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FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who crisscrossed the country last year on a Fighting Oligarchy tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., spent over $550,000 in 2025 on private jet travel for himself using campaign funds, a Fox News Digital review of Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings found.
The majority of the spending came in the first two quarters, which cover up until July. That is also when Sanders and AOC had the majority of their tour stops across the country.
In April, between stops on the tour, Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a photo of Sanders boarding a luxury Bombardier Challenger private jet at the Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California. The source also indicated seeing the New York congresswoman boarding the private jet as well.
The pair were subsequently also seen in footage obtained by Fox News Digital exiting the plane in Sacramento later that evening, near where the self-identified democratic socialists hosted a second rally in one day.
According to a photo captured by a source on the ground and shared exclusively with Fox News Digital, Sanders boarded the luxury Bombardier Challenger private jet at the Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, Calif., on Tuesday afternoon. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, whom the source also spotted boarding the private jet, spoke at their Fighting Oligarchy event in Bakersfield just hours before. (Fox News Digital)
The Bombardier Challenger private jet the pair flew on was operated by Ventura Air Services, which touts "one of the widest cabins of any business jet available today" and provides "superior cabin comfort for its passengers." According to its website, the private jet can cost up to $15,000 an hour.
In 2025, according to Sanders' FEC filings, he spent at least $354,000 in campaign funds to pay for private jet services through Ventura Jets. The other private jet companies Sanders spent campaign funds on included N-Jet and Cirrus Aviation Services.
According to N-Jet's website, the company prides itself on its "personal touch," adding that customers will "arrive in style with your luxury, comfort and safety always top of mind."
Sanders, who has been a vocal supporter of the Green New Deal, the aggressive climate change policy targeting carbon emissions and fossil fuel production, and has called climate change an "existential threat" to the world, was pressed about his private jet use last year, prompting him to tell Fox News' "Special Report" host Bret Baier that "that's the only way to get around."
"You run a campaign, and you do three or four or five rallies in a week. [It is] the only way you can get around to talk to 30,000 people. You think I'm gonna be sitting on a waiting line at United … while 30,000 people are waiting?" Sanders said.
"That's the only way to get around. No apologies for that. That's what campaign travel is about. We've done it in the past. We're gonna do it in future."
SWALWELL IN THE HOT SEAT AFTER SPENDING OVER $200K IN CAMPAIGN CASH ON CHILDCARE: 'SLIPPERY SLOPE'
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., greet the crowd together during a Fighting Oligarchy tour event at Arizona State University March 20, 2025, in Tempe, Ariz. (Ross D. Franklin)
Sanders has a long history of using private jets on the campaign trail. During his failed 2020 presidential campaign, the Sanders campaign spent over $1.9 million on private jets, including Apollo Jets and the Advanced Aviation Team, a Virginia-based private jet company.
Private jets have faced the ire of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez's fellow climate activists. According to the 2021 Transport and Environment report, private jets are up to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes.
"For real, how many private jets do these CEOs need? It is insatiable. It is unacceptable," Ocasio-Cortez said in 2023, in one example of the New York congresswoman herself railing against private jets.
Fox News Digital reached out to Sanders' office and his campaign for comment on the spending but did not receive a response in time for publication.
"You don't expect a socialist to fly commercial do you?" quipped conservative political communications consultant Matt Gorman. "There's no bigger hypocrite than the liberal who chastises us for eating meat and using gas stoves, yet flies in private jets."
In addition to Sanders' hefty private jet spending that came during his tour with AOC, the New York democratic socialist also spent big sums of campaign dollars at luxury and "boutique" hotels in states where the pair held their Fighting Oligarchy tour.
Rep. Alexandria Oacsio-Cortez, D-N.Y., waves to the crowd ahead of Zohran Mamdani 's inauguration as the 112th mayor at City Hall Jan. 1, 2026, in New York, NY. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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For example, AOC's campaign paid The Leo Kent Hotel, a boutique high-rise in Tucson, $3,165.76, around the time of a Fighting Oligarchy rally that was held there, according to an FEC filing from April 25.
In 2025, AOC also spent thousands at luxury hotels like the Asher Adams Hotel in Salt Lake City, the Hotel Vermont in Burlington, The Langham-Huntington hotel in Pasadena, Calif., Hotel El Convento in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Lansdowne Resort & Spa in rural Virginia and others.
Fox News Digital asked representatives for AOC if the congresswoman felt like she needed to explain her more than $53,000 in campaign spending on upscale hotels across the country in 2025 but did not receive a response.
Fox News' Deirdre Heavey and Andrew Mark Miller contributed reporting
Fox News Digital's Cameron Cawthorne, Andrew Mark Miller and Deirdre Heavey (formerly) contributed to this report.
