Day 1,221: In for a penny, in for a pound: Trump all-in on restarting non-stop golf

Donald Trump finally broke the glass and played a round of golf after a two-and-a-half month hiatus on Saturday, one day removed from the White House laying the foundation for him to play.

Saturday’s round was never going to be a one-off event and Sunday proved it: Trump hit the links during his 246th day at one of his golf properties.

There’s currently a pandemic raging across the country that has lingered and gotten worse largely due to Trump’s ineptitude. Trump’s focus has always been on re-election and getting back to his short game more than coming up with a real plan to combat the coronavirus.

Trump isn’t even going to try to obfuscate what’s going on. Like a fish drawn to a lure, Trump defended his hours at his private club as “exercise” while lambasting Barack Obama for playing golf.

Most importantly, while Obama was in office, there was never a novel illness causing hundreds of deaths from coast-to-coast, much less tens of thousands of deaths. Additionally, Trump’s golf habit far eclipses that of Obama in cost to taxpayers and scope.

The conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, a group Trump touts quite frequently, calculated that all of Obama’s trips cost taxpayers about $114 million over eight years. Trump, meanwhile, has already cost taxpayers 20% more than that in less than half the time, pocketing a chunk of it along the way.

Even with a 75-day break, Trump has been at one of his golf properties on more than 20% of his days in office and largely tries to hide when he plays (though it’s nearly every time he’s there). Obama, meanwhile, was transparent with his calendar and played on about 11% of his days in office.

If there’s one thing that’s nearly certain about Trump, it’s that now that he’s started up again, nothing will stop him from playing tons of golf from now until he’s out of office.

1,221 days in, 241 to go

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