WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump marked the first full month of the ongoing government shutdown Friday by blaming it all on Democrats and taking a $3.4 million golf trip to Florida, bringing the total that taxpayers have spent on his hobby to $60.7 million since he retook the presidency in January.
This is his 13th trip to Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach country club, which is across the Intracoastal Waterway from his golf course in West Palm Beach, adjacent to the county jail.
Asked about the shutdown, which has furloughed nearly 700,000 federal workers and is forcing another 700,000 to continue working without pay, Trump blamed Democrats. He told reporters after arriving on Air Force One: “It’s their fault. Everything is their fault.”
During the flight south, he spent time posting photos of his latest renovation project at the White House, redoing the Lincoln bathroom in ornate marble and gold. “The Refurbished Lincoln Bathroom in the White House — Highly polished, Statuary marble!” he wrote.
Trump has already paved over the Rose Garden and turned it into a budget-hotel style patio and more recently tore down the entire 123-year-old East Wing to make room for a massive ballroom.
In his first nine months in office, Trump has played golf at his own resorts in Florida, New Jersey and Scotland 76 times. If he plays golf Saturday, it will be his 77th day on one of his courses on his 286th day in office, meaning he will have played golf on 27 percent of his second-term days. This includes a golf vacation in Scotland that cost taxpayers some $10 million during which he had the White House promote his opening of a new course at his resort in Aberdeen.
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During his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump played a total of 293 days of golf on courses he owns and cost taxpayers $151.5 million to do so.
