Bridgewater, New Jersey (CNN) President Donald Trump broke the mold as a presidential candidate. And as a vacationing commander in chief, he's doing the same.

Trump is in the middle of a 17-day vacation, fleeing the humid confines of Washington as the White House undergoes extensive renovations to play golf, meet with friends and air his grievances on Twitter, all within the limits of his sprawling golf club in suburban New Jersey.

But don't call it a vacation, say White House aides. Trump is talking to aides and receiving regular briefings even as he temporarily resides 170 miles north of the White House, they said.

"This is not a vacation -- meetings and calls," Trump tweeted as his vacation got underway.

Working in Bedminster, N.J., as long planned construction is being done at the White House. This is not a vacation - meetings and calls!

Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted Tuesday that Trump spoke with House Speaker Paul Ryan about health care and tax reform on Monday. The White House press secretary also told CNN the President also spoke with Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis.

The message: The President is hard at work.

Vacation for Trump is a complicated subject given his lengthy and direct criticism of President Barack Obama for taking time away from the White House. Lest he be called a hypocrite, Trump has fought any insinuation, especially from Democrats or the media, that his time away is a reprieve.

But there are few indications that Trump is trying to unplug and decompress in New Jersey. He is still lashing out at his opponents, still receiving his presidential daily briefing and still holding meetings with Cabinet secretaries. But videos on social media have also shown the President golfing at his private club and many of his closest aides, including his family members, have joined him in New Jersey.

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Longtime Trump friends say Trump rarely, if ever, fully unplugs. For years, the then-real estate magnate worked in the same building where he lived, and would often take his work him with him up the elevator from his office to his penthouse apartment at Trump Tower. Those habits, said one friend, have followed him into the White House, where Trump is often near a television with news on and always eager to tweet out a message.

"I've got bad news for the coup plotters," a friend joked. "President Trump never unplugs."

After spending the weekend golfing, Trump sent 13 tweets as the rain pounded his golf club on Monday, slamming the "fake news media," honoring Purple Heart recipients and attacking Sen. Richard Blumenthal after he criticized the President on CNN.

Unlike past presidents, who openly vacationed while in office, Trump has looked to obscure his time away. On Tuesday, Trump was briefed on the opioid crisis by Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price and acting Director of National Drug Control Policy Richard Baum.

Vacations have long been a presidential norm, with every world leader using time away to recoup from a famously trying job.

Obama spent his summer vacations on Martha's Vineyard, where he rode bikes with his family, lounged at the beach and played a lot of golf.

The White House made a habit of releasing the titles of the books he brought with him, usually a mix of thick biographies and literary fiction. Last year he read "The Girl on the Train" a few months before the film adaptation hit theaters.

Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Donald Trump listens to a high school marching band as he arrives at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in February 2017. He and the first lady were spending a weekend away from the White House. Here's a look at how Trump and other US presidents have escaped the pressures of the Oval Office. Hide Caption 1 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Barack Obama prepares to putt as he plays golf with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at the Marine Corps Base in Hawaii in December 2014. Hide Caption 2 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President George W. Bush rides a bicycle at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August 2007. Hide Caption 3 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President-elect Bill Clinton plays volleyball on a Pacific Coast beach in November 1992. Hide Caption 4 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President George H.W. Bush pauses to speak to the media while he plays golf in Kennebunkport, Maine, in August 1990. Hide Caption 5 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan ride horses at their vacation home in Santa Barbara, California, in November 1982. Hide Caption 6 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President-elect Jimmy Carter vacations at St. Simons, an island off the coast of Georgia, in November 1976. Hide Caption 7 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Gerald Ford opens a gift from his wife, Betty, during their usual Christmas vacation spot in Vail, Colorado, in December 1974. Hide Caption 8 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, walk along the beach in San Clemente, California, in 1971. Hide Caption 9 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, often vacationed at the LBJ Ranch in Johnson City, Texas. Hide Caption 10 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President John F. Kennedy vacations with his family in this undated photo. From left is daughter Caroline, first lady Jacqueline and son John Jr. Hide Caption 11 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower fishes the North Platte River at the Swan Hereford Ranch in Colorado. Eisenhower also enjoyed golf trips to Augusta, Georgia. Hide Caption 12 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Harry Truman holds a news conference during a vacation in 1951. Hide Caption 13 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Franklin D. Roosevelt swims in Warm Springs, Georgia. Hide Caption 14 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry, sit on the porch of their Radipan Camp retreat, which is now part of the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Hoover originally bought the land for the vacation spot in 1929. Hide Caption 15 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Calvin Coolidge poses in personalized chaps with his wife, Grace, at a party in South Dakota in 1927. The party celebrated the Fourth of July as well as Coolidge's 55th birthday. Hide Caption 16 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Warren Harding, right, goes camping with Firestone Tire founder Harvey Firestone in 1921. Hide Caption 17 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President William H. Taft, center, enjoys a round of golf at the Chevy Chase Country Club in Maryland in 1909. Hide Caption 18 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Theodore Roosevelt's Sagamore Hill home, in Oyster Bay, New York, often served as his vacation retreat. Hide Caption 19 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Ulysses Grant enjoys the porch of his cottage by the sea in Elberon, New Jersey, in 1872. Hide Caption 20 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Abraham Lincoln's summer retreat was just a few miles from the White House, and he used to commute between the two on horseback. Now known as the Lincoln Cottage, it features a life-size statue of the 16th president. Hide Caption 21 of 22 Photos: Presidential vacations and getaways President Thomas Jefferson liked to spend time at Monticello, his home in Virginia. In 1805, he spent nearly four months there while in office. Hide Caption 22 of 22

President George W. Bush also read on his summer vacations, and his aides revealed the titles to reporters who traveled with him to the scrubland around his Crawford, Texas, ranch. In the dusty August days of 2005, Bush tackled volumes about Alexander II, the history of plague, and the history of salt.

The White House did not respond to a request for Trump's summer reading list, though he's declared before that he simply does not have time to pick up a book, despite loving to read.

In the later years of Obama's Vineyard jaunts, the White House took to releasing what songs Obama and his family were playing at their secluded rental home -- divided, somewhat racily, into "daytime" and "evening" playlists.

Trump's two predecessors have found that August amounted to a month of discontent for presidents attempting to decompress.

Even as most Americans tune out news from Washington amid their own family vacations and back-to-school preparations, global crises and domestic disputes have tended to flare. Presidential responses have sometimes appeared lackluster -- and received widespread criticism.

When then-nascent terror group ISIS beheaded American James Foley in 2014, Obama delivered a statement from a grade school cafeteria a mile from the Edgartown harbor and went directly to a round of golf.

Bush had been vacationing in Crawford for almost a month when Hurricane Katrine collided with the Gulf Coast in 2005. He remained in Texas for two days before returning to Washington to triage a botched federal response.

This year, Trump's aides have a made known that Trump is closely monitoring the tense situation in North Korea. They said he spoke for an hour Monday with his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is attending a summit of Asian leaders in the Philippines.