Trump’s cabinet weakened by travel expenses scandal
US President Donald Trump’s health secretary resigned yesterday, after his costly travel triggered investigations that overshadowed the administration’s agenda and angered his boss.
Tom Price’s regrets and partial repayment of the money couldn’t save his job.
The health and human services secretary became the first member of the president’s cabinet to be pushed out in a turbulent young administration that has seen several high-ranking White House aides ousted. A former Republican congressman from the Atlanta suburbs, Price served less than eight months.
Publicly, Trump had said he was ‘‘not happy’’ with Price for repeatedly using private charter aircraft for official trips on the taxpayer’s dime, when cheaper commercial flights would have sufficed in many cases.
Privately, Trump had told associates in recent days that Price was overshadowing his tax overhaul agenda and undermining his campaign promise to ‘‘drain the swamp’’ of corruption, according to three people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The flap has prompted scrutiny of other cabinet members’ travel, with the House Oversight and Government Reform committee launching a government-wide investigation of top political appointees. Other department heads have been scrambling to explain their own travel.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke faced scrutiny over three charter flights while in office, including a US$12,375 late-night trip from Las Vegas to his home state of Montana in June. Yesterday, he dismissed the controversy as ‘‘a little BS over travel’’ but said taxpayers had the right to know official travel costs.
Price’s repayment of US$51,887.31 for his own travel costs did not placate the White House. The total travel cost, including his entourage, was unclear. It could amount to several hundred thousand dollars.
Following Price’s resignation, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney informed cabinet secretaries and agency heads in a memo that approval from chief of staff John Kelly will be required for any travel on government-owned, rented, leased or chartered aircraft.
An orthopaedic surgeon turned politician, Price rose to Budget Committee chairman in the House of Representatives, where he was known as a fiscal conservative. When he joined the administration, Trump touted him as a conservative policy expert who could write a new healthcare bill to replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. But Price became more of a supporting player in the GOP’s futile healthcare campaign, while Vice President Mike Pence took the lead.
The perception of Price jetting around while GOP lawmakers laboured to repeal ‘‘Obamacare’’ – including a three-nation trip in May to Africa and Europe – raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill. Price flew on military aircraft overseas.
Although much of Trump’s ire over the healthcare failure has been aimed at the Republicancontrolled Congress, associates of the president said he also assigned some blame to Price, who he believed did not do a good job of selling the GOP plan.
Price, 62, was seen in Congress as a foe of wasteful spending. He criticised the Medicaid health programme for low-income people, saying it did not deliver results commensurate with the hundreds of billions of dollars taxpayers spent on it.
But his image as a budget hawk took a hit when reports of his official travel started bubbling up.
Price used private charter flights on 10 trips with multiple segments, when in many cases cheaper commercial flights were available. His charter travel was first reported by the political news service Politico.
Initially, Price’s office said his busy scheduled forced him to use charters from time to time. But Price’s response later changed, and he said he had heard the criticism and concerns and taken them to heart.