MAGA Rep. Zach Nunn went on an all-expenses-paid European tour as everyday Iowans suffered during a government shutdown, the Daily Beast has learned.
Nunn, who has been broadly supportive of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran and who the 80-year-old called “100 percent MAGA,” spent a week touring castles, sites connected to the British Royals, and soaking in Irish culture in Dublin between March 29 and April 4.
The costly trip, which included his wife Kelly, was sponsored by the Republican Main Street Partnership, according to his official House disclosure.
There was some work, too. Ostensibly, at least. Nunn, 47, also toured corporate boardrooms and government offices across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The stated purpose was studying U.S.-U.K. relations and business development tied to his work on the Financial Services Committee. Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom.
Indeed, the itinerary had stakeholder meetings and corporate sit-downs, including a reception with Coupang executives, breakfast with Ørsted’s American chief executive, and visits to Meta and Salesforce, but it also included plenty of tourism.
Nunn, an Air Force veteran, enjoyed a private guided tour of Edinburgh Castle, a walk down the city’s Royal Mile, and a stop at the historically significant Falkland Palace, one of the favorite residences of Mary, Queen of Scots.
And that was just the Scottish leg of the journey. He also visited Dublin, Ireland, where he saw the Book of Kells, a 9th-century illuminated manuscript containing the four Gospels of the New Testament in Latin.
In London, he took in the historic Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. The disclosure records $15,400 in gift travel for Nunn alone, with the partnership covering the couple’s travel expenses and an estimated $330 per person in meals and incidentals.
The trip came as thousands of Iowans gathered at the state Capitol in Des Moines for a nationwide day of protest against the Trump administration, with additional rallies held in more than 50 Iowa communities.
It also came in the middle of what became the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a 76-day lapse that left Department of Homeland Security employees without paychecks and strained operations at the Coast Guard, FEMA and the Transportation Security Administration.
Nunn’s Scotland trip was just one of four expensive foreign excursions he’s taken so far this Congress, including trips to Greece, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland.
According to Legistorm, which tracks congressional travel, Nunn spent $86,784.22 on member travel in the 119th Congress, the third-highest total of any House member.
Nunn wasn’t alone in racking up frequent-flyer miles. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa was tied for approving the second-most trips of any congressional office this session, with 15 total, and her office spent $30,056.22 on travel, according to Legistorm records.
Representative Ashley Hinson, now the likely Republican Senate nominee in Iowa, and her staff accepted more than $54,000 in trips, including two international excursions to South Korea and Switzerland that she took alongside her husband.
The travel comes as all three lawmakers have backed President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, a conflict that has driven up costs for their constituents back home.
Moody’s Analytics calculated that the war had cost American households roughly $750 each, or $100 billion nationwide, as of June, driven by higher military spending and oil price spikes tied to disruptions in the Middle East.
Iowa households alone paid an extra $516 in gas costs since the war began in February, according to an analysis by the minority staff of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, with national gas prices running about 30 percent higher than before the conflict started. Airfare has climbed too, with jet fuel prices nearly doubling in the weeks after fighting began.
Both Miller-Meeks and Nunn have defended the war publicly even as they’ve acknowledged its costs. Asked directly whether the conflict should have started given the resulting spike in gas prices, Miller-Meeks pointed to the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran. “We’ve had seven presidents say that we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran,” she said on Iowa News Now.
Nunn similarly told a Politico Pro reporter that concerns about inflation tied to the war were “overhyped, candidly, by the media,” while telling supporters at a rally that the sacrifices, including Iowa’s disproportionate share of American combat deaths, were worth it to protect the country’s energy independence.
Hinson’s own position has shifted over the summer. In June, audio obtained by Politico captured her privately warning that the war could become a “political liability” if it dragged on much longer, telling a reporter she was “deferring to the president on the negotiations.”
By August, she’d fallen in line publicly, appearing alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a campaign event for Nunn to back continued war funding. Nunn led another event with Hegseth in March, where tickets cost up to $3,500 for a bundle.
That August event underscored how closely the Trump administration has tied itself to Iowa’s Republican delegation ahead of November, with Hegseth headlining a fundraiser for Nunn and warning that Republicans’ $1.5 trillion defense budget request could collapse without Nunn’s re-election.
“What President Trump needs is rock-ribbed, solid, Bible-believing, red, white, and blue-waving congressmen who have his back, and that is Zach Nunn,” Hegseth told the crowd.
Before that, JD Vance popped up in Iowa to drum up support for Nunn before the midterms. “This is a contest between a party that wants to take all of your money and give it to illegal aliens and a contest between gentlemen like Zach Nunn who fight every single day for you,” he said.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a similar campaign stop with Miller-Meeks the same day, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also appeared alongside both lawmakers in recent weeks.
“The main goal of a public servant should be putting service first,” Nunn crows on his website. He campaigns on “working to lower taxes and balance our budget to return money to Iowans.” It is unclear how his European adventure contributes to this.
Nunn’s office did not respond to request for comment.
