President Obama is no stranger to criticism when it comes to vacation, but now a Republican Congressman is attacking his daughters over a spring break trip.
The criticism came during Steve King’s interview on an Iowa talk radio show, after a caller complained about how it’s “hard to stomach” watching the girls go on vacation. “When we’re tightening our belts, either all of us should do it or none of us should do it,” she said. “This–I am pretty tolerant, I always have been, I usually shut my mouth. This is not acceptable. “
“You’re on point,” King told the caller.
The congressman continued, “He sent the daughters to spring break in Mexico a year ago. That was at our expense, too, and now to [redacted] at one of the most expensive places there. That is the wrong image to be coming out of the White House.”
Although the first family uses their own money to pay for vacations, conservative critics have complained about the security costs associated with those trips.
As is often noted, President Bush spent more than a thousand days on vacation over the course of his presidency. President Obama, according to most estimates, has taken a much smaller number: only 131 days in his first term.
The first daughters spotlighted earlier this year when the National Rifle Association featured them in a new ad, contrasting their Secret Service protection to President Obama’s support for new limits on guns.
Read more: Why the right uses “a different standard” when it comes to covering the Obamas.
Morgan Whitaker