ATLANTA — Former president Donald J. Trump, returning to a region that dealt him a bitterly contested defeat during his failed reelection bid in 2020, attended Game 4 of the World Series on Saturday night at Truist Park, taking part in the Atlanta Braves' controversial tomahawk chop moments before gametime.
He was seated in an open-air suite down the right field line at Truist Park, arriving in public view about 15 minutes before first pitch, standing for the national anthem alongside his wife, Melania.
Herschel Walker, the former Heisman Trophy winner whose bid for a Georgia senate seat is backed by Trump, was also in the suite.
Trump, who lost the state of Georgia by less than 12,000 votes and later pressured its secretary of state to "find him" the number of votes to put him over the top, returned to the World Series for the first time since October 2019, when he attended Game 5 at Washington's Nationals Park during his third year in office.Trump was roundly booed that evening after he was shown on the stadium's video board.
Georgia had not voted for a Democratic candidate since 1992 before now President Joe Biden captured 49.5% of the vote to Trump's 49.2%. In suburban Cobb County, to which the Braves moved in 2018 when they opened Truist Park, Biden received 56% of the vote to Trump's 42%.
Trump informed the Braves he would be attending Game 4, club CEO Terry McGuirk told USA TODAY Sports before Game 2. The club did extend invites to currently elected officials from both major political parties.
Yet Trump released a statement that he was invited to Game 4 by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and club president Randy Levine "of the great New York Yankees."
An MLB spokesman deferred to McGuirk's previous statement and said the president requested to attend.
After Manfred's April decision to pull the July All-Star Game from Atlanta in protest of restrictive voting laws passed by the state of Georgia, Trump released a statement calling on supporters to "boycott baseball."
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"Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans,” Trump said in a statement, "and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the radical left Democrats.
“… Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with free and fair elections. Are you listening Coke, Delta and all?”
Trump's World Series trip is among the more notable public appearances he's made as a former president, as he continues to stage rallies and raise money in advance of 2024. He has not announced whether he will seek election.
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