Trump donates first-quarter salary to park service, White House presents check

US President Donald Trump donated his first-quarter salary amounting to US$78,333 (AU$103,001) to the National Park Service. Last month, the White House said he would donate his salary to charity at the end of the year.

The White House announced Monday that Trump decided that his first-quarter salary will go to the National Park Service, which currently faces major cuts. Press secretary Sean Spicer presented a check signed by the POTUS to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. He said the White House Counsel’s Office presented various options to the president and he chose the agency.

Zinke, whose agency oversees the 100-year-old protector of 417 national parks, monuments and other sites, said he was “thrilled.” Appearing alongside Spicer at a daily briefing, he explained that the agency is about US$229 million (AU$301 million) behind in deferred maintenance on its battlefields alone. "We are going to dedicate and put it against the infrastructure on our nation's battlefields," he added.

The White House previously said Trump will donate his salary to charity before the year ends and would even have the media decide the beneficiary. “The way that we can avoid scrutiny is let the press corps determine where it should go,” Spicer said.

As for his latest decision on where his first salary will go, the press secretary said Trump feels personally proud to offer his first-quarter salary to National Park Service which cared for US parks since 1916 and preserves the country’s national security. The president proposed a cut of US$1.5 billion (AU$1.98 billion), or a 12 percent cut for the Interior Department, which oversees the park service and other agencies. The proposal did not specifically mention how much of that would come out of National Park Service’s budget.

The president’s relationship with the agency was perceived as fraught. Trump was livid and called the acting director of the park service the day after his inauguration to express complaints after a park service employee allegedly reposted information comparing the size of his Inauguration Day crowd with that of former US President Barack Obama in 2009, the New York Times reports.

The move was in line with his promise during the presidential campaign, in which he pledged to donate his US$400,000 (AU$ 525,968) annual salary if he becomes the president of the free world. “I am totally giving up my salary if I become president,” he declared in 2015.

US presidents are being paid US$400,000 (AU$ 525,968) per year. First daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are working under Trump’s administration without taking salaries.