President Donald Trump’s late-night rant about a Washington golf course included one detail that political reporters couldn’t stop talking about: a White House staffer supposedly felled by a stray golf ball.
In a lengthy Truth Social post Wednesday night, Trump called the East Potomac Golf Course “highly dangerous, dilapidated, and absolutely disgusting.” He also complained about holes in the netting at the driving range.
“Golf balls soar through the holes at high speed and hit unexpecting Golfers—including a White House staffer who was, sadly, hit violently in the chest,” Trump wrote.
He didn’t say who the staffer was, when it happened, or whether the person was hurt. The White House has not said publicly who it was.
Sam Stein, managing editor of The Bulwark, highlighted the line in a screenshot of the post.
“dying. need to know who,” Stein wrote.
Slate senior politics writer Jim Newell quoted Stein and added, “Can’t get enough of this.”
Matt Fuller, a congressional reporter for MS NOW, singled out a different line from the post: “‘The driving range should NOT be a threat to life and limb.’ Unfortunately iconic. No notes.”
Others were less amused that the president spent his evening on a golf course less than a week before the midterms.
“The man is simply unable to focus on any issue that actually matters to the American people,” wrote John Aravosis, a lawyer, former Senate staffer and longtime political blogger.
Richard Donelan, a retired government attorney, compared Trump to the paranoid ship captain from “The Caine Mutiny”: “President Queeg has something obsessively and compulsively to tell you about his favorite golf course and federal district judge.”
Trump’s post ended with an attack on U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who on Monday extended an order blocking the administration’s overhaul of the course, the Associated Press reported.
“We will hold the judge, Ana C. Reyes, fully responsible for anybody who is hurt, or killed, on this very dangerous, dilapidated, and unsightly Golf Course,” Trump wrote.