Trump makes sure Secret Service agents following him at golf get hot dogs. Then his club reportedly charges the agency for every one

A former employee at Trump National Golf Club in Lowes Island, Virginia, told Forbes that Donald Trump has Secret Service agents given hot dogs while they accompany him on the course. The stand that serves them sits next to the tee box on the 11th hole.

The former employee said Trump is proud of the hot dogs and directs the chef to hand them out. “He has this weird, very odd pride about how good the hot dogs are,” the former employee told the publication. “The chef has to be out there. And he’s like, ‘Chef, get everyone a hot dog – all these guys.’”

Those orders are then billed to the Secret Service rather than paid for by Trump, the former employee said. Golf has been a regular part of Trump’s schedule in office. According to The Daily Beast, he spent the Labor Day weekend at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey. That property received 18 health code violations last June.

Prior reporting has also examined bills sent to the Secret Service at Trump sites

HuffPost published an analysis last November that put the taxpayer cost of Trump’s golf outings at nearly $71 million in the first 10 months after he returned to office. Stretching that pace through the rest of the term would push the figure above $300 million, the analysis indicated. That would be nearly twice the amount tied to sports travel in his first term.

The reported hot dog charges are adding even more to the bill taxpayers are already picking up for the president’s golf outings.

Hotel charges to the Secret Service also drew criticism in the first term. Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee said in an October 2024 report that the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., “charged as much as 300% or more above the authorized government per diem” for rooms. The Trump administration has also sought to reduce federal support for institutions it disagrees with, such as when it threatened to cut funding for the Smithsonian over alleged ideological activism. 

The Washington Post reported that in June, the White House budget office moved $352 million in Secret Service money toward Trump’s ballroom. This pattern of charging for expenses extends beyond golf outings, as seen when budget documents revealed that taxpayers funded a White House walkway project that Trump had claimed to pay for himself.  Forbes also reported that Trump’s net worth has more than doubled since he began his second term.