More Details Emerge About Mike Pence’s Expensive Protest At The Colts Game

Vice President Mike Pence walking out of Sunday’s Colts-49ers game after players engaged in peaceful protest seemed, shall we say, highly orchestrated, to CNN’s Brian Stelter in the above clip and, well, everybody else. The former Indiana governor almost certainly knew that the players would kneel during the National Anthem, as it has been pointed out that the 49ers have in every game this season, and his subsequent statement on Twitter seemed prepared ahead of time, suffice to say.

It’s also being pointed out, however, that Pence’s protest was not an inexpensive one. To attend the game, the vice president had to fly to Indianapolis from Las Vegas, where he had been to speak about last week’s shooting tragedy, and then immediately to Los Angeles, where he was attending an Republican National Committee event. CNN came up with a breakdown of air travel costs alone (not even including Secret Service or ground support), and the price of attending was indeed not cheap.

According to the Air Force, flying a C-32, the model of plane used for Air Force 2, for one hour costs about $30,000. Pence’s flight from Las Vegas to Indianapolis Saturday took about three hours and 20 minutes, so it cost about $100,000.

Pence then flew from Indianapolis to Los Angeles on Sunday, which took about four hours and 45 minutes, costing about $142,500.

The grand total: about $242,500.

Although CNN points out that the cost of the flight to Los Angeles should be at least partially reimbursed reimbursed by the RNC, if Pence had just made the 90 minute jaunt from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, the cost would have been a comparatively cheaper $45,000.

A spokesperson for Pence aide later claimed that the trip had been planned for weeks because Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was to he honored at the game and that the Vegas trip had only been recently added.

“The Vice President was not going to miss the Las Vegas memorial prayer walk on Saturday, which he was honored to attend on behalf of President Trump,” another aide said in a statement to CNN. “If the Vice President did not go to Indiana for the Colts game, he would have flown back to D.C. for the evening — which means flying directly over Indiana. Instead, he made a shorter trip to Indiana for a game that was on his schedule for several weeks.”

Still, when you consider that many in Puerto Rico currently don’t have access to drinking water, the vice president’s actions raise eyebrows for the administration’s continued fixation upon NFL players’ anthem protests. Not surprisingly, as of Monday President Trump was continuing to praise Pence for the stunt on Twitter.

(Via CNN)