{"id":888536,"date":"2026-10-20T06:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T06:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/888536\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T06:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T06:10:09","slug":"east-potomac-golf-course-why-trump-is-fighting-to-shut-it-down-for-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/888536\/","title":{"rendered":"East Potomac golf course: Why Trump is fighting to shut it down for \u201crestoration\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story appeared in The Logoff<\/a>, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is trying to take over a public park.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s happening? On Sunday, Trump announced in a social media post that East Potomac Golf Links, a municipal golf course on the Potomac River in Washington, DC, would close next month for what he described as \u201crestoration work\u201d to transform it from a three-course complex into a single professional-caliber course.<\/p>\n

According to a rendering of the \u201crestoration\u201d shared by Trump, the new course would also eliminate a popular public park and multiuse road around the course, which is currently home to some of DC\u2019s historic cherry trees.<\/p>\n

Why does this matter? Relative to many other Trump decisions (like, say, the Iran war or interfering<\/a> with Ukraine\u2019s ability to defend itself), the fate of a golf course is not so high-stakes.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s shaping up to be a major legal fight over the administration\u2019s blitzkrieg approach to Washington that saw the East Wing of the White House demolished last year and Trump\u2019s name attached to (and subsequently removed from) the Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n

A DC preservation group previously sued over Trump\u2019s plan to transform the course, which has been in the works for months<\/a> prior to Sunday\u2019s announcement. And the administration was already in hot water with a DC District Court judge over the recent removal of more than 500 trees from the course, which it described at the time as maintenance rather than part of Trump\u2019s renovation scheme.<\/p>\n

Trump, for his part, has said that his administration has \u201can absolute right\u201d to renovate the course and does not need approval, setting him on a course for a bigger clash with federal courts.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the big picture? Setting aside everything else about Trump\u2019s golf course push, it\u2019s unlikely \u2014 with just 15 days until the midterms \u2014 that this is a fight that will endear him or his party to voters, who are broadly fed up with corruption, inflation, and the overall cost of living.<\/p>\n

And with that, it\u2019s time to log off\u2026<\/p>\n

Hi readers, happy Monday! Early voting is getting underway in some states and while The Logoff officially encourages you not to read too much \u2014 or anything, really \u2014 into early voting numbers, I do recommend this post<\/a> from the Substack newsletter Can We Still Govern? by Don Moynihan. He rounded up some of the best \u201cI voted\u201d stickers with art submitted by (mostly) children, ranging from charming to deeply strange. You can find them all here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As always, thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we\u2019ll see you tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[12,427,111,99,29480],"class_list":["post-888536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-donald-trump","tag-golf","tag-politics","tag-sports","tag-the-logoff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}