Mar-a-Lago trips cost Coast Guard $20M

President has spent 69 days at Florida resort

Taxpayers have paid nearly $20 million for extra Coast Guard patrols that protected President Donald Trump during 16 trips to West Palm Beach, Florida, since his inauguration, according to records obtained by USA TODAY.

The spending records include all but one of his trips to his Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida since the inauguration in January 2017. The data, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, does not include the cost of a weeklong trip in April when Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The president has spent 69 days of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago, 33 at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, and 31 at Trump National in Sterling, Virginia.

Each trip to Florida hits the Coast Guard budget for more than $1 million, the records show, and is only a part of the costs taxpayers pay for the president’s affinity for visiting the estate he calls the “Southern White House.”

The Government Accountability Office put an overall estimate of more than $3 million on presidential trips to Florida – based on President Barack Obama’s time flying at $200,000 per hour on Air Force One – Secret Service staff, local authorities and overtime. A more specific examination of Trump’s visits will be completed by the GAO in the fall.

Coast Guard records show the service continues to assign both 29-foot rubber boats and 87-foot patrol boats with .50 caliber machine guns. An H-65 rescue helicopter patrols the airspace near Mar-a-Lago for about $8,000 per flight-hour.

Presidential patrols come amid a continued funding pinch for the Coast Guard, which has a $10 billion annual budget. The service has a maintenance backlog and lobbied hard for a funding increase in the president’s latest budget proposal.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Alana Miller said the service budgets for presidential travel for every administration. The conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch tallied the total eight-year tab for Obama’s official trips and vacations at $96 million.