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WASHINGTON (AFP) – With a scowl and slightly hunched shoulders, Donald Trump looked lonely on Saturday (November 7) at his golf course near Washington.
It was the physical reflection of a nightmare weekend marked by his clear electoral defeat to Joe Biden and by the resounding cheers of the Democrat’s supporters gathered in front of the White House.
Saturday 8.20am: The day began with the exhausting stress of an as yet unsolved race weighing on Americans across the country. It was the fourth day of waiting for terribly slow results, and Trump had criticized the mounting projections of his defeat on Twitter.
As he has often done, he started the day with a series of angry and defiant tweets, messages immediately flagged as “misleading” by the social media platform.
His last tweet before all the major American networks declared that he had lost to Biden: “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY FAR!”
10 am: The presidential motorcade left the White House under a bright blue sky, the first time Trump has left the historic residence since election night.
In dark gray pants, a gray jacket, and a white “Make America Great Again” hat, Trump soon arrived at his golf club across the Potomac River in Sterling, Virginia.
From the side of the road, as the caravan passed, a person held a sign that could have been seen as a bad omen: “Have a good trip.”
The decision to go golfing like the United States, and the world, remained in agonizing suspense over the outcome of the election, seemed strange to many, to say the least.
The photographers were able to take pictures from a distance of the president, an expert golfer, riding one of the two white golf carts.
Then, she returned to the clubhouse and posed for photos with a surprised couple of newlyweds. But there were no images of the moment he learned that his defeat was being announced to the whole world.
Meanwhile, a campaign statement that was clearly prepared in advance insisted that Trump had won and accused Biden of “rushing to pose as the winner.”
14:00 h: After just over four hours at the club in Virginia, Trump’s caravan returned, but with a challenge: to push their way through the throng of exultant Washingtonians who had flocked to the streets around the White House to celebrate the Biden’s victory, yelling and clapping. and the horn of cars incessantly.
The White House is in the heart of Washington, a Democratic stronghold where Biden won an overwhelming 93 percent of the vote to just five percent for Trump.
“Pack your bags and go home,” read a sign. Some pedestrians flashed their middle fingers as the caravan passed.
Outside a side entrance to the White House, Trump, jaw clenched, acknowledged reporters with a wave of his hand.
On US television networks, Trump, an inveterate television watcher, would have seen scenes of large crowds celebrating on the streets of every major city in the country.
Meanwhile, just one block from Black Lives Matter Plaza, renamed by Washington officials to show solidarity against police violence, the atmosphere was equally festive.
Night: Trump again took to Twitter to channel his anger, saying, “I WON THE ELECTION, I GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES,” before adding in a second tweet: “The most for a sitting president!” But his messages had already lost some of their earlier resonance.
Sunday morning: Trump had yet to call his Democratic opponent to congratulate him, a longstanding tradition.
Instead, he repeated the same scenario as Saturday: a series of angry tweets complaining with no evidence of voter fraud, and then back to Virginia to play more golf.
On the way back and forth, Trump, who has thrived on the adulation of his supporters at the big political rallies he holds across the country, again passed Biden fans brandishing hostile posters along the way.
With no word yet on a Trump concession, the White House has so far said nothing about the president’s plans for the long transition from now until January 20, when Biden will be sworn in as the nation’s 46th president.
The president now appears to have a shrinking circle of key supporters vocally backing him in his insistence on pursuing legal challenges to the election results – challenges with little chance of success.
But one of his closest allies, Senator Lindsey Graham, stuck with Trump, exhorting him early Sunday: “Don’t give in, Mr. President.
“Fight hard.”
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