Ukraine is being bombarded. Oil tankers are under fire in the Strait of Hormuz. The Republicans are likely heading for a mid-term spanking.
Twice on Sunday, Donald Trump’s Truth Social account – a relentless insight into his state of mind – turned to the topic of the East Potomac Golf Links.
In between expressing his contempt for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and his admiration for Bibi Netanyahu, Trump reported that his Secretary of the Interior, the man responsible for managing the country’s energy, water and mineral resources, was “very excited about the the new development of a great golf course” in the nation’s capital.
More than 400 trees have already been felled in the cause of creating what Trump has promised will be “one of the greatest golf courses anywhere in the world”.
Locals fear a historic, egalitarian public park is going to be replaced by a carbon-copy of a Trump resort, and a “furious” federal judge has ordered that it all needs to stop.
What are the East Potomac Golf Links?
Just over a century ago, as golf enjoyed its first golden age in the US, then-president William Taft put his support behind the idea of municipal golf courses: open to anyone and everyone, especially those who could not afford to attend (or were barred by racist rules from) private clubs.
The East Potomac Park Golf Course, on a reclaimed island at the heart of Washington DC, was built soon after the First World War. It became an important stage for civil rights activism, where African Americans fought for equal access to public facilities – and eventually won.
Its egalitarian design was intended to make it accessible to all skill levels, and when it opened in 1919, the fee to play was 25 cents (green fees now start at $17).
It’s been popular ever since: for golfers looking for a cheap and easy game close to town, but also for picnics under the famous cherry blossoms, a scenic bike ride, birdwatching or a serene fishing spot with views over the water to the city’s famous monuments.
‘Flagrant disregard’
The president, in previous interviews, has described building golf courses as his version of “gardening”.
Trump’s plan to bulldoze the East Potomac site reportedly dates back to at least August 2025, and late last year his administration prematurely terminated the public lease on the land and started soliciting bids to replace it with a championship golf course.
It soon began clear this project would, like the East Wing ballroom, the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool repairs and the Triumphal Arch, not be achieved through usual process, but on a Trumpian schedule. Soon 30,000 cubic yards of – possibly toxic – rubble from the demolished East Wing of the White House had been dumped on the island, for use in landscaping “improvements”.
A local conservation society, the DC Preservation League, started legal action in February, claiming Trump planned to “wrest the Park from the people”. They accused the administration of violating planning laws and ruining a historic resource “in flagrant disregard of the statutory safeguards”.
But Trump pressed on.
In June, in a 600-word complaint on Truth Social about a tour he’d just been on of the “dilapidated, worn out, and very dangerous and outdated” 36-hole course, he said: “The grass is largely dead, the greens are virtually unplayable, and the Course is in very poor general condition after many years of horrendous maintenance”.
He said he’d decided, that day, to replace it with “one of the Greatest Golf Courses anywhere in the World which, importantly, will also be made available to the Public”.
The course architect, he said, would be Tom Fazio – architect of several Trump-owned golf courses.
On Sunday Trump unveiled a more detailed plan, which he credited to Fazio “for his initial conceptual design and ideas” as well as “others from within the golf world and the Department of the Interior”.
Trump’s hand may have been forced in unveiling the plans, after his ill-fated press secretary Katie Zacharia posted a photo from the Oval Office which showed a map of the course on the president’s desk.
He said an 18-hole “world class championship golf course” would be built on the site, “open to the Public while, at the same time, designed to the Highest Level of Golf and able to hold World Class Tournaments such as the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup, and the Presidents Cup”.
But the plans, along with AI-generated images from a fundraising brochure that circulated over the summer, suggest the new course eliminates the cherry-tree lined perimeter road and bike path, two-thirds of the holes and all public spaces including replacing an open park at the island’s tip with the 12th hole.
A group of 46 Democrats opposed to the plan have called it Trump’s “new vanity project“.
‘Reyes is yelling now’
The district court judge overseeing the DC preservation league’s attempt to stop the development, Ana Reyes, has rapidly lost patience with the administration.
In May she warned government lawyers not to disturb the status quo until she had reached a decision, saying: “if anyone orders big things to show up” at the Park, “and by ‘big things,’ I mean anything, you know, more than my sedan – then I want plaintiffs to have notice.”
Then a week ago 430 trees were removed from the site, with just a few hours’ notice.
Judge Reyes could not hide her fury in a legal order that barred the administration from further tree lopping: “Breakneck speed to clear trees that posed no harm. The reason? Disputed. The budget? Unclear. The environmental impact? Unstudied. The urgency? None. Next steps: bulldoze hundreds more.”
She was scathingly sarcastic about the “coincidence” that the Department of the Interior “cut down hundreds of trees at the course weeks after the President asked DOI to cut down trees at the course”.
One court reporter described Reyes as “furious” in a hurriedly-arranged hearing following the tree removal. Reyes said the action had “cost the government all of its credibility” in the case.
“Reyes is yelling now, ‘ignorance is not an excuse’,” the reporter said.
“More than being upset and furious right now, I am just deeply disappointed,” the judge reportedly said to government lawyers during the hearing. “On what universe did anyone in your office think this was acceptable?”
‘No trees’
On Sunday, in one of his social media posts on the topic, Trump complained of the site’s “falling, dangerous, and disease infested trees”.
But Reyes is sceptial of this argument. She noted approvingly the plaintiff’s claim that “destroyed trees cannot be replaced”.
“Just ask the Lorax,” Reyes wrote in a footnote.
Trump also commented that when the course “was originally built, it was famous for no trees, with views of Washington, D.C., for all to see”.
Reyes has ordered the government’s lawyers back to court on Monday to explain what the president intends to do next.