It's no secret that President Joe Biden likes visiting family on the weekends in his home state of Delaware, where his late son and wife are also buried.
Ted Kaufman, Biden's longtime friend and former chief of staff, recalled making thousands of trips to Delaware over the course of Biden's time in the Senate, emphasizing that the state is "a very important part of who he is, and keeps him grounded." According to some numbers-crunching from Philip Bump of the Washington Post, Biden visited one of his properties in Delaware around 114 times in the first 13 months of his presidency.
It's only a two and a half hour drive from the White House to Wilmington, Delaware, where President Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden have a house, but Biden still takes flak from conservatives due to the amount of his trips back home.
Former President Donald Trump's ex-counsellor, Kellyanne Conway, joined that chorus in a recent Fox News interview.
Watch below.
Kellyanne complains about Biden visiting Delaware pic.twitter.com/Pdt80nT56r
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 12, 2022
Conway said:
"It sounds so fun for us to ridicule Joe Biden and his inability to lead, to speak, to inspire, to have a plan, to show compassion, but guess what. It's worse than that. He's back in the basement. He just spent his 116th day in Delaware as President, took his 38th trip there. Can you imagine that he's doing that while [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is really fighting for the sovereignty and the security of his country?"
It's not unusual for a rival party spokesperson to criticize the President's travel, but it's certainly interesting to hear someone from the Trump administration lob the familiar criticism.
While most of Biden's leisure travels have been limited to Delaware, Trump frequently visited his own commercial resorts and properties across the eastern seaboard, all the way down to Florida. Unlike Biden's trip to his private properties, Trump's trips resulted in taxpayer income for the Trump Organization, the assets of which Trump refused to divest ahead of his 2017 inauguration.
As Bump further pointed out last month:
"Biden visited one of his properties in Delaware or went to Nantucket on all or part of 114 days over his first 13 months in office. Trump visited at least one Trump Organization property on 133 days in the same period."
Before the first year of his presidency was up, USA Today reported that the Trump family's trips were so frequent and expensive, they depleted funds to pay Secret Service agents. By the last year of his presidency, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said Trump had taken twenty times the amount of protected trips than the Obama family.
That trend has continued since Trump has left office, with The Daily Beast reporting that U.S. taxpayers spent more than $1 million in 2021 for the Secret Service's travel with Trump.
Social media users called Conway out on the hypocrisy.
How many times did the taxpayers pay for trump to go play golf on his properties? https://t.co/LPdgdwY7xG
— Louise Holliday (@lohody) April 12, 2022
Donald Trump spent 25 PERCENT of his *entire* Presidency at golf course resorts https://t.co/cyWTp2pdnP
— Drain The Trumps 🇺🇸 (@DrainTheTrumps) April 12, 2022
And yet @KellyannePolls never once bitched about DFG spending almost 1/4 of his term golfing at one of his properties.
She can shut her hypocritical pie hole. https://t.co/8365Isn59Q
— KMG365 ☕ 🥀 🐝 (@starbucksgirl51) April 12, 2022
It's as if pundits like @KellyAnnePolls has no sense of irony. Delaware is an hour away from DC, while #CorruptTrump spent every weekend in Florida, golfing, which cost piles more. https://t.co/PoD0on4mgJ
— WhenRightIsWrong (@Right_All_Wrong) April 12, 2022
perhaps if the house in Delaware had a golf course it would be fine https://t.co/weVclcz37Q
— Mitzi (@Mitzi62891660) April 12, 2022
Trump golfed every weekend, she can have a seat. https://t.co/1MJjze47hZ
— THEE AngryBlackMan (@KickAssLiberal) April 12, 2022
They also rejected her attempts to contrast Biden with Zelenskyy, who's been globally praised for his response to Russia's invasion of his country.
Some of those trips to Delaware have been for business. Don't even talk to me about Biden's trips after what we witnessed w/ Trump's weekend trips to his properties.
So...what do you suppose Trump would be doing as Zelenskyy fights for his country? He'd be golfing . https://t.co/p2fCNvlB7z
— Rebecca Clester (@ClesterRebecca) April 12, 2022
Get this folks Kellyanne is actually stating that BIDEN has a lack of compassion. Does she really think of TRUMP as the king of compassion? She complains that Biden shouldn’t be in Delaware when Zelenskyy needs him so much. Really? Does she think Trump was there for Zelenskyy? https://t.co/UVT4gbcr9U
— Imagine... (@SpeediMart) April 12, 2022
Oh sweetie, Trump would have handed over Ukraine to Putin while dabbing his brow on the ninth hole. https://t.co/xq5kpt6Huj
— Andrea R MD (@AndreaR9Md) April 12, 2022
Sadly, many Fox viewers will likely subscribe to her "alternative facts."