's first term. According to a 2023 CREW analysis of FOIA-obtained records, the Secret Service paid Trump-owned businesses approximately $1.75 million during the first term, with the likely total closer to $2 million when accounting for incomplete records.

In October 2022, then-Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney sent a letter to the Secret Service documenting that the agency had received at least 40 waivers to exceed government per diem rates at Trump properties, with charges as high as $1,185 per night at the Trump International Hotel in Washington—nearly five times the federal rate set by the General Services Administration.

A more detailed October 2024 House Oversight report led by Ranking Member Jamie Raskin found that on November 28, 2017, the Secret Service paid $600 per room at the Trump D.C. hotel to protect Eric and Lara Trump—on the same night that more than 80 other rooms in the building rented for less than $600, including a dozen rooms rented to a Chinese coal company at $338.85 each. On February 22, 2018, the Secret Service was charged $895 per room while members of the Qatari royal family paid less for similar rooms the same evening.

These charges occurred despite Eric Trump's public claim in 2020 that the family charged the Secret Service roughly $50 per room or "at cost." Raskin's report concluded the arrangement constituted a violation of the Constitution's Domestic Emoluments Clause.

Trump's Prior Statements on Presidential Golf

The current spending pattern stands in tension with statements Trump made repeatedly during his 2015–2016 campaign. Trump frequently criticized President Barack Obama's golf habit, both as a matter of priorities and cost. In a February 2016 campaign appearance reported by the Washington Examiner, Trump said that if elected he did not think he would ever see his Turnberry course in Scotland or his Doral course in Miami again. At an August 2016 rally covered by CNN, Trump told the crowd he would be working too hard for the American people to play golf as president.

According to tracking by Mark Knoller of CBS News, Obama played 333 rounds of golf over his eight years in office. Obama's per-trip costs were substantially lower because he most often played at the course on Joint Base Andrews, a short motorcade ride from the White House requiring no Air Force One travel. President Joe Biden's weekend trips to Delaware and Rehoboth Beach also avoided the 747 because the local airports cannot accommodate it.

By contrast, Trump played 261 rounds across his first term according to Wikipedia's compilation of presidential records, and as of April 2026 had spent roughly 22–23 percent of his second term—approximately one in every four days—at properties he owns.

Estimated Travel Costs by President

A direct cross-president comparison is difficult, because the available figures use different methodologies, cover different scopes, and come from different sources—golf-specific estimates for Trump versus all-travel tallies for Obama. The one genuinely comparable data point is GAO's per-trip auditing: a single 2013 Obama trip to Florida ran about $3.6 million, while Trump's Mar-a-Lago trips averaged about $3.4 million each. Per-trip costs are similar; the gap in the totals below is driven by frequency and by Trump's use of properties he personally owns, not by a higher per-trip price.

President (terms)	Estimate	What it covers	Source and basis
Trump, 2nd term (2025–present)	~$101.2M through late March 2026 (110 golf days); on pace to exceed $300M for the term	Golf-related aviation, motorcade, and security travel	HuffPost, applying GAO-19-178 methodology
Biden, one term (2021–2025)	No comprehensive travel total published; disclosed records cover Secret Service costs only (~$2.2M in tracked travel; ~$3M for Delaware home trips)	Secret Service travel slices only—a much narrower scope than the Obama figure, so the two are not comparable; Biden avoided the 747 for Delaware and Rehoboth weekends, using smaller aircraft or motorcades	Judicial Watch (Delaware trips)
Trump, 1st term (2017–2021)	~$151.5 million	Golf-related travel	HuffPost, GAO methodology
Obama, two terms (2009–2017)	~$106–114 million	All travel, including vacations and campaigning—not golf-specific; Obama most often golfed at Joint Base Andrews, requiring no Air Force One	Judicial Watch FOIA tallies (a conservative watchdog)

Pattern Across Federal Agencies

CREW's February 2026 analysis of conflicts of interest documents Cabinet officials and federal agencies promoting Trump properties in official capacities, including:

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing a Navy shipbuilding initiative from Mar-a-Lago and posting from the property on New Year's Eve
• Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler posting in front of a Trump Hotel in Minneapolis
• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posting from a Mar-a-Lago gala on her official government account
• The International Trade Administration's Commerce Department page on Oman citing the under-development Trump International Hotel in Muscat as an example of the country's tourism development

In a separate development, the Department of the Interior on December 31, 2025 terminated a 50-year lease held by the National Links Trust for three public golf courses in Washington, D.C. On January 2, 2026, it was reported that the administration planned to renovate the Courses at Andrews at Joint Base Andrews—the course Obama most often used—and place them under different management.

White House Response

The White House has defended the president's schedule. Spokesman Davis Ingle told The Independent in January 2026 that Trump works around the clock and has delivered numerous achievements in his first year. The White House has not contested the specific cost estimates, and the administration has not published audited travel expenditure totals for the second term.

Caveats on the Numbers

Several caveats apply to the figures cited above:

• The GAO has not published an updated audit covering the second term. The most recent detailed federal audit (GAO-19-178) covered four 2017 trips.
• Estimates are not adjusted for inflation, salary increases, or classified protective expenses.
• Different trackers reach different totals depending on whether they include only aviation and security or also lodging payments, local police overtime, and other line items.
• "Days at golf properties" and "rounds of golf played" are distinct measures; the White House does not always confirm whether a given visit included a round of golf.

The underlying cost drivers identified by GAO—Air Force One operations, C-17 cargo support, Coast Guard patrols, and protective staffing salaries—remain in effect when the president travels to the same locations, and have likely increased in nominal terms since 2019.

The Pattern Extends to the Vice President

In July 2026, MS NOW (the successor outlet to MSNBC) reported that Vice President JD Vance's Secret Service detail had grown "fed up" with last-minute personal and family travel requests. The Vances are the first family to reside at the Naval Observatory with young children since Al Gore's family more than 25 years ago.

The most striking example was a plan to fly Vance's young son to a golf lesson at Joint Base Andrews aboard Marine Two, the Marine Corps helicopter that carries the vice president. Operating that helicopter costs taxpayers between $16,000 and $24,600 per hour, according to 2022 Defense Department budget estimates. The White House Military Office, which reports to the president, would have had to authorize the flight. The planned Thursday trip was canceled at the last minute because of severe thunderstorms and high winds in the Washington area; a day after MS NOW's reporting, Vance's office canceled the rescheduled flight as well, and agents drove the child to the lesson instead. By the account of former and current Secret Service supervisors, this had no precedent: prior vice presidents declined to use such expensive assets for their children's schedules, and their children were driven to local activities in SUVs, as agents said they were now doing for Vance's son. One person familiar with the planned trip called it "RIDICULOUS," adding that "Pence and Harris never pulled anything like that"—a comparison the reporting extends to the family's broader habit of last-minute travel, which a second source characterized as "way more excessive than Pence and Harris."

Beyond the helicopter, agents described a broader pattern of "off the record" (OTR) movements—last-minute, unscheduled trips that force agents to cancel days off, drop other plans, and hastily assemble security plans. The Vances reportedly required several last-minute helicopter trips to the Middleburg, Virginia, area to house-hunt for a residence for their expanding family. Frustration reached the point that agents produced custom challenge coins and stickers reading "Bobcat OTR Survivors Club"—"Bobcat" is Vance's Secret Service code name—with the motto "Advance. OTR. Repeat.," referencing the repeated cycle of preparing advance security plans only to have them scrapped for new last-minute movements.

Vance's office responded that the family is "grateful to the men and women of the U.S. Secret Service who serve our country with distinction" and that protecting "a Vice President with a large policy portfolio and a young and growing family presents a unique challenge." A separate administration official acknowledged last-minute shifts but attributed them to the nature of the job, noting that "most past presidents and vice presidents have not had young children, and therefore the detail has not been presented with this nature of protective mandate." Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn issued a statement emphasizing that protective work involves "long hours, frequent travel, and the need for constant flexibility" and "requires absolute dedication and discipline." The reporting also situates the complaints against a backdrop of chronic Secret Service understaffing documented by the DHS Inspector General.