While he golfs, Donald Trump puts reporters in basement with blacked out windows

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Donald Trump’s heightening disdain for reporters is such that he’d surely love to lock them in the dungeon. And as it turns out, he’s done the next closest thing today. When Trump traveled with Japanese Prime Minister Abe to play golf at his own resort in Florida today, reporters from major media outlets were allowed to tag along. But when they got there, they were placed in the basement, where there windows had been covered with black plastic.

This story may sound too on-the-nose to be real, but Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs tweeted photo evidence of the scene. She’s added that “Trump’s press corps has been placed in a basement suite at Jupiter golf club. Black plastic over windows to give Trump privacy as he golfs.” Jacobs has noted that reporters from Japan have also been locked in the proverbial dungeon with them. Florida doesn’t have true basements, and this appears to be a partially submerged “basement” floor of the resort; hence the external door. But the clear intent was to make sure Trump would have total privacy while he was golfing with Prime Minister Abe. This was the scene:

How can this be America?

And it gets even stranger. After Trump finished playing golf at his Jupiter golf course, where he had buried the reporters in the basement, he then traveled to his other golf course don the street in West Palm Beach and began playing even more golf. Meanwhile Trump has since tweeted a photo of himself with Abe on the golf course, raising the question of just what he was attempting to prevent reporters from photographing, if he didn’t mind a photo of himself getting out while golfing.

In other words, was the vainly image conscious Trump afraid that the media would capture an unflattering moment of him during his golf game? Or was this draconian measure nothing more than an elaborate attempt at punishing reporters? After all, he literally lured them into a basement with blacked out windows and then left them there for an undetermined period of time – something out of the Putin playbook. photo: Jennifer Jacobs | Twitter

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