According to GAO, Trump took four trips alone to Mar-A-Lago in Feb. 2017, a few weeks after being sworn into office. Those trips cost taxpayers $13.5M. (source:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/696512.pdf) How many trips to FL and to his other properties has he taken in the 2-1/2 years since?
By contrast, Obama's non-presidential travel costs were ~ $100M spread out over eight years.
"Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, obtained government records in December 2016 near the end of the Obama administration and summarized the Obama family's eight years of travel, putting the known cost at $96.9 million. "The Obamas' notorious abuse of presidential travel perks wasted military resources and stressed the Secret Service. Judicial Watch estimates that the final costs of Obama's unnecessary vacation and political travel will well exceed $100 million," Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said in December. At that time, he added: "President-elect Trump can immediately save taxpayers money by reforming presidential travel." *
* (Note that Judicial Watch is including in the ~$100M figure "political travel." You know, like Toadstool's many, many political rallies.)
"What is Fitton saying about Trump's travels so far? "It's a rather obvious use of taxpayer resources for seemingly unnecessary purposes."" (source:
https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/when-vacations-cost-millions/2320612 )
From Forbes (July 2019):
"From a combination of an analysis from the HuffPost, the GAO or General Accounting Office, Politico and the Washington Post using costs from both Obama and Trump golf trips the estimated cost of Trump’s visits so far come to a range of $105 to $108 million. When you extrapolate the $105 million estimate to eight years, assuming Trump is re-elected, the total cost is over $340 million." (source:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckj...cost-taxpayers-over-340-million/#47ac3de528aa )