Price resigns over private plane use
Trump ‘not happy’ with health secretary’s flight tab
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump accepted Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s resignation Friday, the White House said, ending days of presidential criticism over Price’s use of private airplanes.
Price “offered his resignation earlier today and the president accepted,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
Sanders said Trump will designate Don Wright, the deputy assistant secretary for health and director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, as acting HHS secretary.
The announcement came less than two hours after Trump called Price a “very fine man” but once again expressed his irritation about how Price racked up roughly $1 million in flight costs on private and military aircraft since taking office in February.
“I certainly don’t like the optics,” Trump told reporters as he headed for the presidential helicopter Marine One, en route to a weekend stay at his golf club in New Jersey. “I’m not happy, I can tell you that. I’m not happy.”
Later, before boarding Air Force One, Trump was asked whether
Price offered to resign and responded: “No, but we’ll see what happens later on.”
Price is the latest highranking official to leave the Trump administration, joining a list that includes White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, press secretary Sean Spicer and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The president also dismissed FBI Director James Comey.
Price, a former Georgia congressman, is the second Cabinet member to depart his post; Trump’s first homeland security secretary, John Kelly, left to replace Priebus as chief of staff.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who criticized Price for leading efforts to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care law, said he hopes the next secretary will reverse that course.
“The mission of the health and human services secretary should be to support Americans’ health care, not take it away,” Schumer said. “The next HHS secretary must follow the law when it comes to the Affordable Care Act instead of trying to sabotage it.”
Politico first revealed that Price billed taxpayers for the more costly flights, instead of flying commercial airlines, which would be cheaper.
On Thursday, Price said he would repay the government about $52,000 for his domestic travel on chartered planes. He apologized for taking the flights.
“I regret the concerns this has raised regarding the use of taxpayer dollars,” he said. “All of my political career, I’ve fought for the taxpayers. It is clear to me that in this case, I was not sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer. I know as well as anyone that the American people want to know that their hardearned dollars are being spent wisely by government officials.”
Sanders said the White House has asked HHS to stop approving chartered flights.
Price’s apology came the same day the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee asked Trump to explain what the administration has done to make sure his Cabinet is being cost-effective in its travels.
A former chairman of the House’s budget committee, Price is an orthopedic surgeon who entered politics as a member of the Georgia legislature. He was an early and active opponent of the Affordable Care Act.
Even before he was confirmed to the Cabinet post by a party-line 52-47 vote in the Senate, Price had stirred controversy for his series of trades in stocks affected by legislation he introduced in Congress.
“All of my political career, I’ve fought for the taxpayers. It is clear to me that in this case, I was not sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer. I know as well as anyone that the American people want to know that their hard-earned dollars are being spent wisely by government officials.” TOM PRICE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY