WASHINGTON, May 26, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Monday
fumed at negative media coverage of him playing golf over Memorial Day
weekend, as the US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic neared 100,000.
“The Fake and Totally Corrupt News makes it sound like a mortal sin!” the
golf-loving president said on Twitter, noting that the game at his own course
in Virginia was the first time he had played since early March.
The timing of his outing, as the nation approached a milestone in deaths
from the pandemic, sparked widespread criticism in the media, with
commentators recalling Trump’s own past attacks on his predecessor Barack
Obama for playing the game during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
“There are times to play and times that you can’t play. It sends the wrong
signal,” Trump said at the time.
“You know when you’re president you sorta say, like, ‘I’m gonna give it up
for a couple of years and I’m really gonna focus on the job,'” he said in
2014.
– ‘Hypocrite’ –
After being raked over the coals at the weekend, Trump lambasted the media
as being “sick with hatred and dishonesty.”
“I knew this would happen!” he said. “What they don’t say is that it was my
first golf in almost 3 months, and, if I waited three years, they would do
their usual ‘hit’ pieces anyway.”
The Republican leader went on to say that in 2014 Obama flew to his home
state of Hawaii shortly after he had publicly denounced the beheading of
American hostage James Foley by Islamic State militants.
Obama apologized for the poorly timed visit afterwards and acknowledged the
gravity attached to presidential behavior at such moments.
Trump received some unexpected support from one-time Obama adviser David
Axelrod.
“I don’t often defend this @POTUS but I don’t begrudge him a round of
golf,” Axelrod, now a political commentator, said on Twitter.
“Besides, it gives the rest of us a respite from those crazy tweets! Yes,
it’s hypocritical for @realDonaldTrump to have attacked @BarackObama for
seeking some relief from the pressures of the presidency on the golf course
when Trump has logged many more rounds,” he said.
“It’s also hypocritical to attack Trump for it now if you defended Obama
then.”