US President Donald Trump's frequent visits to Mar-a-Lago since his inauguration have placed a growing strain on Palm Beach County resources, requiring heightened security measures by Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and his deputies, according to The Guardian. 

In his analytical piece for The Guardian, Richard Luscombein revealed that Donald Trump's frequent trips to Mar-a-Lago have had the FAA issuing flight restrictions almost every Tuesday in recent weeks. The disruptive trips are rapidly depleting county resources, forcing Bradshaw to keep helicopters in the air, extra manpower on the ground, and boats on both sides of Trump's opulent mansion sandwiched between the Atlantic and the Intracoastal Waterway almost constantly.

This weekend marks the president's sixth visit to Florida and his beloved golf courses since his inauguration on January 20.

The Secret Service has made "substantial" demands to assist secure Trump, his family, and his entourage, the sheriff told county commissioners last month, just before the president came in for a six-day visit.

“They request it, and then we provide it. It’s expensive, but we don’t really have a choice,” Bradshaw explained.

The sheriff's office failed to immediately give The Guardian a precise breakdown of its expenses, although the daily overtime cost alone has previously been estimated at $240,000.

Commissioners accepted Bradshaw's "urgent request" for $45 million to provide security for Trump's visits until November, which he warned would undoubtedly escalate.

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"We've already heard some information where he may be spending more time here than in Washington," Bradshaw told The Guardian, adding that Trump bringing in international leaders will also increase security costs.

Although the Palm Beach expense is significant, it pales in comparison to his multimillion-dollar trip to the Super Bowl in New Orleans last month, as well as his appearance at Nascar's Daytona 500 weeks later, which critics regarded as an excessive and costly photo opportunity.

Whenever he wants to go, the presidential airplane Air Force One is fully fueled and manned, with an hourly operational cost nearing $200,000.

With a two-hour flight time from Washington DC, each visit to and from Palm Beach International Airport costs taxpayers approximately $1 million in travel alone, once an additional cargo flight carrying the presidential motorcade is factored in, as well as ferrying Trump from the White House to Joint Base Andrews on the Marine One helicopter.

The most recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, meanwhile, determined in 2019 that federal agencies spent an average of $13.6 million on each of Trump's four trips to Mar-a-Lago that it audited during his first term in office, with a portion of that money going directly to Trump's pocket.

Noah Bookbinder of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) highlighted concerns over Trump's continued business ownership during his presidency, arguing that his focus should be on official duties rather than personal financial interests.

“And that is a different kind of problem than taking more weekends off than we’d like, or how often a president plays golf, or anything like that.”

Robert Weissman of Public Citizen criticized Trump for excessive taxpayer spending on vacations and profiting from Secret Service stays at his properties, highlighting the irony of his past criticism of Obama's golf trips.

Ultimately, Palm Beach County hopes to be compensated by the federal government for the money it spends guarding the president. However, this is no consolation to locals who are now bearing the tab while dealing with many road closures and other hassles each weekend.