Last fiscal year, the Trump family took more trips that required Secret Service protection than the Obama family took in seven, according to a budget document released by the Treasury Department. On average, Obama’s family took 133.3 protected trips per year, while the Trump family has taken an average of 1,625 annually. Much of the Trump family’s known travel has been to promote Trump Organization businesses, which President Trump still owns and profits from. Every President and his family deserve Secret Service protection. But the President’s private business should reimburse taxpayers for money spent at Trump’s businesses or in support of them.
While previous presidents have separated themselves from their assets and placed them in a blind trust, President Trump appointed his two adult sons to manage the international businesses that continue to make him hundreds of millions of dollars a year on his behalf. The Trump family’s extremely high number of protected trips can be partially explained by the fact that Eric and Don Jr. have traveled the world promoting Trump-branded businesses throughout the Trump presidency. This explanation does less to settle concerns than to highlight the extent to which the American people are subsidizing the Trump family business. Despite running up a high tab, the Trump Organization has not paid the American people back for the security taxpayers have subsidized when Trump family members travel to support a business that regularly cashes in on the presidency.
Of course the Trump family is entitled to Secret Service protection, and should be protected, but increasing the volume by more than a factor of ten has put a strain on the agency’s budget. So much so, that the Secret Service has had to justify the spike in protective travel costs in its congressional budget requests for the past two years. That appears to be the only reason the number of protected visits has been made public at all. Not only has the frequent travel put a strain on the budget, but a Secret Service agent told VICE News that Trump’s travel has contributed to “burnout.”
The Secret Service 2020 and 2021 budget requests contain explanations of some of the expenses driving costs that necessitate a larger budget. One of these is protective travel. Protective travel spiked massively in 2017 when Trump became president. In the last fiscal two years, the Trump family has taken 3,249 protected trips. In seven years, the Obama family took a total of 933.