Security protection for Donald Trump and family ‘costing New York City $1m a day’

New York Mayor de Blasio called the operation ‘a very substantial undertaking’

US first lady Melania Trump and US President Donald Trump dance during the Freedom Ball January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

The cost of security protection in New York for Donald Trump is adding up to $1m (£805,000) a day, it has been claimed.

CNN Money reports that three unnamed city officials have said that security for the President-elect, which includes guarding the Trump Tower and protecting Mr Trump’s family, is costing New York City more than a million dollars a day as it assists the Secret Service.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a press conference that the city has “never had a situation where a President of the United States would be here on such a regular basis”.

Mayor de Blasio said that while the details of Mr Trump’s future plans are as yet unknown, “we certainly know that over the next 65 days he will certainly be here very regularly”.

“We’ve never had that situation before and certainly not with the focal point location being in the heart of midtown Manhattan,” he told reporters. “This is a very substantial undertaking. It will take substantial resources, and we will begin a conversation with the federal government shortly on reimbursement for the NYPD, for some of the costs that we are incurring.”

Melania Trump will not immediately be joining her husband in the Whitehouse so that their 10-year-old son Barron can finish his school year. The pair will remain in New York until that time.

CBSNews reports that Trump Tower is already surrounded by roadblocks, concrete barriers and armed police, and New York police officers are assisting with the Secret Service with managing vehicle access and screening checkpoints.

John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism, told the broadcaster that securing the President-elect’s residence in New York presented an “unprecedented challenge”.

“The biggest challenge is trying to blend the two things that we have to make work as a police department: one is securing the president of the United States when he’s in New York, or right now, the President-elect. And the other is, doing it on what could be a very regular basis, at what we consider practically the centre of the Earth, which is 57^th Street and Fifth Avenue.”

City records seen by CNNMoney show that New York was reimbursed $26m (£21m) in the year to 30 June for expenses relating to the security and protection of world leaders and heads of state, which amounts to around $500,000 (£402,000) a week. Mayor de Blasio said this was for events such as United Nations meetings, according to the broadcaster. “We’ll have to establish a new set of ground rules,” he said.