U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter to hit out at the media over its coverage of his golf outing during the Memorial Day weekend. "Fake", "corrupt", "sick" and "deranged" were some of the words he used to describe the media, with which he has had a bad relationship from the very beginning of his presidency.
On Saturday, Trump went to play golf at his private golf course in Sterling, Virginia. His golf outing came at a time when the number of COVID cases in the U.S. surpassed 1.6 million and the associated death toll neared 100,000. Understandably, he garnered intense criticism from the U.S. media, more lethal given the fact that he had criticized his predecessor Barack Obama for golfing at crucial moments, such as during the Ebola outbreak and the beheading of James Foley by Islamic State militants.
In a series of tweets, Trump called out the U.S. media whom he called "Fake & Totally Corrupt", for making his golf outing sound like a "mortal sin". "I knew this would happen!" he wrote. According to Trump, what the media doesn't mention about him is that this was his "first golf in almost three months" and even if he had waited for three years, they would still have done their usual "hit" pieces.
"They are sick with hatred and dishonesty. They are truly deranged!" Trump tweeted. He then directed his rant towards his political opponent Joe Biden and his predecessor Barack Obama. He alleged that Biden's work ethics is never covered. He mentioned Obama's ill-timed golf outing, especially when he went to Hawaii right after the beheading of the American hostage James Foley by ISIS.
How the U.S. media covered Trump's golf outing
CNN ran a number of stories on Trump's golf weekend, which included a comparison on the amount of time Trump and Obama spent on the golf course. It also compiled the innumerable times Trump criticized his predecessor for golfing. The New York Times ran a story with the headline "Trump Tweets and Golfs, but Makes no Mention of Virus' Toll". Washington Post ran three critical pieces on it. Similar stories were published by several other news publications.
