Tom Price has resigned as Health and Human Services secretary, the White House announced on Friday.
“Secretary of Health and Human Services Thomas Price offered his resignation earlier today and the President accepted,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
Price in recent days had elicited bipartisan condemnation in recent days over the cost of his air travel.
President Donald Trump said earlier Friday afternoon he would that day whether to fire Price.
“He’s a very fine person. I certainly don’t like the optics,” Trump told reporters as he was boarding Marine One. “I’m not happy, I can tell you that. I’m not happy.”
He added: “We have great secretaries and we have some that actually own their own planes, so that solves that.”
Trump intends to designate Don Wright of Virginia to serve as acting secretary, the White House said. Wright currently serves as the deputy assistant secretary for health and the director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
Price has cost taxpayers more than $1 million between his use of private planes for domestic travel, and military jets for recent trips to Africa, Europe, and Asia. The Health and Human Services department is conducting an internal review of his flights, and Price has said he welcomes the review.
The expenses were first revealed by Politico, which found that Price opted for private travel over commercial flights 24 times since May, exceeding $400,000. His use of military jets for international travel, on which his wife Betty joined him, cost taxpayers more than $500,000.
Trump publicly criticized Price over the flights earlier this week. He told reporters on Wednesday he was “looking into it” and declined to say he had confidence in Price.
“I will tell you personally, I’m not happy about it. I am not happy about it. I’m going to look at it. I let him know it,” he said.
Price has said he plans to reimburse the government roughly $52,000 for the cost of his seat on the private domestic flights he took. Price has already reimbursed the government for the cost of his wife’s travel on the international flights, a spokeswoman for his office said.
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