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Fact check: How does Trump's golf expenses compare to other presidents?
Executive Summary
Donald Trump’s golf activities have generated unusually high taxpayer costs relative to recent presidents, with multiple reports documenting frequent visits to Trump-owned courses, Secret Service and local policing bills in the millions, and aggregate estimates running into the low hundreds of millions for his first term and continuing in his second [1] [2] [3]. Different sources emphasize different components—flight and security costs, lodging and on-site spending at Trump properties, and international policing—so totals vary and debate centers on methodology and potential conflicts of interest [4] [5].
1. What supporters and critics are actually claiming about the size of the bill
Reports assert that Trump’s golf-related travel and associated security have cost taxpayers far more than comparable presidential leisure before him, with some outlets estimating over $152 million during his first term and citing single trips costing roughly $10 million [2] [6]. Other reporting focuses on spending by the Secret Service at Trump properties, totaling nearly $100,000 in early months of the second term, highlighting recurring micro-level expenditures that flow to Trump-owned venues [3]. These claims rest on different accounting choices—direct agency bills versus broader security and local policing costs—so headline totals are sensitive to which categories are included [7] [4].
2. How the visit counts and duration compare to earlier presidents
Analyses document a high frequency of trips: 62 visits to Trump-owned golf courses in a six-month window and historical summaries that placed Trump’s golf outings at 21% of days early in his previous term, figures that outpace many recent predecessors on visit frequency and days-away-from-office metrics [1] [7]. Those visit-count comparisons do not automatically translate to identical cost ratios, because security posture, travel distance, and local policing arrangements vary by trip and host nation, which is why some trips provoke particularly large bills when they involve overseas policing or extended protective deployments [5] [8].
3. The largest cost drivers flagged by multiple outlets
Broadly, three cost categories recur across reporting: Secret Service operational spending and on-site vendor bills; federal transportation and logistics for presidential travel; and host-nation or local policing costs when visits occur overseas. Estimates that reach the hundreds of millions combine these elements, while narrower tallies—like Secret Service vendor spend at specific properties—produce much smaller, verifiable sums [3] [2] [5]. The divergence reflects whether reporters include indirect or allied public expenditures, such as local police overtime or embassy support.
4. International visits amplify disputes over who pays
Trump’s trips to Scotland prompted explicit intergovernmental disputes about responsibility for multimillion-pound policing bills—figures reported around £24–26 million—illustrating how international visits can shift heavy costs onto local or national governments and trigger political friction [5] [9]. Those stories emphasize that when the president visits foreign sites tied to private commercial interests, cost allocation becomes both a fiscal and diplomatic quarrel, with governments citing precedent while others push back on shouldering the burden.
5. How the ownership of golf properties shapes interpretations of the data
Reporting highlights that many of the locations where Secret Service and other taxpayers spend money are Trump-branded or owned properties, raising scrutiny over whether public funds indirectly benefit private businesses and intensifying ethical concerns [4] [6]. The factual chain is simple: taxpayer-funded security and vendor payments occur at those properties; the normative question—whether that constitutes improper enrichment—falls outside raw accounting, but the ownership link materially shapes both public reaction and investigative emphasis.
6. Sources, timing, and agendas you should weigh when reading the numbers
Coverage spans immediate agency records (e.g., Secret Service spending reports) to compiled multi-year estimates and government disputes, with recent pieces from October 2025 documenting new large international policing bills and 2025 mid-year pieces updating earlier first-term totals [3] [5] [2]. Every source brings an agenda: local governments emphasize burden and precedent; watchdogs and outlets with investigative foci aggregate broader costs; and outlets close to the subject highlight different contexts. Cross-checking line-item agency records with aggregated estimates is essential to understand what is measured and what is inferred [7] [2].
7. Bottom line: what can be stated with confidence and what remains unsettled
It is factual that Secret Service and policing expenditures associated with Trump’s golf trips have amounted to millions per trip in major instances, and that aggregated estimates for his first term exceeded $150 million depending on scope; these costs continue into his second term with new multi-million charges reported [3] [2] [5]. It remains unsettled exactly how to compare totals across presidents because methodologies differ: some tallies include broader diplomatic and host-nation policing costs, while other tallies stick to direct federal agency bills. Readers should therefore treat headline totals as method-dependent aggregates and inspect the line-item bases when comparing presidents [1] [4].