President Donald Trump has taken criticism from his opponents and the media for golfing on Memorial Day weekend. But his predecessor, President Barack Obama, golfed on seven of the eight Memorial Day weekends of his presidency.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee to challenge Trump in the fall, tweeted a criticism that Trump was golfing on Saturday, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic:
Nearly 100,000 lives have been lost, and tens of millions are out of work.
Meanwhile, the president spent his day golfing. pic.twitter.com/H1BVNtgVjA
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 24, 2020
The media echoed that criticism.
However, President Obama was notorious for golfing — even when the country was at war, or in mid-crisis. And he golfed on Memorial Day weekend every year but one. According to the tally at trumpgolfoutings.com, Obama golfed:
- Monday, May 25, 2009
- Monday, May 30, 2011
- Saturday, May 26, 2012
- Saturday, May 25, 2013
- Saturday, May 24, 2014
- Saturday, May 23, 2015
- Saturday, May 28, 2016
The only exception was in 2010, when Obama went back to visit Chicago — and drew criticism from conservatives for failing to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day to mark the occasion. (He laid a wreath at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery near Chicago, instead.)
In a series of tweets, President Trump responded to the criticism, noting it was the first time he had golfed in months — and that Obama had infamously golfed after speaking briefly about the beheading of American James Foley by ISIS:
the muslim terrorist is a POS. obamagate is very “dark” to coin a phrase, worse than watergate. oh! forgot, its alright for democraps to spy but not conservatives. it alright for a democrap pres nominee to rape and forget.
Golfing is just about the only thing Presidents Trump and Obama share in common.
This quarter’s salary marks the second time President Trump has donated his quarterly salary to HHS, with his paycheck from the fourth quarter of 2019 also going to that agency.
He has previously donated his salary to the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation and Veterans Affairs, as well as the government agency fighting the opioid crisis, among others.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/12/13/president-trump-salary-donation/
The last Dem to donate part of his salary to anything other than himself was JFK who kept $50,000 out of his $100,000 for “entertainment,” purposes.
Obama wasn’t playing golf.
He was there helping OJ look for clues.