In four out of the five weekends since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has traveled to Florida to play golf on one of his two courses in the state. Now, some internet users are teed off at the tab for Trump’s trips.
“Donald Trump has reportedly spent an estimated $10.7 million worth of taxpayer money to play golf since his inauguration,” Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor under former President Bill Clinton, posted on X, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky. The left-wing watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) claimed $10.7 million was spent at Trump-owned businesses. “Already Trump has spent about a third of his time in office playing golf on taxpayer money to the tune of about $3 million for each trip,” CREW’s X account tweeted. “That’s about $10.7 million in total. Spent at HIS businesses.” It added, “Where’s [the Department of Government Efficiency] DOGE on this wasteful spending?”
The claim that Trump has spent $10.7 million in taxpayer money on trips to Florida in his second term is partially true, but missing context. HuffPost senior White House correspondent S.V. Date estimated in a February 18 article that the total cost of Trump’s golf excursions in his second term—including travel and security expenses—to be about $10.7 million, based on the estimated costs of Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, during his first stint as president. Meanwhile, claims that $10.7 million in government funds were spent at Trump-owned businesses are partially false. While some taxpayer money went to pay for meals and lodging at Trump properties, most of the $10.7 million was spent on transportation and security.
A January 2019 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that four excursions Trump took from Washington, D.C., to Florida on personal business in 2017 cost a total of $13,568,000. Excluding the associated costs for Trump Cabinet officials and their staff who accompanied the president—$35,000 in total—the average cost for each of Trump’s Florida golf trips in 2017 was $3,383,250.
As Date noted in his HuffPost article, the president’s use of Air Force One, which is a military aircraft and covered by appropriations to the Department of Defense, accounted for about one-third of those expenses. The Pentagon paid for about 62.6 percent of the total cost, which included, per the report, “operational costs for DOD assets, specifically, for operating Air ForceOne and Marine Corps One to transport the President, as well as airlift support from the Air Mobility Command.” The remaining costs, billed to the Department of Homeland Security, were to pay for the Secret Service—including commercial air travel, rented vehicles, and a per diem for 24-hour protection of the president—and the U.S. Coast Guard for “the use of small response boats, special purpose law enforcement boats, deployable rotary wing aircraft, and marine protection-class cutters to provide support in waterways near Mar-a-Lago,” the GAO report stated. Golf carts were also listed among the Secret Service’s expenses, though an exact price point was not provided.
Date calculated the $10.7 million figure based on the $3,383,250 average estimate of Trump’s 2017 golf trips, which Date stated might have since increased due to inflation. As with his 2017 trips, two of Trump’s 2025 Florida golf trips saw him depart from and return to Washington, D.C. According to Trump’s public schedule, he traveled to Mar-a-Lago from January 31 to February 2. The following weekend Trump again went to Mar-a-Lago—and later visited his golf course in Miami-Dade county. On both of those outings, Date calculated taxpayers incurred total costs of $3,383,250 each—or about $6.8 million in total.
For Trump’s first trip to Florida after returning to the White House, Date tabulated a lower total for personal travel because Trump traveled from Las Vegas, which he visited on official business. Trump gave a speech in Las Vegas on January 25 where he spoke on economic issues and departed later that night for Miami. After visiting his Doral golf course, Trump returned to Washington on January 27. Because one leg of this trip was conducted on official business, Date told The Dispatch Fact Check he included expenses only for ground transportation and a motorcade in Miami and travel costs for the flight from Miami to Washington for that trip, which he estimated to have cost taxpayers about $1.1 million.
Similarly, when Trump traveled from Washington to Mar-a-Lago on February 7, he later left for New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl on February 9 before returning to the White House that night. Date excluded $546,000 for travel-related expenses for the New Orleans visit, bringing the estimated total for that weekend’s golf trip to $2.8 million. Adding those four trips together, Date reached an estimated figure of $10.7 million. The Dispatch Fact Check confirmed Date’s math cited in his HuffPost article.
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