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Trump spends 1 out of every 5 minutes of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago

US tycoon Donald Trump plays at the Trump International Golf Links course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on July 10, 2012. (Getty Images)

US President Donald Trump has spent one out of every five minutes of his time since entering the White House at his resort in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, a new report suggests.

According to a report by The Washington Post, Trump has spent 424.5 hours at Mar-a-Lago and 1,663.5 hours everywhere else.

Trump has spent seven of the 13 weekends he has been president at the resort, usually playing golf, the report said.

The newspaper said Trump calls the facility the “winter White House” or “southern White House” to give the impression that he is doing presidential business at the resort.

The Post accuses Trump of mixing his presidential duties with leisure during his time there.

Trump had rebuked former President Barack Obama for his holiday travel spending, calling him a “habitual vacationer.” However, Trump is on track to exceed Obama’s travel expenses.

“The president made a show of saying he would decline the $400,000 annual salary that comes with the job,” the report said. “But the most widely cited estimate of what one presidential trip to Mar-a-Lago costs — based on the known price of one Florida trip Obama took — is $3.6 million.”

Obama cost taxpayers $97 million in leisure travel costs during his two terms, according to an estimate by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group.

Trump vowed last year that when he became president, he would be working so hard that “I’m not going to have time to go play golf.” However, he has found time to play golf 14 times since his inauguration.

Trump’s love of leisure is yet another example of the gaping chasm between the kind of president he claimed he would be and the kind he actually is.

He had promised a set of populist policies designed to help the working class. Instead, he has tried to deliver a conventional Republican agenda that benefits the wealthy and hurts the poor and middle class.


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