Guarding Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club cost taxpayers $6.6 million: report

President Trump’s Florida club cost taxpayers more than $6.6 million to protect since January, according to a new report published Friday.

Mar-a-Lago, one of Trump’s resort golf courses which sits on waterfront property on Florida’s coastline, requires protection by both air and sea while the president is visiting. 

Spending for one of Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago is close to $1 million dollars, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

In comparison, security costs for a similar trip to Florida by former President Barack Obama in 2013 cost closer to $586,000.

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Trump has reportedly already spent more than $21 million on travel so far in his presidency, which would outpace Obama’s entire 8-year travel budget by the end of 2017.

White House officials have defended Trump’s frequent trips to his properties, arguing he works wherever he is.

“He is not vacationing when he goes to Mar-a-Lago. The president works nonstop every day of the week, no matter where he is,” a White House spokeswoman said in February.

The cost of protection is reportedly stretching the Coast Guard thin.

The Coast Guard spent more than $17.8 million on presidential security costs between October 2016 and March 2017, according to the Post. That’s a $2.7 million increase from the same period one year earlier, and a $5.1 million jump from October 2015 to March 2016.

The major costs come amid a time of financial instability for the Coast Guard. According to the Coast Guard, it needs $1.5 billion dollars just to catch up on maintenance on its existing equipment.