Trump's Big CON: "I'll Work Hard for America, CONt.

"As of July 31, Trump’s visited his own properties on 57 of the 193 days he’s been president, a rate of once every 3.4 days. He’s played golf once every 5.8 days — or, at least, that’s what we assume, since the administration never actually admits he’s playing golf. Sometimes, as he did on Sunday, Trump will simply head from the White House to his golf club in Sterling, Va., for four hours or so and not tell the press what he’s doing. Occasionally, photos will leak on social media of Trump on the links or some other person will admit to being part of Trump’s foursome, but the administration likes to keep it vague, apparently so that they can pretend that maybe he was actually just in meetings. . .

Why does this matter? Trump fans will ask. For a few reasons.

First of all, it matters because Trump repeatedly insisted on the campaign trail that he would play little to no golf as president, since he’d be so busy. (He repeatedly berated President Barack Obama for playing golf; Obama played at a rate of once every 8.8 days. Trump’s playing at a rate of once every 5.8 days.) It matters that Trump’s communications team won’t simply admit that he’s spending a lot of time playing golf, which they likely don’t do because of those campaign-trail pledges, but which they should because (1) it’s obvious and (2) it’s generally preferable for a president not to hide his actions from the public.

Second of all, it matters that Trump goes to properties that are owned by his private business because each of those trips serves as a de facto ad for the property, leveraging Trump’s official position on behalf of his private interests. What’s more, those trips cost the public a lot of money. His jaunts to Mar-a-Lago cost $6.6 million just to protect the facility from the air and water. . .

Third, it matters because it’s unusual for a president to spend so much time away from the White House doing non-president-related things. His calendar this month has been fairly sparse, but, in addition to hitting up his private golf clubs and his hotel, he’s also found a lot of time for watching television. This schedule is almost certainly tied into the paragraph with which this article began: Trump spent very little time cajoling Republican senators to vote for the party’s health-care bill and enough defected on it to give him a black eye.

He spent at least 24 hours playing golf. Did he spend that much time on health care? He spent a weekend literally just watching a golf tournament from inside a glass box at a course he owns. Couldn’t that time have been better used?

One can only wonder: If Trump spent more of his time doing the things one might expect of a president and less time on the putting green, would his July have been such a political disaster?"

Read the Washington Post, Trump had a terrible July, but at least he played a lot of golf.

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Trump's Big CON: 'I'll Rarely Leave the White House' , and

Trump's Big CON: "I'll Work Hard for America.