'Remember he weaponized government!' Ranting Trump triggered by soft-ball golf question
Former President Donald Trump struggled Friday to deliver a coherent answer to a soft-ball question from a conservative radio host about how great he is at golf.
Trump appeared on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show Friday at noon for an interview that saw him speak for nearly two minutes, without stopping, about golf victories, cognitive tests, President Joe Biden's claims of having piloted planes, professional golfers he has defeated and Biden's weaponization of the federal government against him.
The question that prompted this response: "Do you think [Biden] would even be able to finish 18 holes or do you think they would have to stop it and take him off because he's not healthy enough?"
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"So without bragging I'm a very good golfer," Trump replied. "You know, I've won club championships. Many. Many, many club championships and I win them all the time. I still win them. I play just as good now as I did 20 years ago. That's a good sign. That's a good physical and cognitive test. Because golf is mental also. But I've won many club championships and he cannot win a club championship nor can he break a hundred. There's no way he breaks a hundred. I've seen his swing. I've never seen him play. But I've seen his swing and I've spoken to people that are near to him and he's a terrible golfer. But he's all talk, you have to understand he is, when pilots go to the White House they say, he says, 'I used to fly planes.' When truckers go to the White House he says, 'Oh, I drove a truck.' Everything that, anybody goes there, well he made a challenge to the wrong guy in golf. I mean, I've offered him, I'll give him twenty strokes, ten aside, I said, and I'll give a million dollars to his charity but they turned me down. They said no. Now, if he was a six handicap, which he's not, he says 6.2 'cause he wants to be nice and I agree, I don't believe he could break 150. I've watched his swing, I don't believe. And I break 70 a lot but I shoot in the low 70s and mid 70s and that's what you have to do. You know, when you play, when you win club championships, you're playing against scratch golfers and I often beat them. I mean, this year I won three, and I don't get to play very much, relative to a lot of these guys, they live on the golf course, you know. So it makes a challenge. He's all talk and no action. A nasty guy. And remember he weaponized government against me and that's a very bad precedent to set. Very, very bad, very dangerous."
Trump delivered this monologue two days after a Fox News radio host asked him a yes-or-no question that Trump could not answer despite rambling for about four minutes on topics that included China, the stock market, insane asylum occupants, crime numbers and war with Russia.
Trump's claims of golfing prowess have been met with much skepticism over the years, reports show.
"A year ago, he bragged about having won the Senior Club Championship in West Palm Beach, despite not playing the first round of the tournament," the Palm Beach Post reported in March. "[Trump's] dubious claims on the course are legendary, and were the subject of a 2019 book by sportswriter Rick Reilly: 'Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.'”
“Trump doesn’t just cheat at golf,” Reilly wrote. “He throws it, boots it, and moves it. He lies about his lies. He fudges and foozles and fluffs. At Winged Foot, where Trump is a member, the caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back onto the fairway they came up with a nickname for him: ‘Pele.’ ”