Mar-a-Lago Winter House May Not Be Secure Enough For President
President Donald Trump is taking recurring retreats to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, an elite resort that has quickly been dubbed the winter White House and the “Southern White House” by the media and the president himself in a recent tweet. However, his presence there is raising concerns for both the president’s safety and the cost of securing him against threats after several recent incidents.
Most recently, for instance, the United States Air Force jets propelled into action five times over a single weekend to guard the airspace against general-aviation aircrafts that strayed into the no-fly zone above the Trump resort. Five out of a total of 12 civilian aircrafts that hovered in the no-fly zone around the Mar-a-Lago club required scrambling military aircrafts because they did not respond to calls by the Federal Aviation Administration.
"Twelve private aircraft violated the temporary flight restriction around Palm Beach since Friday. The FAA will investigate each incident and will take appropriate enforcement action." the FAA said in a statement, according to news reports.
Before that, the president was criticized for sub-par security during a recent meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago in which he took a national security call in the club’s dining area.
The Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Nov. 27, 2016. Photo: REUTERS/Joe Skipper
Trump having the lowest approval ratings compared to any past American president means that the Secret Service has to be more vigilant. They've had to look into more than 12,000 tweets using the phrase "assassinate Trump," since his inauguration.
The costs of protecting the president and the first family and securing their travel arrangements are also escalating. For example, New York City is paying $500,000 a day to guard Trump Tower, a figure that could reach $183 million a year. Meanwhile, Eric Trump’s recent trip to Uruguay cost the Secret Service and U.S. Embassy staffers nearly $100,000.
“It’s a logistical nightmare,” former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow told the Washington Post, explaining that agents are “at severe risk of burnout.”
In all, Trump’s three Mar-a-Lago trips since his inauguration a month ago have cost the Treasury Department about $10 million. When compared to former President Barack Obama’s travel costs in eight years over his two terms, Trump could exceed Obama in less than a year. That's a lot of money. Obama's travels added up to $97 million, according to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
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