Trump says he will pay out of his own pocket for Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore's overtime

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President Donald Trump Friday said he was not aware of the fact that astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore did not get any overtime for their unexpectedly long stay on the International Space Station. “Well. nobody ever mentioned this to me. If I have to, I’ll pay it out of my own pocket. I will get for them,” Trump said as he was told that they would get $5 per day which would result in $1,430 for their 286 days in space apart from their annual salary of $152,258. “Is that all? That’s not a lot for what they had to go through,” Trump said as he thanked Elon Musk for bringing them back.

“I want to thank @elonmusk by the way because think if we don’t have him. You know, there’s only so long even though they were in the capsule the body starts to deteriorate after 9 or 10 months. Gets really bad after 14-15 months with the bones and the blood and all other things that you’ve been reporting on very well. And If we don’t have Elon, who else was going to get them? I just want to thank him,” Trump said adding that Elon Musk is going through a lot because of the violence against Tesla. The perpetrators will get 20 years in jail, as decided by his administration, he reiterated.

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore traveled to the ISS in June last year for an eight-day mission which got prolonged owing to issues that Boeing Starliner started to develop. In September, the capsule returned to Earth without them.

On March 18, this year, the two astronauts were brought back amid celebrations across the world. Trump announced that they would visit the White House once they recover physically from their Space overstay. “They have to get better, It will be a little bit tough for them. It’s not easy, you know. They were up for a long time and when they do, they will come to the Oval Office,” Trump said.

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