Donald Trump is already playing hooky one week into his job as commander in chief, spending his Monday morning golfing at one of his golf properties in Florida, rather than working.
Trump is golfing even though he told reporters aboard Air Force One over the weekend that he didn’t think he would have time to golf at his Doral course—where he is grifting off taxpayers to host a retreat for congressional Republicans to come up with a plan for how to pass his tax cuts for the rich.
“No. I don’t think so. I’m busy,” Trump told reporters who asked if he’d be golfing.
Trump’s visit to one of his resorts to hit the links took place much earlier than his first disastrous term, when he waited until the first week of February to golf, according to The Washington Post, which tracked Trump’s frequent golf outings.
Trump golfing instead of working comes after he issued a memorandum on Inauguration Day requiring that all federal employees return to the office five days a week.
According to the memo:
Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.
Trump failson Donald Trump Jr.—who had everything he has handed to him on a silver platter by his father—took a victory lap on the return to work order.
“No more showing up to work one day a month. If you’re going to collect a paycheck from the government, you actually have to show up to work!” Don Jr. wrote in a post on LinkedIn, along with a video of his daddy signing the order from a big boy desk surrounded by adoring MAGA fans in the Capitol One arena in Washington, D.C.
Of course, return to work policies hurt women and minorities the most, research found—two groups Trump and his MAGA fans hate. The Washington Post reported:
Research from Gartner and McKinsey, released in 2024 and 2022, respectively, said office mandates mostly impact women and people of color, who are more likely to quit over flexibility or office mandates. In a separate 2024 study released by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers who studied the start-up labor market found that changing a job opening to remote work increased female applicants by 15 percent and minorities by 33 percent.
As this author can attest, being the primary caregiver of school-aged children makes it difficult to commute to an office, as it requires additional child care expenses to keep kids in school later or to hire nannies to pick up from schools that end far earlier than the typical workday.
Since parents have already made their child care arrangements for the school year based on their current work situation, abruptly changing policies on federal workers will cause stress and financial strain as parents have to quickly secure child care coverage that’s already difficult to find.
Of course, the return to office policy could just be another one of Trump’s efforts to kill diversity in government.
Trump has vowed to end diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the federal government, and has even ordered federal employees to snitch on their coworkers who are involved in efforts to diversify the workforce so they can be fired.
As for Trump golfing, it’s likely to cost taxpayers a pretty penny. During Trump’s first disastrous stint in office, he played at least 142 rounds of golf, costing taxpayers $142 million, according to data tracked by the now defunct site TrumpGolfCount.com.
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