Donald Trump claims you can’t run a country playing golf, but guess who was on the golf field for 88 days last year?
Discipline for thee, indulgence for me
During a sprawling self-congratulatory recap of his first year in his second term on Jan. 20, Donald Trump proudly listed what he described as major accomplishments. Among them was an executive order forcing federal employees to return to in-person work or be fired. Oh, and definitely don’t play golf.
Trump wanted everyone back in the office. No excuses, no flexibility, and no working from home “on your bed,” as he put it. Remote work, he said, was a scam. Workers were lounging at home, sneaking off to ball fields, or, his favorite accusation, playing golf. “You can’t run a country or a company that way,” Trump declared.
He was wagging a rhetorical finger at imaginary bureaucrats teeing off during work hours. Which is a bold position to take when you are, by any measurable standard, the most golf-obsessed president in modern American history. According to public records reported by The Daily Beast, Trump spent 88 days golfing in 2025 alone.
Taxpayers, meanwhile, covered the security, travel, and operational costs that come with presidential golf excursions. In case you’re blissfully unaware, that runs into the tens of millions of dollars. For Trump’s 2025 golf trips, the estimate is around $100-$110 million. So when Trump accuses workers of “being out on the ball fields,” he isn’t warning about a hypothetical problem. He’s describing himself.
Trump’s argument wasn’t subtle. Federal employees working remotely, he claimed, were cheating the system. Offices were being paid for but left empty, productivity was supposedly collapsing, and discipline was gone. His solution? Come back to Washington—or be fired. But the numbers tell a different story about who, exactly, treats work like a part-time commitment. As one user on X said, “Self-awareness was never his strong suit.”
Trump was the federal worker playing golf when he should’ve been working
Trump’s golf schedule during his second term dwarfs that of his predecessors, including his own first term. He condemns leisure when other people do it. But when he does it, it’s leadership. When federal workers sit at home, they’re lazy. When Trump spends days at a time on manicured greens, it’s “working very hard.” This contradiction isn’t a slip; it’s Trump’s model.
Trump’s worldview has always divided Americans into two categories: people who must follow rules, and people who exist above them. Evidently, he keeps himself in the second one. Discipline and sacrifice are for employees. For Trump? There’s endless leisure funded by those same employees he’s criticizing.
The only difference is that when Trump skips work for golfing, they pay the bill and get lectured about productivity. But when they skip work, it’s incompetence and unacceptable. Trump’s words thus landed with a thud online. The reaction was immediate and brutal, calling out Trump on his hypocrisy. “Says the golfer-in-chief,” one wrote. “If golfing disqualifies leadership, this confession is awkward,” another added. And truly, Trump’s words were a confession wrapped in a lecture. Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it.
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