President Donald Trump adamantly argues that he's not on vacation when he spends time at his private properties in Florida, New Jersey, and Virginia. After all, when he first ran for president, Trump said he wouldn't take time off.
"I would rarely leave the White House because there's so much work to be done," Trump said to the Hill in June 2015, the month he launched his presidential campaign. "I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off."
The responsibilities of the presidency aren't confined to a location, so in general, a president isn't ever fully on vacation. Still, it would be a stretch to say that Trump has not taken time off while president, as he promised.
A Washington Post analysis published Aug. 10, 2020, found that Trump at that point had spent all or part of 383 days of his presidency at properties that he or his private company owned. He largely spent that time at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Fla., and his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.
Trump took extended trips to the Bedminster golf club every August of 2017 through 2019. In 2017, White House aides described Trump's 17-day trip to his golf club as a "working vacation." They described his 10-day trip there in 2018 the same way.
Trump carried out presidential matters at his private properties, such as press conferences and signing of executive orders. But he also spent plenty of time golfing, contradicting his prediction that he wouldn't be on the golf course much if he was president. "Because I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to go play golf. Believe me, folks," Trump said in August 2016.
In his first campaign for the White House, Trump routinely said then-President Barack Obama spent too much time golfing. In light of that criticism and given the amount of time Trump himself spent golfing, some news outlets and others created trackers to tally Trump's golf outings.
As of Dec. 13, 2020, Trump had made 293 daytime visits to his golf clubs as president, with evidence of him playing golf on at least 148 visits, according to Trump Golf Count. By the Washington Post's account published in August, Trump played golf on 237 separate occasions, nearly all at his properties.
In July 2019 at the Oval Office, a reporter asked Trump if he planned to take a "working vacation" that year at his Bedminster property. Trump pushed back on a link between Bedminster and "vacation."
Trump said: "So I go to Bedminster, which is a beautiful place, but it's never a vacation. It's working, mostly."
Trump may not like to use the word "vacation" for his down time. But his travels to his private properties and golf outings indicate that he hasn't entirely committed to his campaign pledge not to take vacations. His own staff described his annual summer trips to his New Jersey golf club as a "working vacation."
We rate this promise a Compromise.