Trump marks full month of government shutdown with $3.4 million golf trip

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump marked the first full month of the ongoing government shutdown Friday by blaming Democrats and taking a $3.4 million golf trip to Florida, bringing the total taxpayers have spent on his pastime to $60.7 million since he resumed the presidency in January.

This is his 13th trip to Mar-a-Lago, his country club in Palm Beach, which is across the Intracoastal Waterway from his golf course in West Palm Beach, adjacent to the county jail.

When 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. After arriving on Air Force One, he told reporters: “It’s his fault. It’s all his fault.”

During the flight south, he spent time posting photos of his latest White House renovation project, redoing Lincoln’s bathroom in ornate marble and gold. “The Renovated Lincoln Bathroom in the White House: Highly Polished Statuary Marble!” he wrote.

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Trump has already paved the Rose Garden into a budget hotel-style courtyard and, more recently, tore down the entire 123-year-old east wing to make way 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 on Saturday, it will be his 77th day at one of his courses on his 286th day in office, meaning he will have played golf on 27 percent of his days in the second term. This includes a golf vacation to Scotland that cost taxpayers some $10 million during which he had the White House promote the opening of a new course at his resort in Aberdeen.

During his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump played a total of 293 days of golf on courses he owned and cost taxpayers $151.5 million.