Trump becomes first president since 2002 not to visit troops at Christmastime

Though he called military personnel on Tuesday, Trump did not visit a hospital or a military base.

On Christmas Day, President Donald Trump took part in a long-running practice of presidents who called troops stationed around the country and the world.

But he broke from a recent tradition of actually visiting troops and wounded warriors. He did so in 2017, when he visited wounded troops at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Dec. 21 (and invited Coast Guard service members to play golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida).

By staying home on Tuesday, Trump became the first president since 2002 who didn't visit military personnel around Christmastime.

Based on a check of NBC logs, former President Barack Obama visited troops at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, in Kaneohe Bay, every Christmas he was in office, from 2009 to 2016.

Before him, according to a check of news releases, former President George W. Bush visited wounded warriors at Walter Reed from 2003 to 2008. He did not visit troops at Christmas in 2002, in the run-up to the Iraq War, or in 2001.

In recent months, Trump has taken heat from critics for not visiting troops in an active combat zone, after canceling a trip to an American military burial ground outside of Paris last month due to weather and skipping the traditional Veteran’s Day visit to Arlington National Cemetery just two days later.

At the time, the president told FOX News’ Chris Wallace that he should have gone to Arlington, and he hasn’t visited a combat zone because he’s “had an unbelievably busy schedule,” adding, “I will be doing it.”

Trump made the trip to Arlington several weeks later to lay a wreath as part of Wreaths Across America, but still has yet to visit an active combat zone.

At this point in their presidencies, Obama had visited troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bush visited Iraq just eight months after the start of the war in 2003.