GAINESVILLE, Fla. — College football here comes with its rituals: Orange and blue pour through the streets. Fans stream toward the University of Florida’s stadium, nicknamed The Swamp, hours before kickoff. And on most home-game weekends, a sleek white military jet descends on the small regional airport near campus.
On a recent early November Saturday afternoon, it was a C-37 that touched down, carrying the team’s most recognizable parent, a blue polo replacing his usual suit and tie. Security officers roamed the north end of Gainesville Regional Airport as a line of five unmarked SUVs crept up, swept up their passenger and rolled off toward campus.
Half an hour later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was down on the field, chatting with Florida Coach Jon Sumrall. Rubio’s son Anthony is a walk-on running back for the Gators, and Rubio has regularly flown in to catch his games, including at least five this fall.
Rubio says his trips are about something familiar to any parent: showing up. But they also come at a cost to taxpayers.
Since taking office last year, Rubio, a Florida graduate, has flown to at least 10 Gators football games, the State Department confirmed in response to a Washington Post analysis of flight records. He has traveled to Gainesville aboard government aircraft at least 23 times, including 15 trips the department characterized as solely personal.
Rubio’s personal travel, through nearly two years on the job, appears to significantly outpace that of his predecessors, former State Department officials said. And it’s adding up: The flights have cost the government more than $1.2 million, The Post found, using rates published by the Defense Department.
Like the defense secretary and directors of the FBI and CIA, Rubio is barred from flying commercially for security reasons and is required, when traveling for personal reasons, to reimburse the government the equivalent of an economy-fare ticket. Officials’ reimbursements are rarely made public, but the amounts required cover only a fraction of the true cost, occasionally leading to scrutiny and controversy for Republican and Democratic appointees alike.
Rubio and the State Department declined to say how much he has reimbursed the government, but they defended the trips.
“I have and will continue to try and make it to as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible,” Rubio said in a statement, in response to questions from The Post.
Assistant Secretary of State Dylan Johnson said Rubio uses military aircraft to “ensure continuity of operations, continuity of government and access to secure communications at all times. And he will continue to do so.”
Government ethics experts said that while Rubio’s travel complies with federal rules, it raises a question about stewardship of public money. The handful of government officials who aren’t allowed to fly commercially have little choice in how they travel, they said, but they retain control over how frequently they take personal trips.
“If this travel becomes something that is undermining the integrity of your service, are you really taking care of taxpayer dollars the way that you’re obligated to as a public official?” asked Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.
Brown said the situation is “more of an optics issue than a violation,” but added that although it may not be “technically improper, it is something that I think is really important to shine the light on.”
Gator for life
Rubio’s love of football is well documented. He played for South Miami High School and then Tarkio College, a school of fewer than 1,000 students. When the school shut down abruptly after his freshman year, he transferred to Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville and to the University of Florida a year later, ending his football career as a defensive back and leaning into his academics.
His son Anthony, the third of Rubio’s four children, followed suit, playing throughout his youth in Miami and “walking on” at Florida in 2023, meaning he wasn’t recruited and doesn’t receive an athletic scholarship.
At UF, Anthony, now a senior, has seen the field sparingly. As a sophomore, the running back scored his lone touchdown. Across four years, he has tallied 75 yards, playing in only four games.
Rubio has been to every game his son has played in, in addition to a number in which Anthony never saw the field.
Records of the secretary’s almost two dozen flights on government aircraft in and out of Gainesville Regional Airport since March 29, 2025, were drawn from public flight trackers and confirmed by the State Department.
Those flights have coincided mostly with Florida’s home football games, The Post found. Others have aligned with spring scrimmages and August preseason practices that are open to players’ families.
Rubio has also traveled to at least two games not involving his son or his alma mater — a high-profile game between the University of Miami and Notre Dame in August 2025 and the national title game in Miami in January. This summer, he was asked what he would do if no one could access him for 24 hours.
“My wife’s gonna hate this answer,” he said. “I’d love to sit down and watch every college football game from noon Eastern until the West Coast games end at 2 a.m. Eastern.”
Rubio often travels with a security detail and aides, according to eight employees of Gainesville Regional Airport and private air companies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized by their employers to discuss the matter. The State Department would not confirm passenger lists for Rubio’s flights, and Rubio would not be required to reimburse on behalf of other State Department employees who accompany him during personal travel.
On top of traveling for games, records show, Rubio has made six trips to Gainesville that coincided with campus holidays, graduation ceremonies or a break in the football schedule. The State Department did not respond to questions about the nature of those trips.
Rubio, who also serves as national security adviser, travels primarily aboard Gulfstream C-37A and C-37B jets, according to records drawn from public flight trackers, aircraft the Defense Department bills other federal agencies about $9,100 per flight hour to use. On three trips, Rubio traveled aboard a much larger Boeing C-32A — the aircraft type often used to transport the vice president and other senior officials — which costs about $18,600 an hour.
Rubio typically travels from Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington, to Homestead Air Reserve Base south of Miami before flying to Gainesville.
To estimate the cost of his travel, The Post applied the Defense Department’s hourly rates to Rubio’s confirmed trips to and from Gainesville. For the 15 trips the State Department deemed solely personal, the total costs were about $770,600. Rubio’s seven mixed-use trips cost an additional $443,900, bringing the total to $1.2 million. (A State Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about Rubio’s most recent trip, so that is not included in the total.)
The State Department declined to provide Rubio’s travel and reimbursement records, and The Post’s efforts to obtain them using Freedom of Information Act requests were unsuccessful. The law requires the department to provide the records within 20 working days. But the department’s most recent statistics show that it takes more than 269 days on average to process requests it deems “complex.”
The average fare of commercial round-trip travel between any of Washington’s airports and Gainesville Regional Airport on game days is $820, The Post estimated, based on an analysis of commercial airline flight listings. At that rate, Rubio would have reimbursed the government about $18,000.
If his related travel between Washington and South Florida were also considered personal, the total would exceed $33,000. Rubio also must reimburse the government for personal guests who travel with him.
Liz Hempowicz, deputy executive director of the watchdog group American Oversight, said Rubio’s frequent personal travel and its cost underscore the need for the government to disclose how his trips were classified, what he reimbursed and how much taxpayers ultimately paid.
“When a senior official is taking frequent personal trips at significant taxpayer expense,” Hempowicz said, “it’s reasonable to ask whether or not those senior officials are exercising that judgment appropriately.”
Those questions have repeatedly arisen around senior officials’ travel across administrations, she said, but basic details about the trips and reimbursements often remain difficult to obtain.
“That’s exactly why transparency matters here,” Hempowicz said.
‘Use good judgment’
Senior officials have long used government planes for occasional personal travel, usually when their safety or ability to quickly respond to an emergency was in question.
A 1993 White House memocodified the practice, requiring the secretary of state and other senior national security officials to use government aircraft for personal travel because of security or round-the-clock communications needs, continuing what it described as a “long-standing” policy.
Longtime State Department officials said secretaries have generally exercised that authority sparingly for personal travel. President Joe Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, typically used government aircraft for personal trips only a couple of times a year, two former officials recalled. The former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized by their employer to discuss the matter.
But the practice has drawn scrutiny across administrations, raising questions about whether expensive flights were justified, how much officials reimbursed the government and how much taxpayers ultimately paid.
During the Biden administration, the Transportation Department inspector general audited former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg’s use of government aircraft after congressional Republicans questioned his travel. The transportation secretary is not among the Cabinet members required to travel on military aircraft.
The senator who requested the investigation: Rubio.
“American taxpayers deserve assurances that their tax dollars are not wasted by the government’s highest officials,” Rubio wrote in 2023 while asking for the review. “I am committed to both holding Secretary Buttigieg accountable for any fraudulent use of government aircraft, and ensuring compliance with DOT policies and procedures.”
The watchdog ultimately found that Buttigieg had complied with federal rules, having used military jets for eight trips, or about 11 percent of his plane travel. His travel totaled $59,000, the review found. In response to the audit, the Transportation Department said that Buttigieg flew commercially 119 times across his 138 trips through roughly two years in office. The watchdog also audited Buttigieg’s predecessor, Elaine Chao, and found that she used government planes for seven trips, costing $98,500.
Rex Tillerson, President Donald Trump’s first secretary of state in 2017, used military aircraft for at least 15 domestic trips during his 14 months in office, including five designated as personal travel. The watchdog group American Oversight estimated the flights cost taxpayers more than $1 million. The State Department defended Tillerson’s use of military aircraft but did not disclose how much he reimbursed the government.
More recently, FBI Director Kash Patel has faced questions about his use of government jets, including for a trip to Pennsylvania for a wrestling event where his girlfriend performed the national anthem. The FBI has maintained that Patel reimburses the government for personal trips, although it has not released a detailed accounting of those payments.
Delaney Marsco, director of ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said Rubio’s travel differs from the trips that prompted her organization to seek an inspector general investigation of Patel.
“It would be hard to say, ‘Okay, you can’t go see your son play in a football game,’” she said. Patel’s travel to sporting events and for golf and hunting was “different in kind” from a father traveling to see his son play. Still, she said, holding such a senior position can mean accepting limits on personal travel because of the public expense involved.
Nate Jones contributed to this report.
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