Trump Makes Secret Service Get Hot Dogs at His Club—Then Pay for Them

It’s well known that Donald Trump has made a pretty penny off of taxpayers by spending his downtime at his various Trump-branded properties and golf clubs. But the buck doesn’t stop there, as Trump has reportedly been milking his Secret Service agents for cash as well.

America’s billionaire president has a particular affinity for the hot dogs served near the eleventh hole at Trump National Golf Club outside Washington, D.C.

“He has this weird, very odd pride about how good the hot dogs are,” a former club employee told Forbes.

“That’s his thing,” they continued, adding that Trump personally ensures everyone in his orbit enjoys a club glizzy. “The chef has to be out there. And he’s like, ‘Chef, get everyone a hot dog—all these guys.’”

That could include as many as 30 golf carts full of Secret Service agents that need to escort the president around the course, according to Forbes.

At times, the hot dog stand has as many as 50 dogs prepared for the entourage—though none of them is on the house.

“There, in one all-beef transaction, is the Trump presidency in miniature,” reported Forbes. “Trump owns the club. Trump controls the chef. Trump doles out the hot dogs. Trump watches everyone eat them. Then Trump’s business sends the government the bill.”

It was not immediately clear how much each dog costs, but prices vary across his various clubs. At Mar-a-Lago, a wiener can run as much as $25. Trump National Doral Miami serves a $45 “Trump Dog,” which features a footlong wagyu sausage. Prices—and menu items—are more modest at Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, where a traditional hot dog costs about $10.

Trump’s golf obsession is no secret. He has thus far spent at least 135 of the 596 days of his second term on the links—a little under a quarter of his term. He has totaled more than 1,400 hours playing golf, much of which has happened on his own properties.

Before entering politics, Republican Senator Roger Marshall, an obstetrician-gynecologist, routinely sued his patients for medical debts, charging exorbitant interest. 

The New York Times reports that Marshall, who is facing reelection in Kansas in November, sued over 700 patients for failure to pay medical bills, with 81 of them getting arrested as a result. In some cases, Marshall had bank accounts garnished, and regularly charged patients 18 percent interest annually. 

Marshall reportedly took legal action over debts as little as $101. Half of his lawsuits were filed under his name, while the rest were filed under his practice, Heartland Regional OBGYN, which he owned by himself from 1998 to 2012 before splitting ownership with another doctor from 2013 to 2019. Marshall stopped practicing medicine in 2016 after he was elected to Congress, but continued trying to collect some of the debts after that between 2017 and 2021. 

Many of the patients he sued were new mothers in Barton County, Kansas, a rural area where many lived in poverty and didn’t have health insurance or had policies that didn’t fully cover their medical bills. One woman was sued when her baby was nine months old over a $129 bill from a postpartum visit, and eventually had her wages garnished. 

“I was recently divorced, trying to do everything on my own,” Kellie Clutts told the Times. “I told them I could make partial payments, but it seemed like no matter what I said, they wanted the full amount at once.”

A spokeswoman for Marshall said that he spent decades treating patients regardless of income level, adding, “Judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors.”  

The Times, however, cited court documents showing that Marshall regularly sought arrest warrants for unpaid bills. In 2007, Joe Vasquez and his wife were arrested in front of their grandchildren over an unpaid $4,561 bill for an emergency hysterectomy three years before. The Times interviewed eight people who were sued by Marshall between 2003 and 2015, and many of them were living paycheck to paycheck. Two of them were being sued over bills for late miscarriages requiring surgery. 

Despite his medical background, Marshall fought for the Affordable Care Act to be repealed, claiming in 2017 that “there is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.” He’s also tried to downplay the impact of higher fuel prices on struggling Americans, saying that paying more for gas is a good thing. 

Marshall should perhaps change his tone, because the latest polls in his reelection fight have him either neck-and-neck or behind his Democratic challenger, Adam Hamilton, a pastor. Voters in Kansas might decide they want a senator with some compassion instead of a doctor shaking down his patients for cash. 

President Trump spent his Labor Day weekend posting a bunch of artificial intelligence slop from his private New Jersey golf course—while Canada on Tuesday imposed tariffs on about $20 billion worth of U.S. goods. 

On Sunday, Trump posted an AI image of himself and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney playing hockey in their respective country’s jerseys, while Trump stands over the prime minister—presumably after checking him. A speech bubble from Trump reads, “Get up, Governor,” an insult Trump has used in the past to attack Canada’s sovereignty. 

Then on Monday, Trump posted a map depicting the entirety of North America as part of the United States. 

And on that same day, he posted an ad for Fannie Mae using an AI-generated monologue for his own voice, instead of just talking. 

While that all happened, Canada struck back in the trade war that Trump started, imposing taxes on American products that will further erode relations, drive up costs, and hurt Canadians and Americans alike. The tariffs will hit aluminum, automotive parts, Kentucky bourbon, and steel, and will be as high as 50 percent.

The automotive industry will be hit particularly hard, as Canada is the largest foreign market for American vehicles. This all comes as Trump has consistently disregarded perhaps our closest ally. He disparages Carney, insists that Canada should be a U.S. state, and now has entered this cycle of retaliatory tariffs that has no real end in sight. It’s as if he’s asleep at the wheel, stirring awake every so often only to post incendiary AI content while Americans suffer the consequences of his actions.  

The White House celebrated a workerless Labor Day on Monday by posting a slew of artificial intelligence slop videos.

Donald Trump’s team posted Monday to celebrate the “workers and products that are proudly MADE IN AMERICA,” but the video they included didn’t feature a single American worker.

Instead, the apparently AI-generated video depicted a fully automated production line making a marker emblazoned with Trump’s name. In March, Trump sidetracked a Cabinet meeting with a rant claiming to have replaced the White House’s $1,000 ballpoint pens with Sharpies he paid $5 a pop for.

The White House also posted an AI-generated video depicting Trump using a Green Lantern ring, which has the power to create anything a person can imagine. Of course, the president used it to prevent illegal border crossings, conjure “American manufacturing,” and summon a fleet of military planes. The video credited Trump with powers of limitless creation, while yet again removing any trace of American workers.

The White House then posted an AI-generated video showing the shoes of different kinds of American workers as they walk through fields, offices, and busy streets. But again, the video featured no real American workers, just computer-generated feet.

The White House’s official Labor Day video was somehow even worse. The 90-second campaign-style advertisement managed to celebrate Trump rather than actual American workers.

“After so many years of politicians who sold out the working men and women of our country, we finally have a president who puts American workers first,” Trump said, congratulating himself in the video’s voiceover.

The video never said what Trump actually did, but emphasized his supposedly incredible support for autoworkers, ranchers, and farmers. In reality, autoworkers have rejected Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada, and farmers and ranchers have condemned his decisions to increase imports of foreign beef and undermine FDA-inspected processing sites.

The Republican Party’s expensive “Trump-a-palooza” is doling out some of its tickets for free—though the option doesn’t actually guarantee entry.

The bizarre affair, which will take place on September 9 and 10 in Dallas, does not have a single point of entry or a dedicated Texas delegation; House members have been asked to pay a minimum of $25,000 to get in the door with a guest. But that’s really the bottom of the barrel: Better packages have been priced closer to $100,000.

But wannabe ticket holders in the Lone Star State have found that there are a multitude of options to enter the Texas event, either by invitation or by a regional lottery. Tim Bates, a longtime Collin County Republican precinct chair, told The Dallas Morning News that he wasn’t going to pay $5,000 to enter the event. So when he received an email from the state Republican Party about obtaining a free ticket, he passed the information along to his fellow precinct chairs instead.

“More local people will be able to go to fill the venue,” he told the local daily.

But the ticket comes with a disclaimer: Entry is not guaranteed if the arena reaches capacity.

Most major party conventions are centered on a specific item of business, such as formally nominating a presidential candidate. But this function will offer no such line items. Instead, the event has been billed as a big Republican party, which has left the definition of who’s allowed to attend a lot looser.

It will be the first GOP midterm convention in American history. Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are both expected to deliver speeches to the conservative assembly, though low party enthusiasm has threatened the optics of the event.

The unprecedented conference was thrown together at the eleventh hour in an attempt to boost Republican candidates ahead of a contentious midterm cycle, but dozens of Republicans have decided to forgo the gathering altogether, fearful that showing face at the event—which offers Trump yet another stage to say or do anything he desires—could blow up in their faces and damage their odds back home.

The whole ordeal could backfire on the president too. In 1978, a Democratic midterm convention that was intended to rally party support ultimately turned the party against President Jimmy Carter, offering a vehicle for then-Senator Ted Kennedy to announce his opposition to the president and his agenda.

“There was a lot of hostility to the president there,” Elaine Kamarck, who attended as a 28-year-old working for the Democratic National Committee, told The Guardian. “The Democrats have sworn ever since never to do anything this stupid again.”