President Trump has no intention of cutting back on his costly trips to his Mar-a-Lago home in West Palm Beach, Fla. despite routinely criticizing his predecessor’s travel habits.
“Presidents always travel and I think the president, wherever he goes, he carries the apparatus of the White House with us,” press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday. “The president will continue to go and travel around the country to solve the nation’s problems.”
Spicer accused a reporter of making “a vast reach” by suggesting that Trump is hypocritical to call for deep spending cuts while continuing to make expensive trips to his beachside residence. Estimates by the Government Accountability Office have set the price tag for a single trip to Mar-a-Lago at around $3 million, and Palm Beach County officials previously told the Washington Examiner that the city spends around $180,000 in security costs for every weekend that Trump is in town.
“The president is very clear that he works seven days a week,” Spicer said in defense of Trump. “He goes to visit his family [and] he brings people down there,” suggesting the trips were an aspect of his work.
Trump returned to Washington from Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, following a weekend in which he conducted meetings, including with Rep. Mark Meadows, Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz.
