Donald Trump “feels great” about spending his time at Mar-a-Lago, his spokesman Sean Spicer has said.
Since his inauguration, Mr Trump has spent at least seven weekends at the so-called ‘Winter White House’ in Florida.
The estimated security costs of each trip are more than $3million and local law enforcement has also struggled to deal with securing the local town of Palm Beach for the President.
Mr Spicer was asked by Fox 5 if Mr Trump was concerned about “pushback” he received from the costs associated with the trips and if this had influenced his decision not to attend Mar-a-Lago last week, or to visit this weekend.
He replied: “No, he [Mr Trump] feels great.”
The President’s recreational trips stand in strong contrast to his comments made on the campaign trail last year, when he said he would “rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done”.
But Mr Trump has made no indication of halting his trips to his Florida property.
Yet concerns abound over how the Presidency can properly function at the resort. There was outcry after Mr Trump’ messy response to a North Korean missile test was documented on social media by Mar-a-Lago guests in the same room.
On the same trip, a guest posted a picture of himself to Facebook posting with a military official who apparently was carrying the nuclear codes.
It was recently announced the Government Accountability Office will examine security procedures of the Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago and the costs of the government employees travelling there.
The projected cost of security for Mr Trump’s visits over a four year presidential term was reported to be an estimated to be $600 million. This is just over the amount his administration plans on cutting for social, education and cultural programmes.
