Donald Trump has a way of making almost every meeting about himself.
A routine conversation can quickly turn into Trump talking about his accomplishments, complaints, or latest controversy. This time proved no different.
What started as a light detour quickly took an unexpected turn. The 80-year-old made a remark about the Secret Service that caught viewers’ attention and sparked an ongoing debate across social media.
It wasn’t a denial so much as a technicality.
The subject is familiar territory for the POTUS, whose swing has been picked apart for years. This includes a recent golfing shot that some people regarded “atrocious.”
But this time nobody had to analyze footage. He said it himself.
Asked about the long-running accusation that he cheats on the course, Trump pointed to the agents who follow him everywhere.
“I can’t cheat. You have 250 Secret Service agents running around,” he said.
Then came the part people can’t stop replaying: “It’s not that I wouldn’t cheat, but you can’t move the ball.”
The remarks came on Sept. 12, during an address to U.S. embassy personnel and business leaders at the ambassador’s residence in Dublin.
The question he was answering isn’t a random jab, though. It has a paper trail going back many years.
Sportswriter Rick Reilly built a bestseller around it with 2019’s “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.” Claims made in the book include caddies at Winged Foot who allegedly nicknamed him “Pelé” for how often he kicked his ball out of the rough, according to The Guardian.
It also included broadcaster Mike Tirico’s account of a caddie telling him, “Trump threw it in the bunker. I watched him do it.” Pros including Brad Faxon publicly disputed Trump’s claimed 2.8 handicap, pegging him closer to a 10.
Even his allies have struggled with the question. In 2022 grand jury testimony in the Georgia election interference case, Sen. Lindsey Graham was asked directly whether Trump cheats at golf.
He said: “Some people say you may outdrive him, but you’re not going to outdrive his caddie. It is what it is.”
So when Trump told a room in Dublin that the agents make it impossible, the response was loud.
“‘It’s not that I wouldn’t cheat,…’ Pretty much sums up his life!! Golf, marriages, taxes, business, elections…………….” one person wrote under Threads post.
“You can’t but you have minions to move it for you,” another replied.
“Guess when you’re the most hated president in the world you need 100 Secret Service men to protect you,” another commented.
Not to mention, just four weeks before he made the remark, a scoreboard at his own club raised the exact question.
In August, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had won both the senior and super-senior divisions of the club championship at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“I won with a score of 70,” he wrote, “and am so honored in that, unlike the rest of the field, I’m given very little time to practice, because I’m focused on many other things. It’s called TALENT, and I have it, and they don’t!”
Then a participant named Philip Zamloot posted video of the leaderboard. The Daily Beast noted the 70 was a gross score on a par-72 course with no handicap strokes.
This meant that Trump had played two under as a scratch golfer. The next-best gross in the field was a 77.
That’s a seven-shot gap, on his own course, with his own staff running the scoring. And in Dublin, his defense wasn’t that moving a ball would be wrong. It was that moving one would be difficult.
Trump was midway through a two-day Irish visit that mixed diplomacy with business. This included meetings with Prime Minister Micheál Martin and President Catherine Connolly in the capital, then a trip west to his oceanfront resort in Doonbeg for the Irish Open.
It’s worth mentioning that upon his arrival, protesters filled the streets of Dublin and County Clare while he was there, according to USA Today.
“I don’t think he should be welcomed into this country,” one angry protester told the publication. “I think he’s completely in opposition to everything we stand for.”
Trump’s explanation leaves the cheating question hanging. His own words and the Bedminster leaderboard give critics fresh material to examine. The leaderboard controversy offers a separate reason people remain skeptical.
For now, the record shows an admission about what Trump might do and a disputed score that keeps the debate alive.
Trump: "I was playing golf and we had hundreds of Secret Service all over the course. In fact, they said, 'Does Trump cheat?' I can't cheat. You have 250 Secret Service agents running down. It's not that I wouldn't cheat, but you can't move the ball." pic.twitter.com/5AwWE9SWfE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2026
