20

The following graphic has been making the rounds in Reddit and other locations:

enter image description here

The graphic cites The Washington Post as its source.

Essentially, it is a infographic based on two figures:

  • That Trump's estimated travel expenses during his first month of presidency was $US10m.
  • That Obama's average monthly travel costs throughout the term as president were $US1m.

Are these values/estimates accurate for Obama and Trump's travel expenses?

nitsua60
  • 192
  • 1
  • 8
dsollen
  • 10,062
  • 12
  • 43
  • 71
  • 12
    Note that the outer-most circle on the right-hand side corresponds to a projected second term for Trump. I'd think that there's insufficient data at the moment for that projection. – Schmuddi Mar 30 '17 at 17:49
  • 2
    @Schmuddi Indeed, looking at the dotted circles it might well be that Trump's total presidency travel costs are comparable to Obama's total presidency travel costs ... – Hagen von Eitzen Aug 21 '17 at 04:25

1 Answers1

28

Here is an article From December 2016 citing $96m as President Obama's travel expenses over 8 years.

Found here Watchdog: Obama's 'Vacation, Political Travel' Cost $100M Over 8 Years

Cited article Judicial Watch: New Obama Travel Costs Bring Eight-Year Total over $96 Million

Judicial Watch announced today that it has received new documents from both the Secret Service and the Air Force relating to Obama travel expenses, bringing the known total over the past eight years to $96,938,882.51.

And here is the Washington Post article about President Trump's three Mar-a-Lago trips costing about $10m, from the "Source" on your image.

Washington Post - Trump family’s elaborate lifestyle is a ‘logistical nightmare’ — at taxpayer expense

Trump’s three Mar-a-Lago trips since the inauguration have probably cost the federal treasury about $10 million, based on figures used in an October government report analyzing White House travel, including money for Coast Guard units to patrol the exposed shoreline and other military, security and staffing expenses associated with moving the apparatus of the presidency.

If this pace keeps up, then yes, the figures in the image are going to be accurate.

Zack
  • 404
  • 4
  • 5
  • 4
    Can you find other sources to back up the figures for Trump's travel expenses? Otherwise, it's really just repeating that part of the claim. – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Mar 30 '17 at 17:46
  • 1
    @iamnotmaynard true. I did find that WP article through googling "trump first month travel expenses" before actually seeing it on the image, but I'll try to find another separate source. – Zack Mar 30 '17 at 17:48
  • 6
    The ten million estimate is based off this report. http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/680400.pdf If we roughly take the cost of the travel over aircraft embark/debark time and flight time (roughly say 16hrs) to the roughly say 9hrs for trip to Mar-a-Lago we get 2 million per trip, without an estimate of USCG costs which might push it to the 3 million. I would say the 10 million is plausible. – RomaH Mar 30 '17 at 18:29
  • 1
    Another million is expenses incurred by the local sheriff office as reported here. http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/17/politics/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-costs/ – RomaH Mar 30 '17 at 18:40
  • 4
    I think that to compare apples to apples, we should probably only consider how much the secret service and airforce spend. Additionally, we should also consider that the Trump Protective circle is much larger then Obama's. – Alonzo Muncy Mar 30 '17 at 20:50
  • 9
    Also, extrapolating from the very first month of a presidency to the total time may not be very accurate. Is there any way to compare to previous presidents? – Sebastian Redl Mar 30 '17 at 21:00
  • 2
    @SebastianRedl .. especially not if the Trump statistic is only based on 3 data points. –  Aug 21 '17 at 08:21