Bob Costas Eviscerates Trump for Hosting Saudi-Backed LIV Golf: ‘He Doesn’t Care About Any Principle, Including American Democracy’

Iconic sports broadcaster Bob Costas blasted former President Donald Trump for hosting an event with Saudi-backed LIV Golf.

The event is this weekend at Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club, an hour away from New York City, a site during 9/11. Trump will play in the event’s pro-am on Thursday.

LIV Golf has come under fire for being backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund given the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was critical of the Saudi regime. U.S. intelligence has deemed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman as having backed the move to take out Khashoggi in at the Saudi embassy in Turkey.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Trump defended hosting LIV Golf.

“I think LIV has been a great thing for Saudi Arabia, for the image of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “I think it’s going to be an incredible investment from that standpoint, and that’s more valuable than lots of other things because you can’t buy that—even with billions of dollars.”

Trump added “that from the standpoint of Khashoggi, that has died down so much.”

Regarding the objections of 9/11 victims and their families, Trump said, “I don’t know much about the 9/11 families, I don’t know what is the relationship to this, and their very strong feelings, and I can understand their feelings. I can’t really comment on that because I don’t know exactly what they’re saying, and what they’re saying who did what.”

Appearing on CNN on Thursday, Costas, who is a contributor to the network, did not mince words about Trump hosting the event given the Saudi ties.

Some 700 plus of the victims on 9/11, 21 years ago, were from New Jersey, some of them from the Bedminster area.

So the 9/11 families are very hurt about this, very upset, there will be protests outside the grounds, but if we learned anything about Donald Trump, which it shouldn’t have taken very long to learn, is that he doesn’t care about any principle, including American democracy or any person, he cares about nothing other than his own perceived self-interests.

And then there’s the aspect of grievance and revenge. He was upset because the PGA pulled out following Jan. 6 the last year, following those events, they pulled the PGA tournament from the Bedminster course. So this is an element of grievance on his part because, as we all know, he is, after all, the most persecuted man in American history and he’s qualified to say that because he’s a scholar of history.

Watch above, via CNN.