White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday President Trump isn’t setting a bad example for cabinet members whose use of private planes at taxpayer expense has led to ongoing controversy.
Sanders defended Trump’s use of Air Force One — which costs about $180,000 an hour to operate — to visit his properties in Florida and New Jersey on 17 weekends.
“The president is in a certainly very different position. He’s not allowed to travel in a different way other than in a secure airplane as Air Force One,” Sanders said at the White House press briefing.
Sanders described Trump’s getaways to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., and to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., as work-related in response a followup question about why he doesn’t “stay here and work” like past presidents.
“Every weekend that he’s traveling, no matter where he is, the president is working,” she said. “He’s hosted foreign leaders on several of those trips, which have led to some great accomplishments. They’ve led certainly to putting further pressure — unprecedented pressure — on North Korea in large part because of the relationship development that’s taken place at some of those weekends that you’re attacking for.”
She added: “This is a president that’s committed to helping move his agenda further, and certainly I think that those weekends have been very successful in doing that.”
Trump visited his golf club in New Jersey on three weekends in September, with some of the weekends featuring no visiting foreign leader and days without significant activity shared with reporters stationed at nearby hotels.
Sanders said Trump would reimburse taxpayers for political trips he takes aboard Air Force One, such as an upcoming weekend rally in North Carolina. She was unable to say if reimbursement would be at the same first-class rate that led former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to repay $52,000. Price was forced out last week as controversy mounted over his luxury travel.
