Tickets for the controversial Saudi-sponsored event at Donald Trump’s New Jersey golf course have been reportedly going for as little as $1, and crowds have been scant — however Trump and his followers tried their finest to remodel the tourney right into a mini marketing campaign occasion on Saturday.
Spectators sporting shirts bearing pro-Trump slogans within the grandstand behind the primary tee erupted into chants of “4 extra years!” when the previous president emerged in a pink “Make America Nice Once more” cap for the second day of the foreign-funded event at Trump Nationwide Golf Membership Bedminster.
Later, Trump was seen elevating a fist on the sixteenth tee watching the motion alongside Christian nationalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who got here to the occasion to applaud the Saudi event — and MAGA fanatics.
Trump fan Dave Teed, a neighborhood firefighter who got here to the occasion, informed Golfweek that he “can take care of” the Saudi Arabia “factor,” nevertheless it it was “China or one thing like that, no method. I wouldn’t be right here.”
As for the precise event, the Washington Put up scoffed that it had had skinny crowds, huge discuss and loud music blasting from audio system throughout the course, “at the same time as gamers lined up difficult putts.”
Trump has giddily hailed the brand new LIV event, financed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, to compete with America’s personal PGA event. The “America First” former president has referred to as the Saudi tourney a “gold rush” that golfers ought to make the most of.
However critics have bashed the LIV tournaments as “sport washing” by a brutal regime in search of to cleanse its repute after the dismemberment-murder of Washington Put up journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and its hyperlinks to the 9/11 terror assaults.
Households of the victims of 9/11 and survivors had referred to as on Trump to refuse to carry the event.
In an indignant gathering in downtown Bedminister on Friday, Juliette Scauso, whose firefighter dad Dennis Scauso died within the 9/11 assaults, addressed Trump, asking: “How a lot cash does it take to show your again in your nation, on the American individuals?”
In response to criticism, Trump on Thursday ripped the “maniacs who did that horrible factor” of the 9/11 terror assaults— however insisted that “no person’s gotten to the underside of 9/11.”
He additionally insisted to the Wall Road Journal earlier within the week that the backlash over the brutal killing of Khashoggi had “died down.” American intelligence decided that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, chairman of the fund financing the event, ordered the dissident’s 2018 homicide.
Although the Saudi authorities has denied any duty for the 9/11 terror assaults, 15 of the 19 al-Qaeda terrorists who carried out the assaults have been from Saudi Arabia. After an intensive investigation, the FBI additionally detailed a number of contacts and cellphone calls between Saudi officers and the terrorists.
The 9/11 Households United group stated stated in a press release on the time that the report implicated “quite a few Saudi authorities officers in a coordinated effort to mobilize a necessary assist community for the primary arriving 9/11 hijackers.”
Trump himself in 2016 repeatedly pointed to the Saudis as seemingly culprits in 9/11.
This text initially appeared on HuffPost and has been up to date.
