Jonathan Allen is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News.
WASHINGTON — George W. Bush gave up golf while he was president during the Iraq War. President Donald Trump isn’t about to do the same amid the Iran war, describing his occasional golf outings as a brief reprieve from the pressures of being commander in chief.
“It’s a form of relaxation,” he told NBC News in a phone interview Tuesday. “It’s a little exercise, and it takes your mind off things for a couple of hours.” A month into the war, the United States has “decimated” Iran’s military and brought to the fore a leadership that is “much more reasonable” and less “radicalized” than its predecessor, the president added. “We’re doing great,” Trump said. “And it’s coming to an end.” At the same time, Americans are being impacted in all sorts of ways. The ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security has left air travelers standing in long lines at airports, while motorists are paying higher prices at the pump. Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed, and two more died of noncombat causes, in the Iran war. Yet, there is little evident disruption in the lives of the policymakers whose action — or inaction in some cases — has created stresses for Americans living with the consequences of Washington’s decisions. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who urged Trump to launch the war with Iran, along with his colleagues on Capitol Hill left Washington, D.C., last week. Left undone was figuring out funding for the partially shuttered DHS that left TSA workers without paychecks and produced the long lines at airport security checkpoints. Graham has been pummeled by critics on the left and the right over pictures of him hanging out at Mickey Mouse’s house. “How was Disney World?” Sean Davis, CEO of the conservative outlet The Federalist, posted in response to a Graham tweet. “Did you have a fun time on vacation by yourself after leaving town while Americans were stranded at airports?” Graham’s trip is “the most visible part” of a disconnect that has quickly become a cultural touchstone — the Hollywood-focused website TMZ posted the snapshots of him — according to Elijah Haahr, a former Republican speaker of the Missouri House who now works as a talk-radio host. “Congress has always been playing by a different set of rules,” Haahr said. “The more people think about that, the angrier they get. It makes everybody hate the entire Washington circuit.” Graham said in a statement that he met with Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, on Friday in South Florida and then joined friends in Orlando. On Monday, he posted an image of himself shooting clay targets in South Carolina. He has plenty of company in enjoying leisurely pursuits as part of the government remains unfunded. Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., was photographed relaxing at a Las Vegas casino over the weekend after members of Congress failed to come to an agreement to fund lapsed DHS programs. Senate leaders came up with a bipartisan fix — which would extend funding for everything but Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — and unanimously passed it last week.But House Republicans balked. They didn’t want to hold back funding for ICE and CBP, and they instead passed a measure that would open all of the closed agencies for two months. Then, with the matter unresolved and Transportation Security Administration agents still not getting paid, lawmakers left town. Now, the Republican-led House and Senate are at odds on an issue in which the GOP thought it had an upper hand. The House hard-line Freedom Caucus weighed in heavily against the Senate’s approach. “Anytime you listen to a Freedom Caucus strategy, one of two things happen: you end up in either a cul-de-sac or the minority,” former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said. “To take ownership of the shutdown is the dumbest thing on the planet.” With Congress gone and Republicans fighting each other, Trump issued a memo instructing administration officials to pay TSA workers. They went more than 40 days without a paycheck, with many saying they had to turn to family, friends and food banks to get by. Democrats contend that proves the president could have ended the crisis at any time by issuing the same directive earlier, and instead preferred to keep Americans standing in line when that seemed politically advantageous to the GOP. A senior White House official countered that contention, asserting that the administration had to go through a “lengthy review process” that “identified a pathway” to pay TSA workers. Yet, Trump has appeared to be disengaged for most of the DHS funding standoff so far — and when he did get involved, he gave confusing or mixed signals. Senate Republicans said they believed he supported the DHS funding bill that passed unanimously early Friday. But hours later, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that he spoke with Trump and that the president agreed with his decision to junk the Senate bill and pursue a different path. “I got a call shortly before 2:00 am and was told that a deal had materialized that would ensure everyone at DHS would get paid—a possibly fleeting deal that required immediate action. Under the circumstances, I had every reason to believe President Trump and House Republicans were on board,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told a user on X who asked why he didn’t try to block the Senate bill. The result: An agreement is even more elusive now, with GOP leaders given reason to worry that if they strike a deal with Democrats, the president will pull the rug out from under them. Trump’s routine has been altered by the war, if not the DHS shutdown. Earlier this month, he attended dignified transfer ceremonies in Delaware to receive the bodies of the first American service members killed in “Operation Epic Fury” and meet with members of their families. He also abstained from playing golf while monitoring the opening hostilities of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 28 and March 1. He attended a charity gala and an exclusive gathering of some of his top administration officials and donors that weekend. But the onetime vocal critic of then-President Barack Obama’s golf outings has hit the links at least five times since the DHS funding lapsed in February, including playing 20 holes over two days March 22 and 23, according to an NBC News review. He has spent every weekend since the launch of the Iran war, and six of the seven weekends since the DHS shutdown began, in Florida. In the interview Tuesday, Trump said that he gets as much done at Mar-a-Lago as he does in the White House and notes that it’s a location where foreign leaders often want to meet. “It’s all work,” he said. He added that “Mar-a-Lago is truly the southern White House and it’s a place where I have lots of meetings.” “People love going there,” he said. “I give leaders a choice. ‘Would you rather meet at the White House or Mar-a-Lago?’ I’d say it’s 50-50” which location they choose. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is widely expected to run for president in 2028, sees it differently. “Americans now have to pay a dollar more on average for a gallon of gas because of Donald Trump’s war with Iran,” Newsom wrote on X over the weekend. “But don’t worry! Our beloved president is moving heaven and earth to make sure he … can golf all day at his private golf course this weekend.” Bush, who was also an avid golfer, said he gave up the pursuit during the Iraq War because he believed it sent the “wrong signal.” “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.” Bush had been pilloried earlier in his presidency after he followed an on-camera statement about “terrorist killers” in the Middle East, delivered during a golf outing, by saying, “Now, watch this drive.” Even as Trump is golfing or engaged in other leisure pursuits, the war is still regularly at the center of discussions, with allies relaying their feedback and offering their thoughts on public opinion, a person familiar with the conversations said. And allies say that he has demonstrated that he can run the country from anywhere. “You can’t criticize him for going there, because he still works,” McCarthy said of the Florida trips. “The guy works 24-7.”Robert O’Brien, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s first term, said he recently sent his former boss a text message saying he is “one of the great wartime presidents of the 20th and 21st century.” He favorably compared Trump’s trips to Franklin Roosevelt’s time at the retreat now known as Camp David and Ronald Reagan’s visits to his ranch in Santa Barbara, California. “If President Trump can get away for a little bit of time to be with family at Mar-a-Lago and play a round of golf or two, good for him,” O’Brien said. “That’s good for us as a country and totally in the tradition of Roosevelt and Reagan.” Taylor Budowich, a longtime Trump adviser who served as deputy chief of staff for part of this term, contrasted the president with his predecessor, Joe Biden. “If America wanted to elect a weak and feeble president who struggled to advance a single meaningful priority, Biden wouldn’t have dropped out” of the 2024 election, Budowich said. “Instead, America elected President Trump who enters every day with a passion and drive that allows him to tackle a vast array of problems with a competence that far exceeds his predecessors,” he said. “Thank God we have a president who can exceed expectations in every aspect of the job, and not one who crumbles under the weight of the presidency.” Some Republicans, though, say it’s unhelpful to the president and his party for him to be seen taking pleasure in leisurely activities while the nation is at war, consumers are getting squeezed by higher fuel prices and travelers are stuck in interminable lines at terminals. “To kitchen-table, middle-class voters, with the great exception of the Trumpocracy, it gives a ‘Nero is playing the golden fiddle while Rome is burning’ vibe that they find repulsive,” one longtime GOP consultant said. Steve Bannon, a senior White House adviser in Trump’s first term, said in an interview that Congress “goes on a two-week vacation and they don’t take care of the troops in the field and don’t take care the Save America Act and they don’t take care of the American citizens sitting in five-hour lines because they can’t get through the airport.” “It’s all performative and the biggest performing clown is Lindsey Graham — a grown-ass man who goes to Disney World instead of the capitals of Europe to say to NATO that you better assist us” in the war with Iran. Travelers who spoke to NBC News at airports over the weekend expressed deep frustration with elected officials. Some found Democrats culpable for blocking ICE and CBP funding, while others pointed their fingers at Trump and Republicans. And, of course, some saw a pox on both parties’ houses. “I blame them all,” Florida resident David Simons, 63, said in an interview at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. “It’s their job to work this out and they’re not doing it.” Marshall Snyder, 65, said “God bless” the TSA workers who have been toiling without pay. A retired Tulsa, Oklahoma, resident, Snyder first blamed Congress for the mess. “They all need to look in the mirror,” he said. “I can’t believe 535 grown men and women can’t come to an agreement.” Asked about Trump’s role, he put the president in the same category. “OK, let’s make it 536,” he said. If travelers like Snyder and Simons were looking for a data point, lawmakers provided it Monday. The corridors of power were mostly empty, with both chambers of Congress adjourned until April 13 and each house conducting only “pro forma” sessions that do not allow for legislative business. The first of those sessions took place Monday, when the Senate convened for one minute. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., designated by GOP leaders to act as president of the Senate in lieu of the vice president, executed a perfunctory parliamentary move known as “gaveling in and gaveling out.” He opened the Senate and then quickly read out a statement. “Under the previous order, the Senate stands adjourned until 7 a.m. on Thursday, April 2, 2026,” Hoeven said, before ending the session by dropping the gavel. Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., criticized Senate Republicans for refusing to try and bring up the House-passed DHS bill, tweeting: “not ONE Republican senator went to the floor to put this DHS shutdown exactly where it belongs — on the Democrats. And I presume that’s because they fled Washington.”
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