You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

HHS Secretary Tom Price Resigns over Travel Cost Scandal

HeadlineOct 02, 2017

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned Friday, following news reports that he and his wife traveled on military and private charter flights at a cost to taxpayers that may have exceeded $1 million. Price resigned after President Trump said he didn’t like the “optics” of the scandal and suggested he was prepared to fire his HHS secretary. Price’s resignation came as other members of Trump’s Cabinet are under scrutiny for chartering similar flights. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his wife took a government jet to Louisville and Fort Knox, Kentucky, in August, where they watched the total solar eclipse from Fort Knox, and earlier this year Mnuchin requested a $25,000-per-hour government jet for his European honeymoon. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his aides also reportedly took noncommercial flights at taxpayer expense.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top