As Dorian grew into a Category 5 hurricane over Labor Day weekend, President Donald Trump played golf. Twice.
The most common critique of Trump’s decision to hit the links was focused on the obvious hypocrisy. And yes, there is that!
“President Obama has a major meeting on the N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from all over the country, but decided to play golf,” tweeted Trump in October 2014. And this one from a few months later: “Obama has admitted that he spends his mornings watching @ESPN. Then he plays golf, fundraises & grants amnesty to illegals.”
But at this point in his presidency – and his life – Trump’s hypocrisy is so well-proven as to be almost mundane. He believes that he is governed by different rules than literally everyone else. That what’s good for the goose is definitely not good for the gander. This is bad. It is also not new.
What is more striking – and damaging as it relates to the overall health of the country – is that Trump’s golfing weekend speaks to how he simply does not see the presidency as a beacon of moral leadership (or leadership of any kind).
It’s Politics 101 that when the people you represent are struggling – or fearful or anxious, etc. – you do what you can, from a public standpoint, to make sure they know you are with them in spirit if not in body. It’s why, you would think, Trump canceled his plans to go to Poland over the weekend. Better to stay stateside and monitor the storm – making sure people know you are on top of things!
And Trump did send more than 100 tweets and retweets over the weekend – ranging from sharing National Weather Service forecasts to his own straight-to-camera videos in which he put on his own meteorological hat to explain of Dorian: “It really began to form and form big.”
Then, after sending those nearly 130(!) tweets, he went and played golf. Which, especially on Labor Day, was a startling contrast; cable TV networks showing the massive storm battering the Bahamas and inching its way toward the southeastern coast of the United States while Trump took some swings on his course in Virginia.
“He’s clearly busy dealing with a hurricane out on the golf course,” jabbed London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a frequent critic of Trump.
Even in his (totally inevitable) response to Khan, Trump made clear he doesn’t really get the issue here. Tweeteth Trump:
“The incompetent Mayor of London, Sadique (sic) Kahn, was bothered that I played a very fast round of golf yesterday. Many Pols exercise for hours, or travel for weeks. Me, I run through one of my courses (very inexpensive). President Obama would fly to Hawaii. Kahn should focus on ‘knife crime,’ which is totally out of control in London. People are afraid to even walk the streets. He is a terrible mayor who should stay out of our business!”
(Side note: London is facing what CNN has described as a “knife crime crisis.”)
A few things about Trump’s tweet:
1) The issue is not the cost associated with him playing golf this past weekend.
2) The issue is not that other politicians exercise or play golf or travel. The issue is WHEN they do it.
That second point is really important. I have written in defense of Obama’s golf habit – amid critiques from Trump and other Republicans. I am strongly in favor of politicians a) taking vacations and b) exercising in whatever manner they prefer in order to deal with the massive stresses associated with being president.
The difference here is the context. Playing golf on a random weekend – as Trump does virtually every weekend – is fine, if hugely hypocritical! Doing so when tens of thousands of Americans are boarding up their homes and business and under mandatory evacuation orders is something very, very different.
Look, Washington, DC, isn’t in the “cone of uncertainty” for this hurricane. If DC feels any effect from Dorian, it will be minor – and far later in the week. So even if Trump was sitting in the White House all weekend, it’s not as though he is in the same tough situation as the tens of thousands of people on the southeastern coast from Florida through North Carolina.
But the job of the president – at least until Trump – has been to do everything they can to make sure that the people they represent know that they understand their struggles. To send a signal that he is on top of the situation and is ready to do anything and everything he can to help out.
It’s why George W. Bush decided to stop playing golf halfway through his first term as president. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf,” Bush explained at the time. (The United States was actively at war in Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.) “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”
“Solidarity” is the right word here. A president leads by showing solidarity. Sneaking in a quick 36 holes over Labor Day weekend while thousands of people worry for their futures in the face of a catastrophic storm is the opposite of that solidarity.
Trump’s abandonment of the idea of the presidency as a position of moral leadership – the whole leading-by-example thing – will be, along with his assault on the idea of facts and truth, the most dangerous (and lasting) element of his tenure.
If we no longer can look to a president to lead in moments of crisis, who can – and will – we look to?
CNN’s Devan Cole contributed to this report.
