As Hurricane Dorian – a category five hurricane – threatened major damage to the southeast coast of America, President Trump did what he does best.
He hunkered down to track the progress of the hurricane and weighed in on strategies to save lives and repair the damage once it hit.
Nah, I’m kidding. He played golf.
Business Insider with more:
President Donald Trump appeared to be playing golf Saturday, just days before states on the southeast coast were set to be battered by Category 5 Hurricane Dorian, which the National Hurricane Center has called catastrophic.
Official communications from the White House and statements from the president himself ahead of the weekend trip suggested that Trump would be spending his time at Camp David in Maryland monitoring and preparing for the storm.
Trump left Camp David for the golf course on Saturday morning. Apparently he was being briefed on the hurricane every hour, and returned after his round.
It isn’t surprising that Trump wouldn’t want to hang around Camp David. It’s not really his style.
Neither is ‘doing his job’, but that’s another story.
For one thing, Camp David is pretty rustic by Trump standards – not a gold toilet in sight. For another, the activities that presidents usually engage in while at the retreat require some degree of athleticism.
Business Insider took a look at the retreat last year.
Nestled in the countryside of Maryland, in the Catoctin Mountain Park, is the presidential country retreat known as Camp David.
The first parts of the complex were built by the Works Progress Administration in 1935, and Franklin D. Roosevelt made it the presidential retreat. FDR originally named the property “Shangri-La,” a name it kept until the Eisenhower administration, who named it Camp David after his grandson.
The compound has expanded over the years, with new cabins being built and even a pool. It has also been the site of diplomatic events like the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the G8 summit in 2012.
The camp was originally named ‘Shangri-La’ after the fictional Himalayan paradise in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon.
From the beginning, Camp David gave presidents a chance to enjoy the countryside. Here, FDR and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill fish in the woods around “Shangri La.” The two men reportedly planned the D-Day invasion from a porch on one of the cabins.
Since Camp David is in the Catoctin Mountain Park, it has a number of trails around it that presidents and their families can enjoy.
You can see President Jimmy Carter and the Carter family enjoying a hike in 1978:
Horseback riding is also a common activity for the trails, as seen here with President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush.
Originally, the pool at Camp David was far from Aspen Lodge. Here President Johnson can be seen enjoying the pool with family, friends, and staff.
President Obama and his family got a lot of joy out of the pool as well. Here he is hanging out with his daughter Sasha in 2011:
There’s also a private tennis court and basketball court. Obama, again:
Camp David provides American presidents with a place to do their work away from the chaos of the metropole.
From what we can tell, Trump doesn’t actually do any work. When he tries, his suggestions leave officials speechless.
He recently suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them from reaching their destination.
Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that he spends most of his time playing golf. Every minute he’s on a golf course is one more minute that he isn’t trying to govern.
To finish, here’s an aerial tour of Camp David featuring the Aspen Lodge, Laurel Lodge, and other areas in the Presidential Retreat:
[sources:businessinsider&businessinsider]
