Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spent more than $1.2 million in taxpayer dollars on private trips since taking office last year — largely to watch his adult son play college football at the University of Florida, according to a report published Wednesday by The Washington Post.
Rubio has flown to at least 10 Florida Gators games since being sworn in, using government aircraft to go to Gainesville at least 23 times, the Department of State confirmed in response to a Post analysis of flight records. Fifteen of the trips were described by the Post as “solely personal.”
Read the full report at The Washington Post.
Rubio is among a handful of senior government officials forbidden from flying commercially due to security matters. He legally has to reimburse the government for personal travel, but is ultimately only required to repay taxpayers the equivalent of an economy class ticket.
The extent of his personal trips has far surpassed that of his predecessors, however, former State Department officials told the Post. The publication arrived at its total cost with the help of readily available flight rates published by the Department of Defense.
Officials rarely disclose the actual amount of their reimbursements, and neither Rubio nor the State Department revealed to the Post how much he has actually repaid. The publication further noted that these reimbursements typically “cover only a fraction of the true cost.”
Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at the nonpartisan watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the publication that Rubio’s travel expenses are “more of an optics issue than a violation” and not “technically improper” — but are significant.
She argued Rubio might not be “taking care of taxpayer dollars” the way public officials should if their personal jet-setting “becomes something that is undermining the integrity” of their service, while Assistant Secretary of State Dylan Johnson unsurprisingly defended his boss.
“The Secretary of State (like POTUS, VP, SecWar, and others) is REQUIRED to use military aircraft to maintain access to secure communications at all times and comply with continuity of government protocols,” Johnson wrote on X, adding Rubio is “entirely unapologetic.”
The secretary of state echoed as much himself in a statement to the Post, confirming about his trips to watch son Anthony Rubio play football: “I have and will continue to try and make it to as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible.”
The Post explained that it applied the Defense Department’s hourly rates to Rubio’s confirmed flights to and from Gainesville, finding a cost of $770,600 for his “solely personal” trips and $443,900 for seven other “mixed-use trips” that didn’t involve Gator games.
Rubio’s defense of his travel notably arrives four years after he personally requested a review of ex-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s personal travel while in office and argued taxpayers “deserve assurances” that their money isn’t “wasted by the government’s highest officials.”
The inspector general later concluded Buttigieg hadn’t violated any rules.
The look into Rubio’s use of pricey flights comes amid a nationwide affordability crisis that President Donald Trump has frequently dismissed and that contributed to last week’s GOP midterms blowout. The president’s golf outings and FBI Director Kash Patel’s taxpayer-funded travels have also been under the microscope.
Liz Hempowicz, deputy executive director at American Oversight, told the Post, “When a senior official is taking frequent personal trips at significant taxpayer expense, it’s reasonable to ask whether or not those senior officials are exercising that judgment appropriately.”