Everyone deserves a vacation, even the President of the United States. No human being is meant to work non-stop. But as Donald Trump gets ready for his first long vacation, it’s interesting to look back on what he’s said about taking holidays in the past. Normally, it would be pretty unfair to criticize a president for taking some time off, but here’s why Trump’s first long vacation feels fairly hypocritical.
Trump, who is set to go on a 17-day vacation to his central New Jersey private golf club in August, habitually criticized former President Barack Obama for taking breaks.
Yeah, these tweets didn’t age very well.
Since becoming president, Trump has gone golfing at a far higher rate than Obama.
As you can see from the tweets above, Trump was very critical of Obama any time he played golf. But, according to PolitiFact, at this point in his presidency, Obama had only played golf 11 times. Meanwhile, Trump has already played 21 times.
In Obama’s first year as president, he took 26 days of vacation in total, according to FactCheck.Org. Compared to other presidents, that’s actually a pretty low number. President Ronald Reagan, for example, spent 42 days on vacation during his first year. So while Trump attempted to portray Obama as lazy, the numbers paint a very different picture.
Trump is set to spend more on travelin his first year alone than Obama did in 8 years, according to CNN.
As of July 30,Trump had spent at least 58 days at one of his propertiesand at least 43 days at one of his golfproperties since becoming president, according to NBC News. So, six months in, Trump has spent 30 percent of his days as president at one of his properties, and 22 percent of his days at one of his golf properties.
These frequent visits are racking up quite a quite a bill. It’s estimated every single visit to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, costs roughly $3.3 million.
Trump said he wouldn’t be a president who goes on vacation.
In the past, Trump has questioned what the point of taking a vacation is.
During the U.S. presidential campaign, Trump said,
I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done. I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.
Well, talk is cheap, and Trump either changed his mind, or wasn’t being fully honest when he said this.
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