WORKING REMOTELY AT MAR-A-LAGO

I’M ALL FOR EFFICIENCY, THOUGH I DON’T CONFUSE the concept with the DOGE scam. And I applaud wholeheartedly Natasha Korecki and Megan Shannon’s “Federal Workers Cast Trump’s Many Mar-a-Lago Trips as Working From Home,” NBC News, March 15, 2025.  I delight in gleaning tidbits from this extremely efficient editorial research, whether Korecki and Shannon performed the work at NBC headquarters, at home, or commuting in between.

Trump to the Ready. Researchers Korecki and Shannon write, “One of President Donald Trump’s first actions upon entering the White House was to order federal employees to return to the office. The government workforce, he has repeatedly contended, could not be productive from home.”

They quote this very stable genius: “ ‘I happen to be a believer that you have to go to work. I don’t think you can work from home,’ Trump said on Feb. 11. ‘Nobody’s going to work from 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.’ ”

“Three days later,” the researchers recount, “Trump traveled to his sprawling Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, where he remained for parts of six consecutive days, according to an NBC News tracker. On one of the days, Trump signed two executive orders and a memorandum. He also held an impromptu press conference.” 

“In other words,” the researchers report, “he worked from home.”

A Federal Worker’s Opinion. Korecki and Shannon quote a federal employee with the Department of Education who is also a disabled veteran: “It’s clear and should be to the rest of Americans that it’s never about ‘the rule,’ it’s about who’s making the rules…. This all fits in so perfectly to the power dynamics installed by this administration—a dynamic where Trump does what he wants, to who he wants, without repercussions.”

Teeing Up. The researchers recount, “Between Feb. 14 and Feb. 19 [Friday to the following Wednesday], he golfed on four different days. While he is far from the first president to do so, each golfing trip is a cost to taxpayers.” 

They observe, “Trump has hit the links 14 times to date in his second term, with a potential for more rounds expected in the immediate future. Just since January, the cost of Trump’s golf weekends to taxpayers is more than $18 million, according to one analysis.”

Image from “Donald Trump Declalres Himself Winner of his own Golf Championship—Despite Missing a Round.”

In all Fairness. Korecki and Shannon note, “As far as presidents, Trump is not alone in his travels home. As president, Joe Biden frequently traveled to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on the taxpayer dime…. Amid criticism, Joe Biden at the time said he continued to hold meetings and work while home.”

They continue, “Barack Obama would also travel to Hawaii for vacations, which was far more costly of a journey than Palm Beach would be, said Tom Fitton, president of the legal group Judicial Watch.” 

Indeed, the NBC News researchers are decidedly more equitable and transparent in their analyses than, for example, Musk and his chainsaw are: “The group has tracked the costs of presidential travel since Obama’s presidency and calculated that his vacations over eight years cost taxpayers at least $85 million.”

Hmm. That averages out to around $10.6 million/year (versus Trump’s $18 million this year so far). 

The Irony of Lining One’s Own Pockets. Korecki and Shannon cite Noah Bookbinder, president of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who identified “another unusual circumstance involving Trump: He is not just going to his home. He’s going to the business that he owns. And so every time he makes a trip, that brings money into his business, which puts money in his pockets…. At the same time that he is bemoaning waste and fraud in the federal government, he’s actually through this travel having taxpayers pay his businesses, which makes him richer. That seems problematic and like a real level of irony when there’s so much emphasis on cutting down on government, police, fraud and abuse.”

Can you spell “hypocrisy”—while home, working, or both? I’ll bet Natasha Korecki and Megan Shannon can. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025