As 2026 got underway, national polling didn’t just show that Donald Trump’s approval rating had sunk to embarrassing lows, it also showed a more specific problem: Roughly two-thirds of Americans were convinced the president simply had the wrong priorities.

Last month, we saw fresh evidence that this impression had actually intensified. A CNN poll found that 76% of Americans — a record high — agreed that Trump hadn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems. This dovetailed with a Quinnipiac poll that found that 68% of Americans believed he was not focused enough on “addressing the problems most Americans are facing.”

With roughly two weeks remaining before the midterm elections, and with early voting underway across much of the United States, it’s tempting to think the Republican Party’s leader and most powerful voice would be eager to disprove these impressions. Instead, Trump is doing the opposite.

The Associated Press reported:

President Donald Trump on Sunday announced plans to close a historic public golf course in the nation’s capital for 15 months and redevelop it despite a court challenge to his long-sought renovation.

Trump posted on social media about his intent to shutter the East Potomac Golf Course, not far from the White House, starting Nov. 15 to make it “one of the Best and Most Spectacular Golf Courses anywhere in the World.”

If the underlying story sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because the ongoing legal fight has generated a lot of headlines. Indeed, as recently as last week, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ordered the administration to stop its tree-cutting efforts at the golf course until Oct. 26. As MS NOW reported, that order came one day after a nearly four-hour hearing in which Reyes slammed the Trump administration for defying her previous order to give the court notice before taking down more than 10 trees.

On Sunday, the president nevertheless published a pair of items to his social media platform, explaining in some detail how excited he was to overhaul the golf course. Trump followed up with a third post early Monday morning, writing, “The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so. It’s as simple as that! … Work is scheduled to begin IMMEDIATELY!”

In the same missive, the president described the judge in the case as “a crazed lunatic” who, in his estimation, might be “insane.”

The list of problems is not short. For one thing, the White House appears to be in the midst of a rather brazen move to circumvent a federal court case. For another, Trump’s preferred plan is itself misguided. As The Washington Post reported:

The rendering Trump released alongside the announcement depicts a dramatically remade Hains Point, with a single 18-hole championship course stretching nearly from shoreline to shoreline. It bears little resemblance to the existing course — or to the more modest historic-restoration plan that government attorneys have cited in court.

The design also appears to eliminate Ohio Drive, the roadway that loops around Hains Point, a century-old grove of cherry trees and a historic miniature golf course. If implemented as depicted, the plan would reshape space used daily not only by golfers, but also by thousands of cyclists, runners, walkers, anglers, birdwatchers and other visitors.

What the president wants, in other words, effectively eliminates all of the things many local residents actually like about the East Potomac Golf Course, transforming it instead into yet another vanity project tied to Trump’s ego.

But let’s also not lose sight of the broader circumstances. Amid rising inflation, a stagnant job market and an ongoing war in the Middle East that Trump started but doesn’t know how to end, the president wants Americans to know that he’s investing time and energy into a priority that apparently matters to him: overhauling a public golf course.

“Trump started an illegal war, prices are through the roof, Americans are hurting, and yet he lays awake thinking about how to screw our D.C. neighbors and take over their public parks,” Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland wrote via Bluesky over the weekend. “Out of touch doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

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