Donald Trump To Take First Weekend As POTUS Off
Donald Trump will take some time off after taking the Oath of Office.
Donald Trump has apparently decided to take his first weekend as President off:
During the campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised to roll back many of President Obama’s policies on Day One of his administration, some of which can be done away with by a simple stroke of the pen.
Trump will officially become president after he delivers the oath of office at his inauguration on Friday, but it appears the executive actions he planned to take on his first day in office will have to wait until the weekend is over.
During an interview with the Times of London, Trump clarified that “day one” of his new administration won’t begin Friday afternoon, it will start on Monday morning.”… [D]ay one – which I will consider to be Monday as opposed to Friday or Saturday. Right? I mean my day one is going to be Monday because I don’t want to be signing and get it mixed up with lots of celebration,” Trump said in an interview with the Times of London.
“… [D]ay one – which I will consider to be Monday as opposed to Friday or Saturday. Right? I mean my day one is going to be Monday because I don’t want to be signing and get it mixed up with lots of celebration,” Trump said in an interview with the Times of London.
On some level, I suppose I see the logic in what Trump is saying. Saturday and Sunday are not normal working days in any case so it’s not clear exactly what a President could get done on a weekend. At the same time, though, this is the same person who frequently criticized President Obama for golfing on the weekends and attacked opponents such as Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton for being “low energy.” He’s also told interviewers in the past about how he doesn’t require much more than three to four hours of sleep a night and is frequently working late into the evening. Given that, one has to wonder exactly what kind of image Trump is presenting about how he intends to approach the office he will take in less than seventy-two hours, especially given the fact that there were at least some suggestions before the General Election that he intended to serve as something approaching a figurehead President while letting staffers and Vice-President Pence be the ones who got their hands dirty with the day-to-day work that is involved with being President.
In the long run, I suppose there isn’t anything inherently wrong with this idea. The day or two after Inauguration has always traditionally been filled with ceremonial and social events for the new President and his family, and this is the first time in awhile that Inauguration Day has fallen on a Friday or a weekend. At the very least, I suppose this will give the incoming White House Staff some additional time to get settled into their new positions before hitting the ground running on Monday. At the same time, though, it’s rather ironic to see Trump doing this given the fact that people on the right would relentlessly criticize President Obama for golfing on the weekends as if they would prefer that he be working around the clock.
Trump’s decision to wait until Monday to begin working is also surprising given everything he has promised to do just on his “first day in office.” During the Presidential campaign, Trump made a number of promises about what he will do on his “first day” in office:
- “Repeal every single Obama executive order.” (He has also pledged more specifically to “eliminate every unconstitutional executive order.”)
- “Repeal Obamacare.” (On Trump’s campaign website, he’s less bullish, promising only to “ask Congress” on day one to repeal Obamacare immediately.)
- “End the war on coal.“
- “Begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country.” (More specifically, Trump has promised to do this in his “first hour” in office, “day one, before the wall, before anything.”)
- “Begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall.”
- Meet with Homeland Security officials and generals to begin securing the southern border.
- “Notify all countries that refuse to take back dangerous illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in this country that they will lose access to our visa programs if they continue to do so.”
- Convene his top generals and inform them they have 30 days to come up with a plan to stop ISIS.
- Fix the Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Call the heads of major companies who are moving operations oversea to inform them that they’ll face 35 percent tariffs.
- “Contact countries and say…’Folks, we love protecting you, we want to continue to protect you but you’re not living up to the bargain’…They’re not paying what they’re supposed to be paying—which is very little, by the way.”
- “Defend the unborn.”
- “Withdraw from TPP.“
- “Start taking care of our…military.”
- Suspend Syrian refugee resettlement.
- “Notify our NAFTA partners of my intention to renegotiate the deal.”
- “Designate China as a currency manipulator.”
- “Direct every agency in government to begin identifying all wasteful job-killing regulations, and they are going to be removed.“
- “Get rid of gun-free zones [in] schools” and “military bases”—which would require repealing a 25-year-old federal law. (“My first day, it gets signed, okay? My first day. There’s no more gun-free zones.”)
- “Ask Congress to pass ‘Kate’s Law’—named for Kate Steinle—to ensure that criminal aliens convicted of illegal reentry receive strong mandatory minimum sentences.“
- Learn the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas.
And all of this just on Monday. Perhaps he figured out he needed the weekend to get all this ready to go on the 23rd?
Well, when the Trump University case was still going, didn’t he ask for a deferment until after the inauguration as he would have more time to deal with it then?
Again nobody who didn’t live under a rock from January of 2015 until election day can be surprised by a single thing he has done since.
Autoreply: “I will be out of the office until Monday, January 23 at nine a.m. If this is an emergency, press 2 for Mike Pence. I will return all three a.m. phone calls in the order I receive them. In the meantime, follow me on Twitter.”
A good start. If he would avoid doing anything during the remaining 1,459 days, then I would really impressed.
“Saturday and Sunday are not normal working days in any case so it’s not clear exactly what a President could get done on a weekend.””
Somehow, I don’t think of the Presidency as a typical 9 to 5, 5 days a week job.
Doug, shame on you. You should know better.
You’re judging Trump on what comes out of his mouth, not what’s in his heart!
Really, Trump isn’t any more responsible for what comes out of Trump’s Mouth as, well, you are.
Now it wouldn’t be fair to judge Trump on things you say so why should it be fair to judge Trump on what Trump’s Mouth says?
p.s. Welcome to the era of Trump.
I’ll never slam Trump for taking vacations. All that lying must be exhausting.
Somewhat OT, but: Obama just commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence.
@Pch101:
I read somewhere–I wish I could recall where in order to cite it–that during his meeting with Obama, he was startled to realize exactly what the scope of a president’s duties and responsibilities were. I can’t say I’m surprised by the depth of his ignorance, but it seems to me that even a moment’s reflection would enable one to grasp the magnitude of the job.
@CSK:
Trump is the kind of guy who likes to deliver hollow soundbites, then leave the heavy lifting to his underlings who can’t and won’t criticize him. An empty suit.
Trump has never made a “promise” he intended to keep. Or, apparently, was able to remember.
Assuming Trump hasn’t forgotten everything he said (& truly intends to implement any of it) be ready for a raft of executive orders that would have Republicans screeching “Unconstitutional!” were it any Democratic President issuing them. Do not, however, expect a peep out of the Scared Senseless Party now.
I’m waiting for the appointment of czars myself. Or course they may be imported.
@MikeSJ:
I am horrified at the prospect that these are not the same thing. What if this *is* Trump’s best side?
well why not, he’s done about 3 months of obama’s job already! he can still tweet.
@HarvardLaw92: that was weird, i doubt if it’ll be a topic in here but still. they should make him pay for his “gender bs” he underwent on our dime-i don’t follow the 8th that way. .
I think that the more time that he is not working it will better for all of us. I think that he should take the whole week off. Maybe the rest of the year.
@HarvardLaw92:
One more OT: Trump is being sued for sexual assault by one of his Apprentice contestants. Gloria Allred is representing her.
@Andre Kenji de Sousa:
I think Trump regards the presidency has a purely ceremonial position, with all the actual work handed off to the cabinet members. A few months ago, one of his sons (I forget which) was asked how his father would conduct himself in office. The son replied that Pence would do “all the things Trump didn’t want to do,” such as foreign and domestic policy. When asked what Trump WOULD do, the son replied “Make America great again.”
I think Trump sees the presidency as an endless series of parties, rallies (where he can go around the country telling massive crowds of suckers how great he’s making America), and Tweeting at 4 a.m.
But you have to understand something: Trump’s hardcore fans don’t care what he does as long as he keeps trashing the press and the “elites.”
@CSK: Yup. He wants to be Queen of England. And he is doing a crappy job even on that.
“You have reached the Office of minority President Donald J. Trump, you may tweet me at @realDonaldTrump, the Putin residence at @realVladimirPutin, or the Comey residence at @realJamesComey”
@Andre Kenji de Sousa
The queen is smarter, saner, and considerably more knowledgeable than Trump. And she sure as hell has better manners.
President Pud does not have a best side.
I think that the Hellish Trump Demon image in Green Day’s latest ditty
Troubled Times captures the essence of our next Commander in Chief.
I think I’m going to puke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cVJr3eQfXc
He doesn’t want to be President. Anyone who really wanted the job would at least do something symbolic right away.
Oh but he is…quite the symbol there, taking his first weekend off…
For the first time since I learned what it meant I am questioning the wisdom of theFounding Fathers creating a
Civilian Commander in Chief.
Here are some other ideas that we can take up during the next Constitutional Convention…If there ever is one.
True, it’s not like anyone could take a president’s calls on a weekend, or like a president could read position papers, memos and briefs to familiarize himself with the tasks ahead.
Someone should tell this moron that the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor on a Sunday!
@Mr. Bluster: am I evil to hope that something really important catches Trump flat footed this Saturday?
@Mr. Bluster:
Well, it would have been Monday morning in Japan.
The Nazis had the decency to declare war on the US during the middle of the week. Even al-Qaeda waited for a weekday for the 9/11 attacks. So this commander-in-chief stuff can wait, apparently.
Evil Woman
There’s a hole in my head where the rain comes in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R20f-TPKjzc
I wonder what Trump’s reaction and thoughts were when he was shown the Presidents Book of Secrets.
Tyrell. If it is a Presidents Book of Secrets how would you know that the President elect has seen it?
Well that’s two whole days in which he won’t be fwcking anything up.
@Tyrell: Come on, Tyrell. Even if such a thing existed it certainly isn’t being shown to Trump. He is getting to look at a big colouring book based on the Hall of Presidents display at Magic Kingdom, and will never know the difference.
@Pete S:
Well, I think you could argue that instead of a Big Coloring Book of Presidents, he’s requesting a Big Coloring Book of Donald Trump illustrating the highlights of his life: refusing to rent to non-white tenants; operating a scam real estate school; bankrupting four casinos; bankrupting the Eastern Airlines Shuttle; losing his shirt selling vodka; being accused by his first wife of raping her; bragging about his adulteries; bullying an elderly woman out of her home to build a limo parking lot for one of his failed casinos; and playing himself in a Judith Krantz mini-series, among many other dazzling achievements that surpass those of Washington and Lincoln, who never, as far as is known to history, even grabbed anyone by the pussy.
@CSK: Just ask, and the interwebs will provide:
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/north-america/us-election-2016/being-the-president-is-a-bigger-job-than-i-thought-trump-35261686.html
@Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:
Dan Quayle must be relieved. Compared to Trump, he sounds like a genius.
@Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:
Thank you; that was it, or one very similar to it. I love that Gingrich said that it was a “good thing” that Trump doesn’t know what the hell he’s in for. Nor what the hell he’s doing.
@Pch101:
Yeah, it take real genius to go broke peddling booze and promoting gambling, doesn’t it?
Well, Sean Spicer has just announced that Trump is expected to issue 4-5 executive orders this Friday “as soon as he enters the White House.”
Someone must have informed Trump that when you get a job, you’re supposed to, you know, do that job.
Or maybe it doesn’t mean that at all. This is TrumpWorld. It could mean anything.
More embarrassing info….
Guys, it’s a book. What difference would it make if he gets his hands on it or not? It’s inaccessable information either way.
In PEOTUS’ latest photo-op/tweet, he calls Mar-a-Lago the Winter White House. Seriously. He has zero intention of doing this job and can’t even be bothered to stay in DC while he’s tweeting it in. Basically we’re paying for three
royal residencesFirst Family quarters – Trump Tower for the next few months (or more), Mar-a-Lago apparently so His Orangeness can summer and the actual White House that clearly isn’t good enough for anybody in this dynasty.How un-American can you get for the President to refuse the White House. Sad!
@KM: That’s not even his desk. What a farce this already is and we still have 27 hours until this orange omnishambles (not my word but I like it) takes office.
I hope he plays some golf this weekend…. That should make some heads explode.