Former President Donald Trump is facing pushback over his decision to host two of the eight events at this year’s Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournament at his resorts.
Relatives of those killed and injured in the Sept. 11 attacks have written a letter to the 45th president asking him to reconsider holding events in the LIV Golf Invitational Series at his properties in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Miami, Florida, due to the tour being funded by Saudi Arabia’s royal family. The group, called 9/11 Justice, noted in their letter that the former president had previously blamed the Saudis for the attacks.
“We simply cannot understand how you could agree to accept money from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s golf league to host their tournament at your golf course, and to do so in the shadows of ground zero in New Jersey, which lost over 700 residents during the attacks,” they wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the New York Times.
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“It is incomprehensible to us that a former president of the United States would cast our loved ones aside for personal financial gain,” the letter continued. “We hope you will reconsider your business relationship with the Saudi golf league and will agree to meet with us.”
Referencing his prior comments on Saudi involvement in the attacks, the group quoted the former president in a February 2016 Fox News interview.
“Who blew up the World Trade Center? It wasn’t the Iraqis. It was Saudi. Take a look at Saudi Arabia, open the documents,” he told the network. “The people came, most of the people came from Saudi Arabia. They didn’t come from Iraq.”
The FBI released declassified records from its investigation into potential links between the Saudi government and 9/11 in September of last year, with some of the long-anticipated documents released on the 20th anniversary of the al Qaeda terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Families of the 9/11 victims had long sought a host of details tied to possible Saudi government involvement in the attacks. President Joe Biden issued an executive order in the weeks prior directing the Justice Department to declassify information stemming from an FBI inquiry into possible Saudi-9/11 connections.
Although Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks, 9/11 families have pointed to the kingdom’s tight grip over its subjects, especially given that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. Victims’ advocacy groups have also noted the country’s widely publicized human rights abuses.
Despite his 2016 campaign comments, Trump embraced Saudi Arabia as a necessary ally over the course of his presidency. He wholeheartedly stood by the kingdom amid its controversial war in Yemen and refused to abandon relations with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he faced global condemnation for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The then-president also spoke out repeatedly against Congress’s attempts to block weapons sales and other deals with the Saudis, always noting that the kingdom was spending heavily in the U.S. and could easily take their business to Russia or China if he cut them off.
The Saudi-backed league has spent millions swaying PGA stars to join the series, sparking controversy and splits between major pro golfers and fury from the PGA tour itself. For his part, the former president’s decision to host tournaments at his Trump National Golf Club Bedminister and the season-ending Team Championship at Trump National Doral Miami is more likely related to his frayed relationship with the PGA than geopolitics.
The PGA Tour and PGA of America yanked tournaments from Doral and Bedminster, respectively, in 2016 and in 2021. In 2016, tour officials claimed that the decision to end a half-century relationship with the Doral property, notably to a course in Mexico, was not politically motivated. The tour instead claimed that the move was made because they could not find a sponsor to replace Cadillac, which did not renew its contract.
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The then-Republican presidential hopeful lambasted the decision at the time, telling Fox News’s Sean Hannity: “They’re moving it to Mexico City, which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance.”
The decision to move the PGA Championship came in the days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump sued the organization for doing so, and both sides reached a settlement in December of that year.
A spokeswoman for the former president did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment on the letter and his involvement in the Saudi-backed series.
