Administration

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago trips cost $20M in Coast Guard protection: report

President Trump’s trips to his Mar-a-Lago estate have cost taxpayers nearly $20 million for Coast Guard protection since he took office, USA Today reported.

Records obtained by the newspaper show more than $1 million for Coast Guard protection alone was shelled out for each of Trump’s trips to the Florida property.

The president has spent 69 days of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago, according to a NBC News tracker.

{mosads}

The Coast Guard records cover all of Trump’s trips to the estate, with the exception of his visit there last year with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The estate and private club are both located on a piece of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway, both of which require patrols.

The documents show that the Coast Guard issues 29-foot rubber boats and 87-foot patrol boats with .50 caliber machine guns, as well as a rescue helicopter near the property that costs roughly $8,000 per flight-hour.

Coast Guard members have spent more than 4,200 hours on protective duty near the estate from April 2017 to March 2018.

A spokeswoman for the Coast Guard told the newspaper that the service budgets for presidential travel during each administration.