During his campaign, when the idea of a Trump presidency was still just an increasingly depressing joke, Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Barack Obama for taking time off to play golf and claimed that he wouldn’t take vacations because he’d be too busy vigilantly working on behalf of the American people if he became president. However, in his eight weeks as president, Trump has actually visited golf courses 10 times, suggesting for the very first time that he’s just totally full of shit and nobody can ever trust anything he says. So why are Trump’s golf trips okay while Obama’s were not? According to White House press secretary Sean Spicer, it’s because Trump is actually working when he goes golfing.
That comes from Yahoo News, which specifically asked Spicer about Trump’s golfing during a press briefing on Monday. Spicer acknowledged that Trump does occaisionally go to golf courses multiple times per week, but that doesn’t mean he’s just shirking his responsibilities. For example, he played golf with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe one time, so that definitely counts as work, and he has even “conducted meetings” and “had phone calls” while on golf courses. The way Spicer tells it, Donald Trump has never actually played golf in his life, but he does really like holding important meetings at or near golf courses.
When Yahoo News pushed the question a little harder and asked why the administration hasn’t been talking about what goes on in these important golf-adjacent meetings, Spicer explained that Trump is “entitled to a bit of privacy.” In other words, he’s definitely playing golf when nobody is looking.