A trip to the Super Bowl, a joyride at the Daytona 500, golf trips to Doral — Donald Trump and his associates have been spending money on all sorts of frivolous affairs as his administration (and Elon Musk’s associates) has slashed critical government functions and roles at key agencies baselessly labeled as “waste.”
Fact-checking outlet Snopes estimated that the cost of Trump and his family’s recent visit to the Super Bowl in New Orleans, including expenses like air travel and Secret Service work, came out to $1 million, which Snopes said is most likely “only a fraction of the total cost of Trump’s presence at the Super Bowl to American taxpayers.”
Trump also appeared over the weekend at the Daytona 500, where Air Force One did a flyover before his presidential limousine drove him around the track for a lap. No figures are available for what that trip cost. (For what it’s worth, Trump ended up leaving the event early, after a rain delay.)
Meanwhile, Trump’s golf trips appear to be running up a costly bill for American taxpayers, as well, amid Trump’s purported war on government waste. A HuffPost report published Tuesday noted that Trump “has now played golf at his own properties on nine of his first 30 days in office.” HuffPost used Government Accountability Office data about the cost of golf trips during Trump’s first presidency to estimate the cost of his trips this time, which it estimates to have run to $10.7 million. HuffPost points out that during “Trump’s first term, his golf expenses totaled $152 million over four years, for a total of 293 golf days at his own resorts.”
The obvious question, watching Trump slash and burn the federal government, is whether the public will think the president’s expensive excursions to sporting events and other photo-ops are more essential to the proper function of our country than, say, federal grants for important medical studies — things that his associates like Musk have seen fit to cut.
Because when you weigh what it’s spending money on against what it has been trying to cut, the Trump administration is sending an unmistakable message that the president’s having a little fun — whether he’s hacking at golf balls in the bunkers of his private resort or watching the Chiefs get blitzed in the Super Bowl — is more important than funding things like cancer research.
