Donald Trump.Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty
While much of the country — includingformer presidentsandtheir families— paused in solemn acknowledgement of the 20th anniversary of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks,Donald Trumphad a busier and stranger weekend.
Other presidents, meanwhile, marked the day with memorial visits:Joe Biden,Bill ClintonandBarack Obamaand their wives went to Ground Zero whileGeorgeandLaura Bushvisited Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where he delivered remarks.
Trumpwas invitedto Ground Zero with the other presidents but did not attend.
Later Saturday, however, he was featured during apay-per-view boxing match.
Chip Somodevilla/Pool/AFP via Getty
Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort headlined the event, but Trump seemed delighted to also be in the spotlight providing commentary alongside son Donald Trump Jr. and 50 Cent.
(Holyfield, 58, who replaced Oscar de la Hoya in the ring after he contractedCOVID-19, lost in the first round thanks to a TKO.)
Trump is a longtime supporter of pugilism and hosted matches at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, before it closed in 2014 and was eventually demolished in February.
At one point Saturday, while the boxing judges deliberated the results of an early fight, Trump weighed in with characteristic suspicion of the results: “It could be rigged.”
The pay-per-view event, which aired on the FITE streaming platform for fans willing to pay $49.99, lasted almost three and a half hours. As it ended, Trump described the experience: “This is like a rally,” he said,according toPolitico.
In his taped appearance at the Rally of Hope, Trump thanked Hak Ja Han Moon for her “incredible work on behalf of peace all over the world.”
On social media, critics of the church denounced Trump’s appearance, both for the apparent endorsement of an organization some have described as a “cult” and for the former president’s remarks taking credit for his handling of a tense political situation on the Korean Peninsula during his administration.
Sun Myung Moon, who claimed that Jesus appeared to him when he was a teenager, founded the Unification Church in South Korea in 1954 before moving to the U.S. in 1971.
He was well known for performing mass weddings between thousands of strangers.
He also foundedThe Washington Times, a conservative paper, in 1982 and was convicted of tax evasion in the ’80s. He died in 2012.
source: people.com
