On the campaign trail, Donald Trump remarked that once in the White House, he’d never see his golf courses again — because “I want to stay in the White House and work my ass off.”
Donald Trump has spent more than 21 percent of his days as president at golf clubs
Trump said he’d “work my ass off” as president. He’s spent about 1 in 5 days at a golf club.
Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images
In reality, Trump has spent 35 days at a golf property since taking office, according to NBC News. That amounts to more than 21 percent of his 164 days as president so far.
The New York Times also previously found that as of April, Trump had spent much more time at the golf course than his predecessors. By April 28, Trump had spent 19 days at the golf course. In comparison, Barack Obama had spent one day at the same point in his presidency, George W. Bush had spent zero, and Bill Clinton had spent five.
It’s good for everyone, even the president, to take some time off every once in a while. You don’t want anyone at an important job to be exhausted or drained, and multiple studies suggest that vacations and breaks from work are good for productivity.
What makes Trump’s outings remarkable is that they’re just another example of how he’s lied and bullshitted to the American people. Consider this video from NBC News editor Bradd Jaffy, in which Trump repeatedly insisted that he would not take time off during his presidency — taking shots at Obama for golfing, in his view, so much:
“There won’t be time to go on vacations,” Trump said on MSNBC. “There won’t be time to go golfing all the time.” At another point, he said, “You need leadership. You can’t fly to Hawaii to play golf.”
Trump has so far broken that promise to the American people.
Meanwhile, his legislative promises have fallen apart too. Trump spent much of the campaign contrasting himself with traditional Republicans by saying he’d take a much more compassionate view on health care, promising he would “take care of everybody,” and vowing not to cut Medicaid. Instead, the health care bill that Senate Republicans proposed and that Trump supports would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cut 22 million people from the insurance rolls and slash Medicaid by $772 billion over 10 years.
This is the kind of stuff Trump could spend his time as president “working [his] ass off” to fix. Instead, it looks like he’s taking a lot of time off.
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