One day after inciting a crowd, Trump tries his version of normalcy

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On Thursday, he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to golfers Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player, as well as a posthumous Medal of Freedom to Olympic athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias, a White House official told CNN.

Trump’s attempt to return to business as usual comes amid the ongoing global pandemic and after an astonishing siege he personally incited, killing four and the Capitol building ransacked. In the aftermath, some Cabinet members had discussions over invoking the 25th Amendment amid concerns about what could happen before Trump leaves office, several officials are proposing resignations and questions are being raised about it. who went wrong and what will happen next with the presidential transition.

In another display of attempted unrelated behavior, Trump telephoned the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee, briefly speaking to a friendly crowd of RNC members over loudspeakers without mentioning Wednesday’s events. .

However, due to the fact that the RNC is currently an active crime scene following the discovery of a homemade bomb outside on Wednesday, Trump was forced to cancel his scheduled video speech Thursday evening. It was to be recorded with currently inaccessible RNC material.

And on Friday, Trump is expected to attend the presidential retreat at Camp David, the White House official said, declining to provide further details on the purpose of the trip.

The White House previously announced on March 6 that Sorenstam and Player would receive the Medal of Freedom on March 23, which was postponed as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the country. The addition of the late Zaharias to the list of laureates was new.
The player’s honor is notable because the golfer embraced apartheid in South Africa, though he later said he was wrong, telling GOLF magazine last June that he was ‘proud’ that his thinking had changed. “His inclusion marks an unfavorable move, given that the president himself has racial unrest fomented.

Trump, an avid golfer himself, once awarded Tiger Woods a Freedom Medal. The president spent 313 days during his tenure at a golf club.

With 13 days of the Trump presidency, the White House has been inundated with requests for the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. Thursday’s presentation was not on Trump’s public agenda, which instead indicated that Trump would have “many meetings” and “many calls.”

Earlier this week, Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom to Capitol Hill ally, Rep. Devin Nunes, and is also expected to honor another congressman, Rep. Jim Jordan, before stepping down.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Jeremy Diamond, and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

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