Presidents seeking a weekend respite have traditionally used Camp David, a country retreat built by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and named for his grandson. Others, like John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, used family estates that were secluded, surrounded by private acreage or the ocean, where the impact on private citizens was minimal.

But not Donald Trump. When Trump needs to get away from it all, it is believed he will use the tiny oasis known as Trump Towers in New York City, where the disruption to others—and the cost— is likely to be yuge.


A single presidential visit costs the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the city’s airports, $100,000 to pull off.

With repeated, regular trips, price tags, delays and frustrations will scale up, quickly.

When Air Force One — which costs about $236,000 per hour to fly when fully loaded with pilots, passengers, security, gear and fuel — arrives at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, the tarmac will be frozen for at least 15 minutes before it lands.

That short delay will reverberate through the extremely crowded airspace over New York. And whenever Trump travels, hundreds of people will move with him. The NYPD will be on the hook for hundreds of hours’ worth of overtime each week.


For residents of Trump Tower, his presence will have an impact not only on their ability to move around but also to get to their condos or do business,to an extent not seen before in presidential politics.

From now until the end of Trump’s presidency, everyone who enters and exits the building will have to be vetted by the Secret Service, even if the Trumps aren’t there. At the very least, their names will be run through agency threat databases. The service will want to inspect every package that goes into the building and will insist that staffers — at every shop, restaurant and residence — be scanned with a hand-held magnetometer, which detects hidden metal.

When Trump is there, all of their personal effects will probably be checked by bomb-detection dogs, too.