TL;DR:  By Election Day, the president will have made roughly 40 Air Force One campaign rally stops in 2026. Taxpayers cover most of the cost, likely $60 million to $140 million, because party committees reimburse only a seat-price share. The Hatch Act exempts the president himself, but it does reach the staff who plan the trips.

Every two years, Americans watch a sitting president land a 747 in a swing district and turn the tarmac into a campaign stage. Both parties do it and then complain when the other guy does it. Most people assume somebody is keeping score on who pays for it. Somebody is, sort of. Let me walk you through the count, the bill, and the law, so you can decide for yourself whether the rules are working.

By Terry Moore, the Bulldog Lawyer

Two Rallies, Two States, One Day

On Wednesday, October 14, Air Force One banked low over the Colorado River and touched down at the Laughlin/Bullhead International Airport in Arizona. The new jet, the Boeing 747-8 that Qatar gave the United States, wore its new red, white, and blue livery trimmed in gold. The president walked down the stairs to a waiting crowd and used the airplane itself as a talking point, defending the gift as he campaigned for Republicans in a struggling corner of rural Arizona.

Then he got back on the plane and flew to Montana. That evening he held a second rally at the Majestic Valley Arena in Kalispell, warning the crowd about what a Democratic Congress would mean for gun rights. The day before, he had been in Wasilla, Alaska, rallying for Senator Dan Sullivan.

Three rallies. Three states. Roughly forty-eight hours.

Every one of those stops required the same thing: the presidential aircraft and its backup, military cargo planes carrying the motorcade, and a security operation that runs from Secret Service advance teams to local police overtime. The rally itself was political. The machinery that delivered the president to it was paid for with public money.

So who settles up? After thirty years in the courtroom, I’ve learned that the most important question in any dispute is not who is right. It’s who is holding the bill. Let’s find out.

How Many Air Force One Campaign Rallies by the Midterms?

Working from the public schedule and news reports, I count roughly 30 out-of-town rally stops in 2026 through October 19. They began in January in Clive, Iowa, picked up speed over the summer, and turned into what the White House press secretary called a “midterm blitz” in October. That count does not include the two events on the National Mall in Washington, which required no flight, but it does include the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in September.

This week, the schedule calls for seven rallies in seven states in seven days, starting in Kansas and ending in St. Clair County, Michigan, on October 25. That pushes the total to about 37 before the final week even starts.

The last eight days before an election are always the busiest. In 2018, the president added an eleventh rally to his final six-day push. If this cycle follows that pattern, a fair estimate is 40 to 45 Air Force One campaign rally stops by the time polls open on November 3.

Two cautions keep that number honest. First, a “stop” and a “trip” are not the same thing. On October 14, one flight itinerary covered Arizona and Montana. Second, several 2026 events were billed as official business with a campaign flavor: a steel plant visit in Rome, Georgia; an agriculture roundtable in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin; and a police academy appearance on Long Island. Those are what the rules call mixed trips, and they matter, because the official label changes who pays.

Who Pays for Presidential Campaign Travel?

The short answer: the party pays a little, and the taxpayer pays a lot.

The president has to fly on military aircraft. That’s a security decision, and it’s a sound one. Nobody serious argues the president should fly commercial to Kalispell. The question is what happens to the bill when the purpose of the trip is political.

Three sets of rules govern the answer.

The Justice Department’s framework. A 1982 opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel set the basic principle that still holds: money appropriated for the president’s office may pay for travel only when the trip is reasonably related to an official purpose. Purely political expenses must be paid from political funds. Mixed trips get allocated.

The Hatch Act regulations. A rule at 5 CFR 734.503 applies to White House staff paid from the Executive Office appropriation. It says political costs are not considered paid by the Treasury if the Treasury is reimbursed within a reasonable time. Mixed travel is apportioned by time spent on political activity versus official duties. Importantly, any costs the government would have incurred anyway, regardless of whether the activity was political, are not counted as political costs.

The Federal Election Commission rules. When campaign travelers fly on a government aircraft, the committee on whose behalf they travel reimburses the government. The rate is tied to a comparable fare, roughly what it would cost to move the political travelers on a charter sized for them or a first-class ticket. It is not tied to the cost of flying a 747.

Put another way, the party pays for the political passengers’ seats. It does not pay for the airplane.

And the Secret Service? Under long-standing practice described by the Congressional Research Service, agents and other security staff are always on official travel. Their costs go to the government every time, no matter what the president is doing when he gets off the plane.

This year there’s a wrinkle. The president is not on the ballot. That means the reimbursing check comes from the Republican National Committee or the candidates he’s campaigning for, not from a presidential reelection committee.

What Air Force One Campaign Rallies Cost Taxpayers

The Air Force has disclosed two figures for the old VC-25A presidential jet: $177,843 per flight hour for fiscal year 2021, and $206,337 per flight hour in an earlier disclosure obtained through a public records request. Those figures cover fuel, maintenance, and overhead. They do not cover the backup aircraft, the cargo planes, or the security teams. No hourly rate has been published yet for the interim Qatari 747-8, so I use the VC-25A range as a stand-in.

The best all-in benchmark comes from the Government Accountability Office. In 2019 it audited four presidential trips to Mar-a-Lago and found the federal government spent about $13.6 million, or roughly $3.4 million per trip, covering the Pentagon, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service. GAO noted that a four-day presidential trip in the prior administration cost about $3.6 million. Those were multiday visits to a waterfront property, so a same-day rally usually runs lower.

Here’s my working estimate per rally stop:

Cost category

Basis

Estimate per stop

Air Force One flight time

4 to 6 hours round trip at $177,843 to $206,337 per hour

$0.7M to $1.2M

Backup jet, cargo planes, helicopter lift

GAO Mar-a-Lago data, scaled for a same-day trip

$0.5M to $1.2M

Secret Service and local police support

GAO data plus typical local reimbursements

$0.4M to $1.0M

Total

 

$1.6M to $3.4M

 

Multiply by 40 stops and you land between $64 million and $136 million. Call it $60 million to $140 million to account for the shared flights that cut the cost and the Alaska swing that raises it. The aircraft operating cost alone is likely $30 million to $50 million.

How much comes back? We don’t know, and that’s the honest answer. Reimbursements show up in party and candidate filings with the FEC, but they’re not labeled in a standard way and nobody publishes a trip-by-trip ledger. The best precedent is 2018. A Quartz analysis found that flights to more than 40 midterm rallies cost about $17 million for air travel alone, while the reimbursements it could find in filings totaled about $112,000. That’s less than one percent.

If 2026 looks anything like 2018, taxpayers are carrying the overwhelming share of a bill that likely runs well into eight figures.

Of course, much of that cost is fixed. The planes, the pilots, and the agents are paid whether the president flies to Kalispell or stays at the White House. The true extra cost of a rally is lower than the gross number. We don’t know how much lower, which is the crux of the problem. But fuel, flight hours, and overtime are real, and they’re incurred because of a political event.

Is It a Hatch Act Violation?

The President and Vice President cannot violate the Hatch Act. They are exempt by the law itself.

The Hatch Act, passed in 1939 after New Deal relief workers were pressured into campaign work, limits the political activity of federal employees. But the statute defines “employee” to exclude the President and the Vice President. The president can campaign anywhere, anytime, on any day of the week, and the Hatch Act has nothing to say about it.

The people around him are not exempt. White House staff paid from the Executive Office appropriation get special rules. Unlike most federal workers, they’re allowed to engage in political activity while on duty. That’s a recognition that the president is also the leader of his party. But the permission comes with a condition: the political costs must be allocated and reimbursed. When staff who plan, schedule, and approve these trips charge political costs to the Treasury without proper allocation, that is a Hatch Act problem.

The law also reaches cabinet officers who appear at rallies. Just this week, two watchdog groups filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel against the Interior Secretary, the Commerce Secretary, and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission over their appearances at the Wasilla rally, arguing they leaned on their official roles while campaigning. An Interior spokesperson said the secretary attended in his personal capacity, in compliance with the law. No finding has been made. Separately, a government ethics group wrote to the Special Counsel in August complaining that several complaints against senior officials had been pending for months.

There is a problem with enforcement. For most federal workers, the Office of Special Counsel can take a case to the Merit Systems Protection Board and get real discipline. For senior presidential appointees in the White House, OSC sends its findings to the president, and the president decides. In 2019, OSC recommended that a senior White House counselor be removed for repeated violations. She kept her job.

A law the President enforces against his own staff, for violations made on his behalf is never going to be enforced.

Civil or Criminal? The Legal Exposure Explained

Most Hatch Act violations are civil, not criminal.

Civil exposure (the Hatch Act itself). Penalties for a federal employee include a reprimand or suspension, removal from federal service with up to five years of debarment, and a civil fine of up to $1,000. These are employment consequences, handled administratively. No one goes to jail for a civil Hatch Act violation.

Criminal exposure (related statutes). A separate set of federal crimes dovetails with the Hatch Act:

  • 18 U.S.C. § 610 makes it a crime for “any person” to coerce, threaten, or intimidate a federal employee into political activity. It carries up to three years in prison. Because it says “any person,” legal scholars argue it reaches the president. But it requires coercion, and asking staff to do lawful, reimbursed political work is not coercion.
  • 18 U.S.C. § 595 makes it a misdemeanor, up to one year, for certain government employees to use official authority to affect a federal election. Its reach to senior federal officials is debated, and prosecutions are rare.
  • The Antideficiency Act carries criminal penalties for knowing and willful misuse of appropriated funds. In theory, deliberately charging political travel to the government could qualify. In practice, these cases are handled with paperwork, not handcuffs.

The Justice Department has a long-standing policy against indicting a sitting president. And the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Trump v. United States gave presidents immunity for official acts, though not for unofficial ones. Campaigning for party candidates seems unofficial. Deciding how the commander in chief travels seems official. A prosecutor would be walking into a swamp.

Bottom line: for the president, criminal exposure on these facts is theoretical. For staff, the realistic exposure is civil and administrative, and even that depends on who’s doing the enforcing.

This is general analysis of how the law works, not legal advice for any particular situation.

What Should the Consequences Be?

To be clear, this is a non-partisan problem. All presidents have done this. In 2012, the chairman of the Republican National Committee complained to the GAO that the Democratic president was billing the government for political travel. Before he entered politics, the current president criticized his predecessor for flying Air Force One around for politics at taxpayer expense. Every president in the jet age has used the plane for campaigning, and every opposition party has objected. The rules have outlived every one of those complaints.

So the answer isn’t to put anyone in jail. The answer is to fix the rules. A Bulldog doesn’t waste energy barking at the symptom. He goes after the structure that produces it.

Here’s my proposal:

  1. Require the White House to publish, within 30 days of each trip, the flight hours, the official versus political allocation, and the amount reimbursed and by whom. OMB can do this and GAO can audit a sample after every election cycle.
  2. A fairer formula. For purely political legs, the party or candidate should pay a meaningful share of the aircraft’s actual operating cost, not just a seat price. Security stays a government cost. The plane doesn’t have to. The parties should at least pay the cost of renting a private jet, which would give them the same convenience that Air Force One does.
  3. Real teeth. Give the Office of Special Counsel authority to take findings against senior White House staff to the Merit Systems Protection Board or report them directly to Congress, rather than routing them to the president’s desk.

Now let me give you the strongest case on the other side, because you deserve both.

The case for the current system

The case for changing it

The president must fly military for security, and security costs exist no matter where he goes.

Taxpayers carry nearly the full cost of events whose purpose is partisan.

The president is the leader of his party, and campaigning is part of the job in a democracy.

The reimbursement formula prices a seat, not a 747, so the party pays pennies on the dollar.

Charging campaigns full cost could tempt a president to skimp on security to save money.

Enforcement against senior staff runs through the very person who benefits.

 

Both columns are true. That’s why the fix has to be careful. Charge the politics to the politicians, keep security a public cost, and put the numbers where voters can see them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Hatch Act apply to the president?

No. The Hatch Act defines covered “employees” to exclude the President and the Vice President, so the president cannot violate it by campaigning. The law does apply to White House staff, cabinet officials, and other federal employees who help plan, staff, or appear at political events. Senior White House staff may do political work on duty, but the political costs of that work must be properly allocated and reimbursed to the Treasury. When people talk about a “Hatch Act violation” connected to presidential rallies, they’re really talking about the conduct of the people around the president, not the president himself.

Who pays for Air Force One when the president goes to a campaign rally?

Mostly the taxpayer. Under FEC rules, the party or candidate committee on whose behalf the president travels reimburses the government for its political travelers at a rate tied to a comparable fare or charter, not the cost of operating Air Force One. Secret Service agents and military personnel are always treated as official travel, so their costs stay with the government. On mixed trips that combine official and political events, costs are split by time. The result is that the political committee pays a small fraction of the total.

How much does an Air Force One trip cost?

The Air Force has disclosed operating costs of $177,843 to $206,337 per flight hour for the older VC-25A jet, before counting backup aircraft, cargo planes, or security. The GAO’s 2019 audit of four presidential trips to Florida found an all-in cost of about $3.4 million per trip. A same-day campaign rally typically runs less, roughly $1.6 million to $3.4 million per stop depending on distance and logistics. No hourly rate has yet been published for the interim Qatari 747-8 now flying as Air Force One.

Is violating the Hatch Act a crime?

Usually not. The Hatch Act itself is civil: penalties include a reprimand or suspension, removal with up to five years of debarment, and a civil fine of up to $1,000. But related federal criminal statutes sit alongside it. The most serious, 18 U.S.C. § 610, makes it a crime punishable by up to three years for any person to coerce a federal employee into political activity. Another, § 595, is a misdemeanor. Criminal cases are rare, and the bar is coercion or deliberate misuse of official authority, not ordinary campaigning.

Can taxpayers find out how much the president’s political travel cost?

Only partly. Reimbursements show up in FEC filings by the paying committees, but they aren’t labeled consistently and aren’t tied to specific trips. The White House does not publish its allocation formula or a trip-by-trip ledger. Members of Congress from both parties have demanded those records in past cycles with limited success. If you want the numbers, the most effective route is to ask your senators and representative to request a GAO audit of 2026 political travel. That’s how the last real accounting happened.

The Rest of the Story

Go back to October 14. Air Force One lands in Bullhead City, then flies on to Kalispell. Two rallies, one long day, a 747 painted in new colors.

Here’s how that day settles under today’s rules. The government pays for the airplane and its backup, the cargo planes, and the security detail. Somewhere in a future FEC filing, a party committee will report a payment to the Treasury for the political passengers’ share of the travel. The payment will be small. It won’t name the trip. And unless someone asks, no one will ever line up those two numbers side by side.

None of that is illegal. That’s the point. The rules allow it, and they’ve allowed it for presidents of both parties for decades. Whoever wins on November 3, the same rules will be waiting for the next president’s campaign season in 2028.

So here’s my challenge to you. Don’t settle for outrage, and don’t settle for a shrug. Ask for the ledger. Write your member of Congress and ask a simple question: what did the 2026 rally season cost, and how much was paid back? Persistence breaks resistance. That’s true in a courtroom, and it’s true in a democracy.

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