Trump is tentatively scheduled to leave for Mar-a-Lago Saturday

last updated 22 December 2018

The White House did not release President Trump's schedule for Saturday the night before, as is typical practice, but an internal staff email obtained by Politico indicates the president is tentatively scheduled to leave midday Saturday for vacation at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

"Please be prepared to support a tentative POTUS departure tomorrow around 12:00," the email said. The message emphasized Trump's schedule could change depending on the outcome of congressional negotiations to end the partial government shutdown that began Saturday at midnight.

The planned Saturday departure may indicate the White House has reason to believe lawmakers will pass a spending bill including Trump's border wall funding demand soon. After all, the "optics of spending time at the luxury resort as the government shuts down — furloughing workers, closing facilities, and halting some federal services — would be risky for Trump," Politico notes. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday Trump would not begin his vacation while the shutdown continues.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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