Palm Beach, Florida
CNN
—
As President Donald Trump orders federal workers to return to the office, he spent the fourth straight day at home here at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The president arrived at the Trump International Golf Course on Tuesday morning, just before 10 a.m. ET, following a routine he’s kept nearly every day during an extended Presidents Day weekend visit to sunny South Florida. He returned to Mar-a-Lago about four hours later.
Trump left the White House early Friday afternoon and is set to return Wednesday night after delivering a speech to an investment conference in Miami.
No matter where they travel, all presidents are accompanied by the trappings of office, so Trump’s frequent visits to Florida are hardly unusual during his first month back in power. But his trip home stands in stark contrast to his strident view against remote work, which is a centerpiece of his efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
As he signed an executive order last week in the Oval Office, as mass layoffs were reported in agencies across the government, he made clear that he believes federal workers are scamming the system by working remotely.
“There’s a whole big, oh, you can work from home,” Trump said. “Nobody’s going to work from a home. They’re going to be going out. They’re going to play tennis. They’re going to play golf. They’re going to do a lot of things. They’re not working.”
When he is in Florida, Trump golfs nearly every day at the course he owns about a 10-minute drive from Mar-a-Lago. His presence at the course is so routine that supporters regularly gather outside the gates to welcome him. On Monday, he stopped briefly to wave after staffers from his club delivered hot dogs to supporters.
In the first 29 days of his second term, Trump has spent at least 12 nights at home in Florida, most of them over the weekend. During his four years out of office, Trump frequently ridiculed Joe Biden for spending weekends at home in Delaware.
“He went to Delaware and he’s laying on a beach, sleeping all day long,” Trump said last summer, mocking his rival. “Do you think President Xi of China is at a beach sleeping? Do you think Kim Jong Un is sleeping from North Korea with his nuclear weapons all over the place?”
A White House official said Trump was not only playing golf on Tuesday, but also working from the club. He received updates from his foreign policy team after they met with Russian officials about the prospect of reaching a peace deal with Ukraine.
The president is set to sign executive orders late Tuesday afternoon, the only official event of the day listed on his public calendar.
This story has been updated with additional information.
