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Shortly before his loss to Joe Biden was announced, and with the nation deeply divided, Donald Trump began his Saturday by tweeting unsubstantiated and incendiary claims about voter fraud. Then he went to play golf.
The president, the White House pool reporter wrote, showed up in the caravan to his field in Sterling, Virginia, “wearing a white Maga cap, windbreaker, dark pants, bare shirt, shoes that seem appropriate for golf ”.
Trump’s dedication to playing golf while in office has been a source of ongoing controversy, particularly as he memorably and repeatedly criticized his predecessor, Barack Obama, for the frequency with which he played.
Trump has defended his dedication, tweeting this summer: “My ‘exercise’ is to play, almost never during the week, a quick round of golf. Obama played longer and longer rounds, no problem. “
Media organizations have verified Trump’s claims, noting, though counts vary, that he has played many more times than Obama at any similar time while in office.
According to the pool report, on Saturday the presidential motorcade passed “more Biden / Harris signs than Trump / Maga signs,” while a protester near the Trump National golf course held up a sign that read: “Good Riddance.”
In an echo of a famous incident early in Trump’s presidency, when a Virginian on a bicycle offered him a middle finger, a local allegedly offered Trump a thumbs-down. The cyclist who pinned Trump, Julie Briskman, lost her job over the incident but later beat a Republican to win a local election.
On Saturday, Trump was on the road when a statement was released in which he deliberately did not acknowledge defeat.
“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to pose as the winner,” said one man who claimed to have won 18 golf championships, what golf writer Rick Reilly called “a lie that is as far-fetched as Crazytown.” he loses all credibility with golfers as soon as it comes out of his mouth ”.
In his statement, Trump continued to make unsubstantiated allegations and without evidence of voter fraud and ballot irregularities, as he has done since Election Day.
Trump’s associates on the course were not immediately known.
Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger whose election victory was confirmed shortly after Trump hit the golf course, also plays the game. In 2015, Golf Digest ranked him among the “150 Best Golfers in Washington” with a handicap of 6.3.
“If you become commander-in-chief,” the magazine wrote, “put him in the conversation with John F Kennedy as the greatest golf president ever.”
The magazine also reported comments in 2012 from former Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican, that although “Joe Biden told me I was a good golfer, and I have played golf with Joe Biden … I can tell you that’s not true. as well as all the other things it says. “
Doubts about Biden’s true downside pale in comparison to widespread reports of Trump’s behavior on the field, which reportedly includes rampant cheating.
“Donald Trump is the worst cheater of all time and he doesn’t care who knows,” Reilly told The Guardian in 2019 of a man he has known for 30 years. “I always say that golf is like bike shorts. It reveals a lot about a man. And golf reveals a lot of ugliness in this president ”.
