Former President Donald Trump was spotted golfing Friday at his Palm Beach, Florida club in advance of his Saturday night primetime speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando.
The ex-president sported his trademark ‘Make America Great Again’ ballcap, a white polo shirt and dark slacks – and golfed with several partners, also clad in Trump-branded attire.
Trump’s speech comes as he’s taken heat for laudatory comments he made this week about Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as the leader mounted a deadly assault on Ukraine.
Former President Donald Trump was spotted golfing Friday at his Palm Beach, Florida club in advance of his Saturday night primetime speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando
The ex-president, driving a golf cart, was wearing his trademark ‘Make America Great Again’ hat with ’45’ on the side, as he was the 45th president
Former President Donald Trump was out golfing Friday at his Palm Beach resort in advance of his CPAC speech Saturday night
The former president looks in the direction of DailyMail.com’s camera as he plays golf Friday in Palm Beach, Florida, near his Mar-a-Lago resort
Former President Donald Trump’s golf partners were also sporting Trump-branded attire
The ex-president called Putin ‘pretty smart’ on Wednesday as the invasion was imminent, following similar comments Trump made after Putin declared two regions of Ukraine ‘independent’ earlier this week.
‘If I were in Office, this deadly Ukraine situation would never have happened!’ Trump claimed in a statement Thursday night.
The White House hit back at Trump – but Republicans, including those on the CPAC stage, danced around the ex-president’s assessment.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, didn’t mention the Ukraine crisis at all during his Thursday night CPAC address.
Earlier this week, Cruz had commended President Joe Biden’s decision to allow sanctions to go forward on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline operators – releasing a hold on Biden’s State Department nominees to they could get Senate-confirmed.
Cruz later turned around and said Biden’s previous decision to put in place sanction waivers on the Nord Stream project likely amounted to a ‘surrender to Putin,’ he told CBS Thursday.
During the same interview, he declined to criticize Trump.
‘His rhetoric I – with some regularity – disagree with,’ Cruz said.
In his speech Friday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio acknowledged that there were differing opinions on the conflict with the modern Republican Party.
‘No matter where you stand on this Ukraine-Russia situation – what we should have done beforehand, what we should do now – the one thing I think everyone can agree upon, is that the people of Ukraine are inspiring to the world,’ the Florida senator told the crowd.
Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – who has also been criticized for recent complimentary comments about Putin – wouldn’t play take-backsies with his previous statements, but toughened up his rhetoric on Putin onstage in Orlando.
‘We’ve seen a Russian dictator now terrorize the Ukrainian people because America didn’t demonstrate the resolve that we did for the four years prior,’ Pompeo said Friday morning.
Overall, CPAC was a Trumpworld reunion, with a number of ex-White House officials and political allies roaming the halls.
DailyMail.com spotted former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and deputies Hogan Gidley and Judd Deere.
Trump’s original National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was in attendance.
My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell was on-site.
And some of Trump’s chosen candidates were there as well – including Max Miller of Ohio, who is vying to replace the retiring GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, an impeachment backer, and Kelly Tshibaka, taking on Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who said Trump should be convicted for inciting an insurrection.
Murkowski, a sitting Republican senator, got booed by the crowd when Tshibaka name-dropped her.
MAGA swag was everywhere.
And candidates trying to get Trump’s endorsement propped up the so-called ‘big lie.’
Josh Mandel, running for the GOP nomination for the Senate seat GOP Sen. Rob Portman is leaving, said onstage Friday that ‘the liberal media gets up in arms, and the squishy Rino Republicans get up in arms, but I want to say it very clearly and very directly: I believe this election was stolen from Donald J. Trump.’
‘You know the Liz Cheneys the Adam Kinzingers, these are traitors,’ he continued.
Parroting what Trump has previously said Mandel added, ‘We should should abolish the January 6 Commission and replace it with a November 3 Commission.’
At CPAC in Orlando this week, MAGA swag was everywhere
