Episode Details

Trump’s Park Service took chainsaws to at least 430 trees at a public park in Washington, D.C. over a holiday weekend so the president can get a fancier golf course. They warned the judge on the case at 4:55 on a Friday.

The judge had asked for a heads up before they did anything they couldn’t undo. They filed it minutes before the courts closed for a three-day weekend. By Saturday morning the chainsaws were running. Technically, that’s notice.

The course is East Potomac Golf Links. It’s 106 years old, it’s public, and the orange menace wants it turned into a PGA-level showpiece.

On Monday, a federal holiday, Judge Ana Reyes dragged Trump’s officials into an emergency hearing.

The superintendent of the National Mall testified that none of the trees he cut were identified as hazardous. He also said the only thing he knew about Trump’s golf plans came from social media. The man running the land found out what’s happening to it the same way your aunt finds out about a cousin’s divorce. Scrolling.

Then the Park Service’s deputy director testified. From a parked car. He said he got his orders on October 5 from Greg Wischer, a political appointee at Interior. A couple months back he showed the course to Tom Fazio, one of the most famous golf course architects in America. For a project the Justice Department told the judge is “not a renovation.” Reyes called that “preposterous.”

Neither could tell her what this costs taxpayers. The renovation could run $20 million to $49 million. The New York Times reports a top Trump fundraiser is hitting up donors for it, and that dirt from the East Wing demolition got dumped on the site. Nothing goes to waste in this White House except public land.

And Wischer, the guy who gave the order? Couldn’t be reached. It was a holiday. Greg, my dude, you can book a chainsaw crew for a holiday weekend but you can’t pick up a phone on one?

Reyes told them, “I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done.” When a DOJ lawyer said they’d done their best, she said, “No you did not do your best! You did your absolute worst.” She said it “cost the government all of its credibility,” which assumes it had some.

Stephen Miller posted that he “missed the part of the Constitutional Convention that put federal judges in charge of golf course maintenance.” Stephen, the Constitutional Convention is where they created the federal courts. It’s called Article III. Try reading past the preamble.

Today Reyes froze all tree cutting through October 26 and ordered Wischer and the acting Park Service director to appear next Monday so she can find out “whether or not I’ve been lied to.”

Even if you’ve never touched a golf club, this is your land, and this administration just showed you the playbook. Wait for a holiday, give the court one night, cut first, apologize never. If they’ll do this in the capital with a federal judge watching, what makes Yosemite or Sequoia or the park down your street safe?

Watch for the next notice. It’ll land at 4:55 on a Friday.

Sources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-east-potomac-golf-course-judge-ana-reyes/

https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/judge-order-east-potomac-tree-removal-holiday-weekend

https://abc17news.com/?p=1656096

https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2026/10/13/east-potomac-golf-course-tree-removals-trump

https://www.newsweek.com/judge