Opinion: If sending Trump to Florida on weekends calms the president, taxpayers should consider it a small price to pay

To the editor: Doyle McManus is right that it’s better to have a bon vivant in Florida almost every weekend than a frustrated autocrat stuck in Washington. (“Trump critics, relax about Mar-a-Lago,” Opinion, April 2)

When President Trump was first elected, those on the right hoped he might be an effective manager and turn their conservative dreams of governance into reality. Those on the left feared he would become an autocrat in the mold of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

What we seem to have in Trump the president is Trump the businessman: a dishonest, incompetent manager who nonetheless manages to enrich himself. If the taxpayer dollars he squanders on himself spare our nation from either the competent conservative or the autocrat, it will be a small price to pay.

Paul Gulino, Santa Monica

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To the editor: McManus asks, “So which Donald Trump do you want: the frustrated autocrat, seething with fury in Washington, or the beaming bon vivant, presiding over his favorite dining room?”

Great, but why do we the people have to pay for his trips to Florida along with protecting First Lady Melania Trump in New York and the president’s grown children on vacation in Aspen? Why not use the fortune that the Trump family is surely amassing through its various unethical business relationships to pay for the president’s therapeutic weekends?

Besides, his trips to Florida haven’t stopped his Twitter wars.

Wendy Graf, Los Angeles

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