Trump Fires Back After Biden Ad Attacks Him For Golfing During Pandemic
by Tommy BeerTOPLINE
President Trump defended himself and lashed out at former Vice President Joe Biden, the likely Democratic nominee, after the Biden campaign released an ad criticizing Trump for golfing over the weekend, as the country approaches 100,000 coronavirus deaths.
KEY FACTS
President Trump was seen golfing at his private club in Virginia on Saturday and Sunday, marking his first visits to one of his golf properties since March.
Saturday evening, Biden tweeted "Nearly 100,000 lives have been lost, and tens of millions are out of work. Meanwhile, the president spent his day golfing," and his campaign released an accompanying ad that juxtaposed video of Trump playing golf and the rising death toll numbers.
Late Sunday night, Trump took to Twitter to defend his golf outings while firing back at Biden and lashing out at former President Barack Obama.
"Sleepy Joe's representatives have just put out an ad saying that I went to play golf (exercise) today. They think I should stay in the White House at all times," Trump tweeted.
The President continued, "What they didn't say is that it's the first time I've played golf in almost 3 months, that Biden was constantly vacationing, relaxing & making shady deals with other countries, & that Barack was always playing golf, doing much of his traveling in a fume spewing 747 to play golf in Hawaii - Once even teeing off immediately after announcing the gruesome death of a great young man by ISIS!"
Big Number:
97,722: That's the total number of confirmed coronavirus deaths in the United States, which means that the total number of lives claimed by Covid-19 in the U.S. is higher than the number of troops who died in the Vietnam conflict and higher than casualties from the Korean War, Gulf War, Afghanistan War, Iraq War and 9/11 combined.
Tangent:
Before officially entering the political arena, Trump was often critical of then-President Obama for spending too much time golfing. Back in October of 2014, Trump tweeted, "Can you believe that,with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf.Worse than Carter." Later that month, he added, "President Obama has a major meeting on the N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from all over the country, but decided to play golf!"
Critical Quote:
"When you're president, you sort of say, like, I'm going to sort of give it up for a couple of years and I'm gonna really focus on the job," Trump said in an interview on Fox and Friends in 2014. "There are times to play and there are times that you can't play. It sends the wrong signal, but he plays a lot of golf."
Key Background:
With election season quickly approaching, it's quite safe to assume that Trump and Biden will continue to spar with each other publically. Dating back to the 2016 primaries, Trump has been very successful using social media to take down rivals and fire up his base. Recently, he's been aggressively promoting "#Obamagate" via Twitter and calling for an investigation over the unmasking tied to the Gen. Michael Flynn case. On Monday morning, Trump tweeted, “Some stories about the fact that in order to get outside and perhaps, even a little exercise, I played golf over the weekend. The Fake & Totally Corrupt News makes it sound like a mortal sin - I knew this would happen! ...They are sick with hatred and dishonesty. They are truly deranged!”
Further Reading:
FLASHBACK: Watch Trump Rip on Obama for Golfing At the Start of the Ebola Crisis (Mediate)
After Biden Attacks Trump For Golfing Amid Pandemic, Trump Golfs Again (Forbes)