Drama, division and debate surround Donald Trump – even on a Florida golf course
Palm Beach National Golf and Country Club considers itself Florida’s friendliest course, which is just as well because the fairways are peppered with players who have wildly different views, particularly where Donald Trump is concerned.
Sue White has her golf bag on the back of the buggy, complete with pink fluffy club head covers. She and a group of friends are preparing to tee off.
“I’m not sure you want to hear my views on Donald Trump,” she says with a wry smile.
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Sue White
She remembers a time when Trump running for president was considered a joke here. Almost a decade later, he’s in the dock.
“I love it,” she says, “I want to see him handcuffed. I want to see him in an orange suit. I think he deserves everything he gets.”
Sue’s friend Julie Dell, a Democrat voter, agrees.
“He’s a crook,” says Julie. “He’s a thief. We knew that before he ever got in office. But people voted him in, and he still has followers. And I would say that even if he ran for president, there’s a good chance he could still get in.”
Julie Dell
Trump has declared he will run for the Republican nomination for 2024.
A walk past the driving range to Tony the Tiger’s snack bar is proof that plenty of people here would still vote for him despite the arrest.
“Donald Trump became the best president ever in the United States,” says Tony “The Tiger” Lopez.
“A guy who dedicated his life to make a successful American economy. It was the best economy ever. It is embarrassing for America to do that kind of stuff to our president – these charges are political.”
Tony “The Tiger” Lopez
Lon Lewis voted for Trump in 2020 but doesn’t know whether he would do again.
“I’m not sure if I, or the country, could stand another four years of Donald Trump,” he says.
But, still, he thinks the criminal charges against the former president are politically motivated by Democratic Party actors.
Lon Lewis
“I think they’re just looking to put some incidents out there,” says Lon. “If they stick, fine. If they don’t, they haven’t lost anything because it’s not their names being dragged through the mud.”
Team Trump is boasting about how much money has been raised – $7m (£5.6m) and counting – in campaign donations in the past six days since the indictment was made public.
Recent polling shows Trump is still the driving force behind the Republican Party. It’s no surprise to Walt Parcheta, who is playing 18 holes with his friends.
Walt Parcheta
“Trump is a lying, conniving guy,” says Walt, “but I have friends that if they had him on video shooting somebody and killing them, they would still support him.”
With that, Walt drives off in his buggy toward the next hole. The round of golf continues. So, too, does the drama, division and debate which, as ever, surround Donald Trump.
It is certainly big – 940 pages long – but on the question of beauty, Congress is divided.
Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” has sparked ugly debate – both for its ambitious scope and for the political manoeuvring that’s gone on around it.
Elon Musk branded it “political suicide” for Republicans and threatened to fund challenges against those who back it in next year’s midterm elections.
But the president hit back, suggesting he would consider cutting Musk’s lucrative government contracts or even deporting him back to South Africa.
The “big, beautiful bill”, or HR 1 to give the proposed legislation its proper title, is Mr Trump’s signature spending and tax policy.
It extends tax cuts he secured in 2017 and bankrolls his second-term agenda in the White House.
File pic: Reuters
Here is a summary of the key points:
• Permanent tax cuts: Extending relief from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
• Small business support: Doubling the small business expensing limit to $2.5m (£1.8m) to help businesses expand and hire staff
• Child tax credit: Expanding the child tax credit and making it permanent, benefiting 40 million families
• Making housing affordable: Expanding the low-income housing tax credit to kickstart construction of affordable homes
• Defence and border security: Allocating $170bn (£123bn) for border security alone, including $46bn (£33bn) for completing the border wall
• Made-in-America incentives: Providing tax breaks and incentives for domestic manufacturing to promote US industry
• Healthcare and social welfare: Implementing restrictions on Medicaid, which provides healthcare for millions of Americans, and reducing funding for certain healthcare and nutrition programmes.
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Clash over ‘monster’ debt bill
Musk, Mr Trump’s former ally and the man who established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), claimed the bill “raises the debt ceiling by $5trn, the biggest increase in history.”
“DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon,” was President Trump’s response.
The national debt currently stands at $37trn (£27trn) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the bill could add $2.4trn (£1.7trn) to that over the next decade.
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Trump threatens to ‘put DOGE’ on Musk
Bill splits Republican ranks
Republican Senator Thom Tillis voted against the bill and, following criticism from the president, announced he would not seek re-election in North Carolina.
He said he couldn’t support it due to his concerns about the impact cuts to Medicaid would have on people in his state.
Democrats in the Senate forced a full reading of all 940 pages and then a vote-a-rama, a series of marathon voting sessions.
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In the House of Representatives, it passed by a single vote, 215-214. In the Senate, Vice President JD Vance, had to cast the deciding vote to break a tie (50-50).
Legislatively, the progress of the bill has been a case study in the complexities of American law-making.
Strategically, it represents a mammoth effort to consolidate the president’s policy agenda and secure his legacy.
In the long Gaza war, this is a significant moment.
For the people of Gaza, for the Israeli hostages and their families – this could be the moment it ends. But we have been here before, so many times.
The key question – will Hamas accept what Israel has agreed to: a 60-day ceasefire?
At the weekend, a source at the heart of the negotiations told me: “Both Hamas and Israel are refusing to budge from their position – Hamas wants the ceasefire to last until a permanent agreement is reached.
“Israel is opposed to this. At this point, only President Trump can break this deadlock.”
The source added: “Unless Trump pushes, we are in a stalemate.”
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Will Trump achieve a Gaza ceasefire?
The problem is that the announcement made now by Donald Trump – which is his social-media-summarised version of whatever Israel has actually agreed to – may just amount to Israel’s already-established position.
We don’t know the details and conditions attached to Israel’s proposals.
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Would Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza? Totally? Or partially? How many Palestinian prisoners would they agree to release from Israel’s jails? And why only 60 days? Why not a total ceasefire? What are they asking of Hamas in return?
We just don’t know the answers to any of these questions, except one.
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Dozens killed at beachfront cafe in Gaza
We do know why Israel wants a 60-day ceasefire, not a permanent one. It’s all about domestic politics.
If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were to agree now to a permanent ceasefire, the extreme right-wingers in his coalition would collapse his government.
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have both been clear about their desire for the war to continue. They hold the balance of power in Mr Netanyahu’s coalition.
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If Mr Netanyahu instead agrees to just 60 days – which domestically he can sell as just a pause – then that may placate the extreme right-wingers for a few weeks until the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is adjourned for the summer.
It is also no coincidence that the US president has called for Mr Netanyahu’s corruption trial to be scrapped.
Without the prospect of jail, Mr Netanyahu might be more willing to quit the war, safe in the knowledge that focus will not shift immediately to his own political and legal vulnerability.
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