Trump suggests paying overtime to astronauts back from space

President Trump on Friday suggested he would pay overtime costs to the astronauts who returned from space this week.

Fox News’s Peter Doocy told Trump that the astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, didn’t receive overtime pay for the extra days they were at the International Space Station, noting they were supposed to receive $5 a day, which amounts to $1,430 in extra pay for 286 days.

“Nobody ever mentioned this to me. If I have to, I’ll pay it out of my own pocket? OK, I’ll get it for them,” Trump said. “Is that all? That’s not a lot. For what they had to go through,” the president added.

He then thanked SpaceX’s Elon Musk for returning the astronauts, who made splashdown Tuesday on Earth.

A SpaceX crew with replacements for the two astronauts arrived at space station Friday evening, setting in motion their trip back home. NASA confirmed Williams and Wilmore's arrival with an online video of the spacecraft off the coast of Florida.

“Think of, if we don’t have him. You know, there’s only so long — even though they’re in the capsule up there — the body starts to deteriorate after nine or 10 months,” Trump said Friday. “And, gets really bad after 14, 15 months with the bones and the blood and all of the things you’ve been reporting on very well. And, if we don’t have Elon, they could be up there a long time. Who else is going to get them?”

Trump also brought up that Musk’s Tesla electric vehicle company has been the target of vandalization and other violence, comparing the violence to the riots on Jan. 6, 2021. Musk, a top White House adviser, has become a bogeyman for the administration as critics blame him for the efforts to cut federal workers and dismantle agencies.

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