Bernie Sanders outdoes Democratic rivals as he spends $1.2M on private jet flights for presidential campaigns
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will be facing his first major test of the 2020 battle for the White House and although the veteran leader’s campaigning is based on a progressive socialist agenda, he has already spent huge amounts in line with the elite than the working class for whom he often vows. According to a report in the Washington Free Beacon, Sanders’ campaign has spent just under $1.2 million just for traveling in the last quarter, which is more than the amount used up by the entire Democratic presidential primary field this election season.
The most recent filing from the senator revealed $1,199,579 in spending in the final three months of 2019 to Apollo Jets, LLC, a “luxury private jet charter service”, according to the Beacon. Sanders’s campaign has also reportedly spent an additional $23,941 for transportation to the Advanced Aviation Team, Virginia. Only Joe Biden, one of Sanders’ main challengers this election, came closest to the latter. The former vice president’s campaign spent $1,040,698 on the Advanced Aviation Team last quarter.
Beacon also reported about the private jet spending in filings from other top candidates. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign spent $720,518 while former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg campaign spent $323,518. Even Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire candidate who is self-funding his entire campaign, spent about half of that of Sanders -- $646,000.
The 78-year-old Sanders, who also ran for the 2016 presidential election, likes to travel by air for campaigning though he has preached that limiting carbon emissions in the transportation sector is key for combating climate change. A private jet is estimated to produce about eight times the amount of carbon per passenger as traveling by a commercial one. Sanders’s campaign has reportedly increased the use of private jets in recent times to meet the candidate’s dual duties of meeting his senatorial responsibilities (especially when the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is on) and the campaign work in Iowa which is going to the caucuses on Monday, February 3.
Sanders' first-rate lodging preferences
Last month, Smoking Gun cited a tour rider prepared by Sanders’s staff that the Democratic frontrunner prefers to relax in a frigid hotel room with a comforter and bathtub and a bathroom that has no “leaky faucets, slow flushing toilets, slow draining bathtubs” after a long campaign.
The two-page ‘Senator Comfort Memo’, marked ‘Confidential: For Campaign Staff Use Only’, showed in details some of the veteran politician’s lodging preferences while traveling.