Flouting his own advice, Trump will take extended vacation

(AP) — Donald Trump once questioned the wisdom of taking vacations. “What’s the point?” he asked.

But now the president is getting ready to join the annual August exodus from the city he calls “the swamp.” Trump is due Friday to begin his first extended vacation from Washington since the inauguration: 17 days at his private golf club in central New Jersey.

The vacation could be driven in part by necessity. Everyone who works in the White House West Wing, including the Oval Office occupant himself, must clear out by the end of the week so that the government can replace a balky, 27-year-old heating and cooling system.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said Thursday that West Wing staff needs to vacate the premises in August while workers are replacing the building’s HVAC system.

“The president’s going to continue to work and we all need to be relocated out of the West Wing due to these renovations that should have taken place before,” she said. “They either need to be repaired or replaced and it’s not something that can go on while we’re still occupying the West Wing.”

Trump and his supporters like to publicize his disdain for taking vacations, when the truth is that he takes them constantly.

“Don’t take vacations. What’s the point? If you’re not enjoying your work, you’re in the wrong job,” Trump wrote in his 2004 book, “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire.”

He told Larry King in an interview that year that “most of the people I know that are successful really don’t take vacations. Their business is their vacation. I rarely leave. You know that,” Trump said. “You and I are friends. How often do you see me going away?”

Actually, Trump gets out of town quite often. So far, he has spent 13 of 28 weekends in office away from the White House, mostly at his properties in Palm Beach, Florida, or in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to an Associated Press count. The figures include a weekend during official travel overseas, and Father’s Day weekend at Camp David, the government-owned presidential retreat in Maryland.

AP