Another manufactured Washington outrage, this time over cherry trees.
Headlines and social media posts are breathlessly claiming that the Trump administration is cutting down Washington’s iconic cherry trees.
There is, as usual, considerably more to the story.
According to the Department of the Interior, the current work at East Potomac Golf Links is selective tree removal involving hazardous trees, invasive species, and trees that are declining or dying and cannot be restored to good health. The Washington Post went to the site and reported that many of the stumps it examined were hollow or showed obvious signs of decay. Reporters also watched a large tree being removed that showed clear evidence of deterioration.
Both mainstream and progressive media began screaming that healthy trees were removed to make way for a golf course, and this included at least one cherry tree. To be clear, there is no evidence that crews simply marched through East Potomac cutting down dozens of healthy cherry trees
By the weekend, social media had dispensed with even the limited caution shown by the press. “OMFG. HE DID IT,” read one viral X post. “Trump cut down 60 TREES… Including Cherry trees!!!” Democratic Congressman Don Beyer announced that Trump was “taking an axe” to East Potomac Park, “including historic cherry trees.” On Bluesky, the qualification disappeared altogether: “Trump cuts down the oldest cherry blossoms in DC for his golf course.” Another declared, “He has ruined our city.”
There was just one rather inconvenient problem with this rapidly spreading story. That isn’t what the Department of the Interior says happened. And even the Washington Post reported seeing substantial evidence of decay among the trees that had been removed.
Perhaps some healthy trees were removed. If so, let’s see the arborist records and establish it. But social media didn’t wait for that evidence. Within hours, “trees were removed” had become “Trump cut down 60 trees,” which became “Trump cut down the cherry trees,” which became “Trump cuts down the oldest cherry blossoms in DC for his golf course.”
And apparently everyone had forgotten that just two years earlier, the federal government deliberately removed 158 cherry trees from the Tidal Basin, including living trees, for a construction project.
That happened under Joe Biden.
Strangely, I don’t remember the Great Cherry Tree Massacre of 2024.
In 2024, under the Biden administration, the National Park Service approved the removal of 158 of Washington’s famous cherry trees around the Tidal Basin. And no, those 158 trees were not all dead or dying.
They were removed to make way for reconstruction of the deteriorating Tidal Basin and West Potomac Park seawalls. NPS acknowledged the removals openly and said the project had been designed to minimize the number of trees lost. Replacement trees were planned afterward.
Flowering cherry trees are relatively short-lived. Yoshino cherries, which dominate Washington’s famous plantings, generally live only about 30 to 40 years, although some survive much longer. Most of Washington’s cherries today are replacements planted over many decades, including hundreds propagated directly from the original 1912 trees. Yet critics are treating the removal of old, declining trees as though someone were chopping down the original gift from Japan. They aren’t. The historic cherry-tree lineage has been deliberately preserved for generations.
That removal included the beloved little cherry tree known as “Stumpy.” Stumpy was still alive and flowering, although NPS arborists said it was badly stressed and in a “mortality spiral.” To be clear, Stumpy” was not one of the original 1912 cherry trees. But as arborists know, in a dense planting of ornamental cherries, a badly diseased tree can potentially be an infection source for surrounding cherries.
So let’s get the standard straight.
Biden administration removes 158 cherry trees, including living trees, for a federal construction project: necessary infrastructure work.
Trump administration removes hazardous, invasive, declining and dying trees from a federal golf course: national scandal.
The claim that the administration is simply destroying Washington’s healthy cherry trees is not supported by the evidence currently available. What is clear is that lawfare is once again being deployed by the D.C. politburo to obstruct the Trump administration.
The lawfare actually began six months before anyone discovered that Trump was supposedly murdering cherry trees. On February 13, the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers sued the administration over East Potomac Park, backed by the familiar Washington legal machinery of Democracy Forward, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen’s Democracy Defenders Fund.
By May, a federal judge was warning the administration of “serious consequences” and demanding advance notice about work at the course. Apparently, even routine tree maintenance in Washington now requires lawyers, hearings and judicial supervision. It is another small example of the relentless legal harassment surrounding virtually everything this administration attempts to do.
Sometimes a dying tree is just a dying tree.
By: JGM
If you value journalism that waits for the evidence before joining the outrage mob, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
This work takes time. And sometimes it is as simple as discovering that the latest national scandal is, in fact, a bunch of old trees being cut down.
Independent journalism only remains independent if readers support it.
And sometimes, apparently, somebody has to debunk the progressive notion of a Great Cherry Tree Massacre and actually write out the facts.
Enjoy the rest of this glorious day of God!
Anyone else tired yet of hyperventilating media TDSers ?
The same group that opposes forest/timber management.