During the months of January, February, and into March, President Donald Trump spent many of his weekends golfing at his favorite golf clubs, all of which he happens to own. Even on March 7, as COVID-19 was beginning to sweep through New York City’s metro area with a population of more than 18,000,000 residents, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was issuing a state of emergency, Donald Trump was still golfing. Even worse, he was attending a 51st birthday party for his son’s girlfriend alongside his bestie, Lindsey Graham. The party took place at Mar-a-Lago and the $50,000 tab for the party was reportedly paid for by Trump campaign donors. The grift never ends.
Now we know Donald Trump had been briefed for weeks or even months on the projected loss of life in the U.S. due to COVID-19. Top Army brass warned the White House on Feb. 3 that their analysis showed a loss of life between 80,000 to 150,000. And Donald Trump still golfed.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump finally admitted what health care experts like Dr. Fauci and military leaders had been warning him about. At long last, he told the American people the truth. Standing next to a graph, he warned the toughest weeks were still ahead and between 100,000 to 240,000 Americans are expected to die from the novel coronavirus.
You’d think that would put his golf game on hold for a while. Think again. Even as hospitals overflow with ICU patients and makeshift morgues are built, the Secret Service signed a brand new contract with Donald Trump’s Virginia golf club to rent a fleet of golf carts. This week! The Washington Post reported on the contract and noted that the Secret Service used an “emergency order” to rush the contract, which was signed on Monday and went into effect on Wednesday.
Steven L. Schooner, a professor of government procurement at George Washington University, told The Washington Post there doesn’t seem to be any reason this would need to be done by “emergency order.”
WaPo also notes Trump has visited this Trump golf club in Virginia 76 times since taking office. That is in addition to his trips to Trump-owned Mar-a-Lago, New Jersey, California, and overseas.
Of course he isn’t merely slipping away to hit a few balls. He brings the full complement of White House staffers and Secret Service personnel, all of which is no doubt very lucrative for his clubs. Imagine how many hotel rooms, meals, and golf cart rentals are being billed to the American taxpayer, all of which ends up directly in the Trump family coffers.
And now we know even in a pandemic, the corruption and the grift rolls on. While billionaires like New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft are donating planes to bring in much-needed equipment for health care personnel and Bill and Melinda Gates are donating $125 million to fund a COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator to find treatments for this deadly disease, self-identified “billionaire” Donald Trump and his family have made no such public effort. No financial donations, no effort to convert their empty hotels and other properties for use by first responders. Just the same old grift as always: filling their pockets at taxpayer expense.
As the Fed estimates unemployment could hit an astonishing 32% this year, Donald Trump is still apparently planning to hit the links. And that, friends, tells you all you need to know about this greedy, selfish, unqualified, incompetent ignoramus. Nothing gets in the way of his golf grift. Nothing. Not even 100,000 to 240,000 dead Americans and record unemployment.