Trump plays golf in Scotland as protesters voice anger over his visit

Trump plays golf in Scotland as protesters voice anger over his visit

President Trump is in Scotland for a five day visit. It puts a little bit of physical space, at least between him and the growing Epstein fallout in the nation’s capital. The president golfing today at his property in Turnberry, Scotland, one of two golf courses the president owns and plans to play during his visit. Trump also plans to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the head of the European Union Commission for Trade and Tariffs talks. The trip to Scotland, though, is not without controversy. The president has already been met with some large protests and more are planned for his visit. CNN’s Jeff Zeleny is in Scotland for us. Not unheard of, of course, for an American president or any world leader, frankly, to be met with some protests. But walk us through not only what he’s seen and heard there, but also what is on deck for him over the next few days. Jeff. Well, Eric, certainly President Trump has grown very accustomed to protests this time. Of course, they’re very far away from him. He is spending the bulk of his time on his properties, three nights at the Trump Turnberry resort on the western coast of Scotland, and then one night. And he’s also opening a new golf course on the northern coast of Scotland, which is the ancestral homeland of his mother. That is what really brings that connection to Scotland that Donald Trump has talked so often about. He talks about Scotland in a very fond way, but it is less clear if residents in Scotland feel as fondly toward him. There were many supporters who turned out last evening near Glasgow to watch Air Force One arrive. Always quite a sight and spectacle, but there were also many protesters who turned out to protest his mere presence here and his policies as well. We talked to Fiona McPherson to give her view about President Trump. I think. We’re probably going to have to play nice, but I don’t want us to. But but, you know, America was an ally for so long. We relied on America so much. Now it’s an embarrassment. I don’t know, it’s very, very tricky. I think politically, yes, you’ve got to play nice. But on the other hand, if we condone his behavior, what do we do? What message are we sending out to the world? And you may have seen the Boston Red Sox hat on Fiona. She’s actually a dual citizen of the United States and Scotland and follows U.S. politics very closely. She said. But as for the rest of the agenda, the president is largely doing this working vacation, playing some golf, even in the windy and often, or somewhat rainy Scotland as it is at the moment. But he’s also holding a trade talks scheduled to do so with the, the head of the EU on Sunday, as well as the British prime minister on Monday. He’ll return to Washington on Tuesday evening after doing a ribbon cutting dedication ceremony at a golf course named after his mother, Erica. Jeff, appreciate it as always. Thank you. Trump’s approval has dropped to the lowest of his second term, and perhaps most notably, an all time low of either term among independents. They’re a big reason why he won the presidency again. And also notable, he’s starting to take hits from the very people who got him elected. That includes MAGA stars who are critical and skeptical of the Epstein excuses. Elon Musk, who continues to attack the administration’s handling of this. And Rupert Murdoch, whose paper, The Wall Street Journal has broken several key stories shining light on this relationship between Trump and Epstein. Now listen to Charlamagne tha God’s theory on all of this. Trump got beef, Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, all these people who really helped put him in power. They don’t seem to be rocking with him anymore. And I don’t know if Trump realizes it and I could be completely wrong. But if Trump is definitively named in the Epstein files in a damning way, credible allegations, not just association, I believe this is the perfect excuse for Republican elites to stage a political coup and push him out. Provocative, to be sure. Jemele, what do you think? Well, it’s certainly a lot to take in, but listen, this is the downside of the strategy that he has imported that got him elected. His entire strategy with the Epstein files was to try to give people the strong impression that this was Bill Clinton, this was Democrats. This was something that they were trying to hide. And now that this is all turned on him, he won’t be able to convince his base that this is a transparent investigation at all. Like, I don’t know what it would take for them to believe that there’s no cover up. I mean, you’ve convinced a lot of these people. Part of your whole spiel is that the government isn’t to be trusted. And then you’re asking these same people to suddenly trust that this was all on the up and up. There is no list that everything is as it appears and they’re just not going to buy it. And what’s always interesting to me is like what it takes people to get off the Trump train. It’s not the xenophobia. It’s not the racism is not the bigotry. It is this. But on the Trump train, I mean, I think this is the part of what the people you’re talking to, because I think that they really don’t want to be off the Trump train. They want to be on the Trump train. They just want Trump to get in line with with them. Yes, I think that’s exactly right, Abby. Look, I think for Trump, it does feel a little bit like the lady doth protest a little too much. Right? But when it comes to his approval rating with Republicans, it’s basically as solid as it ever was. You know, you put it up on the graphic before where you saw the smallest decline was among Republicans. If you look at the average of polls, his approval rating with Republicans still at about 90%. Of course, those same Republicans say they are dissatisfied with the amount of information that’s been released so far. Everyone is dissatisfied with the amount of information that’s been released so far with concerning the Epstein files. Everyone thinks that there’s something more going on there, but then making that leap to all of a sudden that his base is moving away from him, at least at this particular point in the polling data. We’re not. Seeing it. I mean, so I don’t want to suggest that this and these numbers here that I’m going to talk about are all the result of the Epstein files are clearly not there’s a lot else going on, but he’s dropping like a rock among independents in a way that I think any other politician would be like, oh, maybe something to raise a red flag here in terms of what he’s doing. And then the small shift among Republicans, 2%, according to this Gallup poll. Not earth shattering, but how much lower can you afford to go if he is cratering with independents? Well, President Trump’s very knowledgeable when it comes to polls. There’s no doubt about it. He looks at him every day and knows what’s going on. I’ll be very sincere with you. Abby, I, I am, from the standpoint of this case, this, Epstein was in the past, and let’s move forward. There’s been justice. but MAGA’s not going there, and I. And I say that with all heart because I was just telling Harry that, I was at a Home Depot store, and I’ve had people come up to me and say, you know what? We want justice. And we didn’t give Fauci a pass. We didn’t give Obama pass. We didn’t give Hillary a pass. We’re not going to give Epstein a pass. And I’ve been hearing that. So so obviously, when I hear Harry’s polling go into the 80s, it has moved a little bit. But, which hasn’t caused concern for there’s change at the end of the day. look, Epstein is a creep, and Maxwell is worse. I believe she’s the one that brought little girls to him. So that is just horrible all the way around. So this notion of even pardon. Who the heck is talking about pardon here? Abby, this is this is horrible. So, in my opinion, you know, Congress is gone. They’re going to hear from the court from their decisions. Oh, yeah. And that’s going to be the telltale right there. What are you hearing at the Home Depot? Well, I haven’t been to Home Depot recently. There’s a Costco man. A moment ago, as you said, among independents, his numbers have been cratering. I think around the summer of last year, just around the time of the assassination attempt, the the RNC convention, the energy surrounding Trump was a bit different. I think a lot of people were saying he seems to have mellowed out a bit. They were expecting him to be even more, kind of sensational after the assassination attempt. And instead he was kind of measured. People thought that they knew what they were getting with Trump. We’ve seen four years of him before. They did not expect the kind of shocking, effort on the part of the administration throughout the first couple of months of this year, they had a big agenda. They wanted to try to get really creative about the ways that they implemented things with immigration. They scored a number of victories very early on getting the illegal, crossings down. But in terms of the way that they’ve gone about the enforcement, it’s all dramatic performances. And I think it’s alienated a great deal a number of people. And maybe not the base, but certainly the independents. I mean, Democrats, I mean, they are certainly jumping on the political bandwagon on this. But the anger, I don’t know that the anger is on the Democratic side, even in light of that, the anger is very clearly on the conservative. It is absolutely on the conservative side. Look, this for my mind, for Democrats, it’s it seems to be largely a political play. Right? But low hanging fruit. Low hanging fruit is. An easy thing. To do. Easy thing. But they finally have an issue that seems to unite their party, which has been very much divided to historic levels since the election, and one that actually divides Republicans who have been historically united since the election. So of course, it’s a political play. Democrats are going to make it. But whether or not their heart is truly in it, let’s just say I’m a little suspicious. So some of that, I have to say could very well be again, the weird thing about the Epstein files is that I really think there are some very legitimate reasons not to release that very legitimate. It’s just that I think it’s very suspicious to a lot of people. Why all the people who wanted them released suddenly change their tune once they’ve had a chance to look in them. And that’s the part that I think has raised the spidey sense of a lot of people who didn’t previously care that much about this issue. And I think it’s Trump’s own responses, is that he hasn’t really done much to put out the fire and put out this suspicion around him, because as soon as it’s brought up, he starts sort of railing against it. And I know he gets emotional about a lot of things. And then he goes to his very familiar buzzwords Obama, Hillary. And it’s like your material’s getting old, like at this point. Like people don’t want to hear that. They want to know why is it that you appear to be hiding something if you’re as innocent as you say it is, if it’s just an association, he was just a friend. You didn’t know about anything else, but you’re not answering any real questions about it. And I’m sorry, especially in the society that we live in where people really do feed off conspiracy theory, conspiracy theories, that is not going to be good enough. So I have to show this handy little chart we’re going to break. But, the mentions of Obama hit kind of a high, as the mentions of Epstein also get kind of a high, just to show you that, the knee jerk reaction to any negative news about Trump is to talk about Obama. Just the life that we’re living here in the United States of America.

Fleeing Washington’s oppressive humidity and nonstop questions over heated controversies, President Donald Trump is once again taking weekend refuge at his golf clubs — this time more than 3,000 miles away in Scotland.

Even as protesters demonstrated against Trump here on Saturday, the four nights in temperate Scotland come as a summertime respite after six months back in office. His administration is engulfed in a deepening political crisis over its handling of disclosures around the case of Jeffrey Epstein, accused sex trafficker and former friend of the president’s.

Nearly every time Trump has spoken with reporters in recent weeks, he’s been pressed with new questions about the Epstein scandal, many of which are fueled by deep suspicions that he and his followers have been stirring for years. New revelations about his personal ties to the disgraced financier have kept the matter alive.

Jeff Zeleny reports from Edinburgh, and Abby Phillip discusses with her “Table for Five” panel: The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten, former California lieutenant governor Abel Maldonado and Tangle editor-at-large Kmele Foster. #CNN #News