Since taking office earlier this year, it has been suggested that President Donald Trump has spent a significant amount of public funds on improving his athletic abilities. The staggering amount that Trump’s 13 rounds of golf have reportedly cost US taxpayers this year Trump is a sports enthusiast who also owns twelve properties in the United States that are owned by Trump Golf.
The 78-year-old Trump has been in office since January 20, when he was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. Since then, he has renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, renamed the meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, and appointed Elon Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency. He also claimed that defeating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the presidential election was a “mandate.” He is also willing to release a “suspicious” report on attempts on his life, and he recently signed an executive order creating a disputed Bitcoin reserve.
According to HuffPost, the businessman, who has called golf a “passion” rather than a game, owns twelve Trump Golf courses across the United States, two in Scotland, and one each in Ireland and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Since returning to Washington, DC, the US president has reportedly played three rounds at Trump Doral and ten rounds at the private Trump International West Palm Beach.
Trump Doral is an 800-acre resort east of Miami International Airport, while Trump International West Palm Beach is home to a 27-hole golf course only five minutes from the waterfront. Regarding Trump’s golfing activities during his first term in the White House, which frequently made headlines due to his golfing habits, The Washington Post estimated in 2019 that taxpayers would have to pay $64 million for Trump’s trip to the Sunshine State to play golf.
In contrast, by October 2020, author and former Labor secretary Robert Reich had calculated that Trump had actually cost taxpayers an incredible 141 million dollars. He tweeted, “Once again, Trump brags about donating his $400,000 presidential salary.” The article at the time read, “Somehow he forgot to mention that his golf trips have cost taxpayers $141,000,000.” According to the Committee on Oversight and Accountability Democrats, a single weekend in Scotland in 2018 cost taxpayers more than $1 million. What impact has President Trump’s participation in thirteen rounds of golf this year had on Americans?
It has been reported that President Trump and his entourage use Air Force One to travel to the golf courses in Florida, and additional expenses are paid due to the presence of police enforcement officers and canines trained to detect hazardous substances. On Saturday, March 8, the police confirmed that they were investigating a vandalism incident that occurred at Trump’s Turnberry golf course in Scotland. Based on the data presented in a report released by the Government Accountability Office in 2019, HuffPost has concluded that the president’s golf vacations have most likely cost American taxpayers more than $18 million.
It was described as a “childish, criminal act” by a spokeswoman for Trump Turnberry, who also referred to the course as a “national treasure” and declared that it will continue to be the “number one beacon of luxury and excellence in the world of golf over the generations.”