President Trump was at the golf course at the time of the incident, playing with Gov. Ron DeSantis, Urban Meyer and Nick Saban.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
Competing demonstrations outside Trump International Golf Club on Feb. 15 led to the arrest of a 76-year-old suburban Florida man on a misdemeanor battery charge.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said Feb. 16 that it took Paul Messer after the incident at the suburban West Palm Beach site, where he carried a flagpole as part of a “Not My President” protest over the immigration policies of President Donald Trump.
Trump was at the course, playing golf with Gov. Ron DeSantis and former college football coaches Urban Meyer and Nick Saban, according to a White House media pool report.
Deputies said they saw Messer argue with a Trump supporter who had complained that the signs Messer and other anti-Trump protesters were carrying were blocking her view, according to the pool report. Neither PBSO nor the pool report named the woman.
Deputies reported they saw Messer “strike the female multiple times in the upper chest and neck area.” They reported the woman “stumbled backward and “tumbled backward and sustained visible redness to the right side of her neck.”
Attempts to reach Messer for comment were not immediately successful. He is free on $1,000 bail and has an arraignment scheduled for March 10 before county Judge Lourdes Casanova.
Pro-Trump supporters filled the sidewalks along Summit Boulevard outside the club for a President’s Day rally on Feb. 16. About 60 people were on the scene as of 11:30 a.m. for the event, which was scheduled to run until 2 p.m.
Many wore red shirts and MAGA hats, some waved flags with Trump’s face and a man held a red poster that read “Trump saved America.”
Alan Mentser, who organized the event, praised Trump’s actions during his first year in office such as the closure of the U.S border with Mexico and the immigration enforcement operation seen across the country.
Members from The Proud Boys, including Erinque Tario, who Trump pardoned for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, also joined the rally.
A woman at the rally identified herself only as Aubrey, and both she and Mentser said she was the person pushed with the flagpole. She declined to be interviewed but issued a prepared statement, saying the incident began when a woman who was protesting Trump “wasn’t respecting my space” and that she had asked her to move her sign.
She said she pushed the sign “to the side” and that the man with the flagpole “started yelling at me, but I didn’t want to back down.” She said the man “took off my cap. I put it back on and didn’t back down, and told him I wasn’t afraid of him.”
The man then “put the handle of his flag on my neck. I didn’t react, so he pressed down at least twice, then pushed me backwards, and the Secret Service intervened, very calmly and professionally.”
It was unclear whether Trump was at the club during the demonstration. The president is scheduled to return to Washington on Feb. 16 after his 21st visit to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach since his re-election to a second term in 2024.
Tom Elia is an editor at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at telia@pbpost.com.
Valentina Palm covers immigration and Palm Beach County’s western communities for The Palm Beach Post. Email her at vpalm@pbpost.com and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @ValenPalmB.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com.
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