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FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2016
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Trump Spends More On Jet Fuel ThanOn Staff and Consultants
Tightfisted except about personal comforts, he burns through some $3 million on his Boeing 757 so he can sleep athome in Manhattan or Florida.
AP Images
S.V. Dáte@SVDATE
April 15, 2016, 4:29 p.m.
R e pub lic ans des per ate to keep Don ald Trump from their nom in a tion can at
least be thank ful for this: When choos ing between buy ing fuel for his lux
ury jet liner or a lar ger cam paign staff, Trump has op ted for jet fuel.
From the start of his pres id en tial cam paign through the end of Feb ru ary, Trump’s
spend ing on private air travel, primar ily his ker oseneguzz ling Boe ing 757, totaled
$3.4 mil lion—about a third more than he spent on payroll and polit ic al con sult ants,
ac cord ing to a Na tion al Journ al ana lys is of Fed er al Elec tion Com mis sion fil ings.
The up shot? Trump and a hand ful of aides swoop to his ral lies in style aboard an
air plane large enough to carry 200 pas sen gers, but GOP meet ings at the county and
con gres sion aldis trict level around the coun try have gone un staffed by the Trump
cam paign, al low ing scores of del eg ates loy al to Sen. Ted Cruz to win slots to the
sum mer nom in at ing con ven tion.
Trump cam paign aides did not reply to Na tion al Journ al quer ies. But GOP
strategists crit ic al of Trump’s can did acy said his choices are not sur pris ing, giv en
his repu ta tion as be ing tight fis ted about most spend ing yet ex tra vag ant when it
comes to his per son al com fort.
“He’s a nar ciss ist ic baby,” said Flor ida’s Rick Wilson, who sup por ted Sen. Marco
Ru bio’s bid and is now a key act iv ist in the “Nev er Trump” move ment.
Trump does also own a Cessna Cita tion X, an eightpas sen ger busi ness jet that uses
less than half as much fuel as the 757, which burns through $10,000 worth each
hour. Trump has only used the smal ler plane oc ca sion ally, when a cam paign event
is be ing held in a town that doesn’t have a suf fi ciently long run way nearby.
The fond ness for the big ger plane, which boasts a state room and a shower, has been
an ex pens ive one, par tic u larly with Trump’s pref er ence to spend every night at
either his New York City apart ment or MaraLago, his Palm Beach es tate. Rather
than in cur ring costs of hun dreds of dol lars a night for hotel rooms, he has been
spend ing tens of thou sands of dol lars so he can awaken in his own bed.
Had he used the smal ler plane in stead, he could have saved up wards of $1 mil lion—
enough to have hired dozens more fulltime staffers over the past year.
“It doesn’t shock me that he’s ba sic ally thrown money in to a shred der, spend ing all
that money for his plane. It doesn’t shock me at all,” Wilson said.
No oth er can did ate has spent so much on private air travel com pared to payroll.
Cruz, his nearest re main ing Re pub lic an rival, spent $5.9 mil lion on payroll and
polit ic al con sult ants through Feb. 29 (the latest fil ing avail able) but only $568,000
on private planes. Demo crat ic frontrun ner Hil lary Clin ton spent $35 mil lion on
staff and $3.7 mil lion on private air travel—al though some of that was re im bursed
to the cam paign by mem bers of Clin ton’s trav el ing press corps.
Trump has in re cent weeks hired sev er al highlevel aides in an ef fort to se cure the
1,237 del eg ates needed for the GOP nom in a tion, in clud ing Paul Man a fort and Rick
Wiley. Man a fort is a long time Wash ing ton lob by ist and con sult ant who in 1976
helped Pres id ent Ford hold off a chal lenge from Ron ald Re agan, while Wiley most
re cently ran Wis con sin Gov. Scott Walk er’s shortlived pres id en tial bid. How much
they are paid and wheth er ontheground staff is also be ing ad ded in states that are
choos ing del eg ates this month will not be dis closed in the FEC fil ings un til mid
May.
But through much of the cam paign, Trump has res isted hir ing staff, cit ing his high
rank ings in pub lic polls to jus ti fy the ap proach. Through Nov. 1, the Trump cam
paign had paid a grand total of 15 staffers and polit ic al con sult ants. In con trast,
Cruz had paid 75 by that date.
One Re pub lic an con sult ant said privately that Trump’s Iowa strategist, Chuck
Laud ner, lob bied hard for more ontheground work ers in that firsttovote state.
“They didn’t listen to Laud ner in Iowa, lost, then blamed him,” the con sult ant said.
“Now, they’re pay ing for it. Chuck has so many con nec tions in Iowa and oth er
states, he could have really helped with the del eg ate pro cess. Missed op por tun ity
for them.”
for them.”
Laud ner de clined to dis cuss his work for Trump with Na tion al Journ al. Trump’s
FEC fil ings show Laud ner and the con sult ing firm re gistered to his wife were paid
$210,665 through the end of Feb ru ary. Laud ner, in fact, is among five top Trump
aides who among them re ceived more than $1 mil lion of the $2.5 mil lion Trump
spent on payroll and polit ic al con sult ants. Cam paign man ager Corey Le wan
dowski’s con sult ing firm was paid $321,098; James Mer rill’s South Car o lina firm
made $307,472; Mi chael Glassner and his firm were paid $182,071, and so cialme
dia dir ect or Dan Scavino was paid $85,000.
Trump by the start of Feb ru ary ap peared to have caught up with Cruz in staff ing,
with 109 paid em ploy ees and polit ic al con sult ants com pared to 108 for Cruz. The
fig ures for March will be avail able next week. Those fil ings will also re veal how
much more of his own money Trump has put in to his ef fort. So far, Trump has lent
his cam paign $24.4 mil lion of the $33 mil lion he has spent. Much of the rest has
come from the sale of hats, Tshirts, and oth er paraphernalia.
While Trump fre quently claims a net worth of $10 bil lion, a Na tion al Journ al re
view of his fin an cial dis clos ure fil ing and re ports of court tran scripts found that he
is likely worth con sid er ably less—and in any event only had between $78 mil lion
and $232 mil lion in re l at ively li quid as sets when he began his cam paign last year.
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