Trump Says Judge Will Be Blamed For Deaths On 'Disgusting' DC Golf Course - Newsweek

President Donald Trump said that Judge Ana C. Reyes will be held "fully responsible" for anyone who is "hurt or killed" on the East Potomac Golf Course, as a dispute over his plans to overhaul the historic Washington, D.C., golf course escalates.

Trump said on Truth Social that the course was "dangerous, dilapidated, and absolutely disgusting," and that golf balls soar through holes at a "high speed" hitting golfers, including a White House staffer who was "hit violently in the chest."

Reyes, a Biden appointee, has moved on multiple occasions to block the administration's plans to renovate the site.

This week, Reyes agreed to extend an order blocking the administration's plans to renovate the site and enacted a preliminary injunction that bars the government from removing or damaging trees at the site after hundreds were removed by the National Park Service this month.

The Trump administration is seeking to renovate the 106-year-old public golf course into a championship-level venue, in the latest of a series of renovation efforts in the nation's capital that have been met with legal challenges.

Reyes told Newsweek that the court can’t comment on cases before it.

The Trump administration’s plans to renovate the course were first confirmed by the president in a Truth Social post in June.

Trump, who has long been a keen golfer, said that the course is “virtually unplayable,” and said that it would be designed to the "Highest Standards of Golf," but "in such a way that the General Public will love it."

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior previously told Newsweek that “The National Park Service is finally implementing a 7-year-old plan to address tree overgrowth at East Potomac Golf Course."

The spokesperson said that the work will include selective tree and vegetation work in an effort to restore the course and said it is guided by the 2019 Cultural Landscape Report and will help to restore the course's "historic character and reopen views toward landmarks."

The East Potomac Golf Course is widely regarded as one of the most historically significant in the country.

It played a role in the fight for Civil Rights. In 1941, Black golfers challenged segregation there back in 1941 which prompted then-Interior Secretary Harold Ickes to order the course to open all players.

Trump’s series of renovation projects and beautification efforts in the nation’s capital have been met with a mixed response.

Through his second term in office, Trump has overseen some of the most significant renovations at the White House in modern presidential history, including the controversial construction of a ballroom in the East Wing.

And the response to the renovation bid for the golf course has been fraught.

While a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior previously told Newsweek that the course is “riddled with garbage and choked by overgrown trees, characterizing it as a “mess” they are cleaning up, Skye Perryman, President of the group Democracy Forward, which seeks to challenge abuses of power, told Newsweek that this is a “tactic” that we’ve seen before.

Perryman said the administration will “Act quickly to irrevocably alter a cherished national landmark, just to advance another one of President Donald Trump's pet vanity projects."

Reyes similarly wrote in a legal filing that granted a motion for a temporary restraining order to block the removal of trees that the environmental impact was “unstudied,” the budget was “unclear,” and that there was no urgency.

Plans for the golf course began in 2025 when the Interior Department terminated the National Trust’s lease to operate three golf courses, including the East Potomac course.

In February of this year, the D.C. and Preservation League and two East Potomac golfers sued the Interior Department and National Park Service, alleging violations of environmental and federal requirements and challenging the administration’s plans.

Plans for the course to be transformed into a championship course emerged over the summer. Initially, Judge Ana C. Reyes had declined to intervene in the work but changed course after the removal of hundreds of trees on the course.

Reyes temporarily barred further tree removal and required advance notice of certain irreversible changes.

Trump then announced that the golf course would close on November 15 for approximately 15 months, though at a hearing afterwards, government officials testified that they were unaware of a plan to close the course on that date.

As Reyes has sought to block the renovation, the president has not minced his words when sharing his perspective in multiple posts on his Truth Social platform.

In his most recent post, he said that the condition of the golf course is a “National Disgrace,” and said that it should “NOT be a threat to life and limb.”

There have been no recent reports of deaths on the course.

He previously dubbed Reyes a “crazed lunatic” and branded the course “trash island.”

His latest post on Truth Social comes ahead of the critical midterm elections, which are now less than a week away, and will likely divert attention from the renovation plans in the days ahead.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Paul Donnelley.