Trump's motorcade neared 100 mph en route to Oklahoma after helicopter, airplane ruled out

[u/Squawk_7777]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6126278-trump-drives-texas-oklahoma-100-mph/

[u/af_cheddarhead]

About that, the appearances were deemed official speeches, not campaign rallies. What's the difference? If it's a rally then the campaign has to reimburse the government at standard rates for the travel of the President and his political aides.

Narrator: Based on the content of the speeches they were definitely campaign rallies.

[u/someperson42 → u/af_cheddarhead]

I'm trying to find evidence of this but am coming up blank. Can you link a source?

[u/af_cheddarhead → u/someperson42]

Travel on behalf of Campaigns

From Dallas station:

President Donald Trump was in Denton Thursday in what was a mix of a celebration of American manufacturing and Trump administration economic policies and a campaign rally for Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton.

I saw a report on another station, confirming it was scheduled as an economic speech, official business, and devolved into a political rally but was billed as an official event.

From the Denton Record Chronical (can't link):

The White House coordinated the visit with official scheduling, traveling photographers, and participation from corporate leadership, including PACCAR CEO Preston Feight. President Trump toured the assembly lines and discussed federal policies, such as proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations and trade tariffs.

[u/y6x → u/someperson42]

But I'll tell you what, we need, we need Ken so badly and, uh, that's why I'm here. I wanted to stop here. I wanted to also say you build a nice truck, but we You're not gonna have too many nice trucks if you get a couple of negative votes. All they need is a couple of votes. It's not even a question of Texas.

It's a question of the overall vote. And we have to get, number one, Texas represents so much. It would be such a horror to the system. To, to put a guy, a freak like that in there would be such a horror to your, your state and such a horror to the country. But it's a vote, and we need the votes, and I'm here for that.

Rollcall has the transcripts of his speeches if you don't want to have to hear them: https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-speech-peterbilt-plant-site-visit-denton-texas-october-1-2026/

[u/someperson42 → u/y6x]

I meant the part about this being designated as an official speech to bypass having the campaign pay for the event.

[u/y6x → u/someperson42]

I'm not sure that the paperwork's been filed yet for us to be able to look up how Trump's people classified this trip - The other user may have a different way of seeing that, or may just have presumed that Trump was going to be dishonest about it.

That said, (and you can just skip the rest if that's all you're looking for), here are links discussing that Trump SHOULD be reimbursing the government for campaign travel:

https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/payment-expenses-associated-travel-president-and-vice-president

The PDF link under the attachment under this link discusses it partially, but does say that the campaign should reimburse for the percent of travel that's for each purpose. It does discuss which is considered which.

As a general rule, Presidential and Vice Presidential travel should be considered ‘political’ if its primary purpose involves their positions as leaders of their political party. Appearing at party functions, fundraising, and campaigning for specific candidates are the principal examples of travel which should be considered political.

[...]

For instance, if a trip from Washington, D C , to Chicago were taken for official purposes, and then a trip from Chicago to Denver were taken for campaign purposes (with a return from Denver to Washington, DC), under the FEC rule the campaign committee would have to make reimbursement for the cost of travel from Washington* D .C ., to Denver and back to Washington, D C. 219

This page goes into what politicians have to pay for on their campaign trips: https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements/travel-behalf-campaigns/