Trump's Taken More Vacation Days To Date Than Obama During Presidency
President Donald Trump was a frequent Twitter critic of former President Barack Obama for his vacation days and golf outings, but to date, Trump has outpaced the former president on both those fronts.
Before entering the White House, Trump was a frequent critic of Obama's personal time outside the Oval Office. Trump even criticized taking vacations at all.
“Don't take vacations. What's the point? If you're not enjoying your work, you're in the wrong job,” tweeted Trump in 2012.
Trump has apparently changed his position on the matter, as the president is set to take a 17-day vacation starting Friday. The president will head to his private golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey for what his aides are calling a “working vacation.” While he’s gone, the White House will receive maintenance on the heating and cooling system. Everyone, including staff, will be required to vacate the building during that time.
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Presidential vacations are easy fodder for criticism from the opposition party. During Obama's time in office, Trump himself blasted the former president frequently on Twitter and called him the “habitual vacationer.” But exactly how much more vacation time Trump has taken compared to his predecessor depends on how you look at it.
This is Trump’s first official vacation, however the president has visited one of his private properties upwards of 40 of the days he’s been in office — so far he’s spent seven weekends at Mar-a-Lago. And sometimes Trump adds work to pleasure, such as when he hosted and golfed with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during one of the Mar-a-Lago outings. But in addition to the 17 days he will take in Bedminster, one can additionally count all of his other golf outings as part-day vacations.
Trump and his staff are also notoriously sneaky about whether Trump is golfing or working during these trips to his properties. His press office has tried to obscure how much the president plays. There was an incident in February during which one of his golf partners outed the president.
“I know he played a couple of holes this morning but I am not going to disclose any of the others that were there,” said Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a press conference about a February 19 outing.
Trump was reportedly playing with professional golfer Rory McIlroy, who told a golf blog that he hit a full 18 holes with the president. Huckabee Sanders, when confronted with the info, had to amend her statement.
“(He) intended to play a few holes and decided to play longer,” she said.
Obama, by comparison, would release to the press who he was playing with and when. By the Washington Post’s count on Thursday, by the end of this vacation, Trump will have taken 53 days at leisure. Compared to Obama’s 15 vacation days at the end of August during his own first term as president, Trump has to date almost doubled the former president’s trips to the links. Moreover, Obama played 17 rounds of golf by the end of August in 2009. Trump has played 33 times — that are known about — before heading to Bedminster.
READ: How Much Time Has Trump Spent Golfing During His Presidency?
As for his predecessors? In their first years, Jimmy Carter took only 19 vacation days, Ronald Reagan took 42 days of vacation, George H.W. Bush took 40, Bill Clinton took 21 days, George W. Bush took 69, and Obama ended his first year with 26 vacation days, according to The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Fact Check.
If the cost for Trump’s outings is figured in, it would appear the current president is on track to outpace Obama’s spending. The conservative leaning watchdog group Judicial Watch estimates that Obama spent close to $100 million on travel in his eight years as president. Working off FOIA requests that Judicial Watch also used, an Obama trip to Palm Beach cost around $3 million. Trump’s seven trips to Mar-a-Lago have cost taxpayers some $20 million so far — and that doesn’t include Trump’s trips to his other respective properties. Estimates of tax payer dollars spent on Trump’s golfing can range as high as $50 million, according to Trump Golf Count.
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