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Trump blows up DOJ’s case hours before his lawyers face a ‘very angry’ judge: MS NOW
October 19, 2026 10:31AM ET
Donald Trump walks at the White House. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Donald Trump’s early Monday boast on Truth Social that work to overhaul a public Washington, D.C., golf course will begin “IMMEDIATELY,” despite a judge’s order blocking tree removal there, is about to make DOJ lawyers’ lives miserable.
Hours before DOJ lawyers reported to U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes’ courtroom to stick up for the Trump administration’s plans, the president posted, “The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so. It’s as simple as that! The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane? The tapes have been blocked from usage by the judge.”
Hours before DOJ lawyers reported to U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes’ courtroom to stick up for the Trump administration’s plans, the president posted, “The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so. It’s as simple as that! The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane? The tapes have been blocked from usage by the judge.”
As MS NOW’s Fallon Gallagher reported just before the hearing, Reyes was already furious with the president and his administration’s legal representation, and the president just handed her a legal cudgel.
“That’s a huge problem here because up until this point, the government’s main argument has been that this is all preliminary, a hypothetical,” Gallagher told MS NOW. “There’s no real plans. And that’s, quite frankly, part of the reason why she’s avoided issuing an order here.”
Reyes has temporarily barred tree removal at the site through Oct. 26, but she has not yet issued a longer-term injunction. After Trump’s Sunday post announcing that the course would close Nov. 15 for renovation, she asked the government late Sunday whether it still considered the plans preliminary, Gallagher said.
“Then this morning he posted again saying that he’s going to do that immediately,” Gallagher added. “So that deeply undermines their argument that there’s no final agency action here and nothing to litigate. She is going to be very angry about this in court.”