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President Donald Trump and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (center) play golf in Florida on Feb. 11. | Getty

The new president, who attacked Obama for golfing and personal travel, spends his first month outdoing his predecessor.

By Josh Dawsey

02/21/17 05:11 AM EST

Donald Trump regularly assailed President Obama for playing golf, then spent the first weekends of his own presidency doing just that. He attacked Obama for using Air Force One to campaign, and did it over the weekend just a month into the job. He mocked Obama for heading out of Washington at taxpayer expense, but appears to have no qualms about doing so himself.

One month in, Trump is using the presidency to boost his political and personal goals not breaking laws or ethics rules, experts say, but disputing his past criticisms and vows.

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"Donald Trump has zero worry about contradicting himself because he does it all day long," said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian who has met with Trump. "He figures he can get away with it because he does it all the time. There is no worry about it. He says one thing and then says another, and his supporters don't hold it against him."

The new president has taken three weekend getaways in the first month of office, spending millions of taxpayer dollars in Secret Service protection and about 25% of his time away from the White House. The Secret Service has also paid for security for expensive business trips for his sons' business ventures to foreign countries.

The actions seem to fly in the face of how he mocked Obama's travel. "President Barack Obama's vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars -- unbelievable!" he wrote in one of many tweets criticizing Obama for taking a trip.

Trump has also headed to the golf course at least six times since he took office, another favorite criticism against Obama. Trump mocked Obama more than two dozen times for golfing amid problems in the White House.

"Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf. Worse than Carter, Trump said in 2014.

Trump said last August that if he became president, he wouldnt have time for golf. "I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to go play golf," he said at an event in Virginia.

Aides have tried to block reporters from seeing Trump play in recent weeks, even covering a basement room with black plastic bags to obscure views.

His spokespeople have frequently refused to confirm he was playing, even as he stayed at the course for almost five hours the usual time it takes to play a round. They have sometimes said he is playing a "few holes" of golf.

After reports that he golfed a full 18 holes with Rory McIlroy on Sunday, his spokeswoman confirmed the much longer round on Monday, but noted he also "had a full day of meetings, calls and interviews" about picking a new national security adviser.

Obama has said vacations were important to him because the presidency requires constant work, and that he was never off duty. The president often golfed with old friends from Chicago, who he said kept him grounded, and would do work before and after just like Trump does.

To be sure, there is nothing illegal or unethical with presidents frequently playing golf. They are allowed to vacation as much as as they want. George W. Bush went frequently to his Texas ranch. The elder Bushes went to Kennebunkport.

They can use Air Force One for whatever they'd like to use it for, said ethics expert Richard Painter, though they do have to reimburse some of the costs.

"Are we going to have a four-year campaign? Are we going to pay for that? Are we going to pay for him to be there every weekend?" asked Richard Painter, an ethics lawyer who worked for President George W. Bush. "We have always accepted that presidents campaign in the year of an election, but he has been in office one month."

When Air Force One nosed its way to an airport hangar in Melbourne, Fla., on Saturday beneath a blazing Florida sky, the crowd whooped, snapped pictures, gasped and raised babies on their shoulders at the most powerful of American symbols approached. The soundtrack from "Air Force One" blared in the background.

"It was absolutely unbelievable," said Rick Lacey, the chair of the Brevard County Republican Party. "Air Force One had never landed here. Everyone was on cloud nine."

Two days earlier, the White House told the Washington Post the plane would not be used as a prop at a political rally. And Trump frequently criticized Obama for campaigning with the plane, particularly when Hillary Clinton was on board during the 2016 race.

"Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Crooked Hillary. A total disgrace!" he wrote in summer of 2016.

"Looking at Air Force One @ MIA. Why is he campaigning instead of creating jobs & fixing Obamacare?" he tweeted in November.

The rally, his supporters say, was a necessary move for the president, who left energized after a rough first month. "It is a battery-charger for him," said Barry Bennett, a consultant who worked for his campaign. "He goes out there and has his message unfiltered and talks to the American people for 45 minutes, and it's all over cable TV."

Lacey, the Brevard County Republican, said the rally helped Trump remind his voters he was working for them. Roger Stone, a longtime political adviser, said "with all the political carping in Washington, it shows people he can get 10,000 people to come out and that he has a powerful political base."

"It gets him past some of the Washington bureaucracy and to the American people," said Lacey. He added that he understood the president had to fly on Air Force One because it was safer. "If he started doing that every week, I'd have a problem with it. But I think it's good for him to get out."

White House aides say the trips to Mar-a-Lago are healthy for a president who often spends 12 hours or more in the White House every day, barely breathing fresh air. They have encouraged him to get away from the White House more.

"The golf is refreshing for him," Bennett said. "Anywhere he can go to decompress is good."

Aides say to expect frequent trips to Mar-a-Lago, and that Trump won't give up golfing anytime soon. He expects to play more with foreign leaders and others he is negotiating with.

Whether Democrats begin attacking Trump for golfing and vacationing remains uncertain.

Stone said Trump deserved "time away," just like Obama deserved the time away. His message before he was president was that "the country is going to hell, and Obama is out golfing."

"It was rhetorically very successful," Stone said.

See more here:
Trump forgets his Obama criticisms - Politico