President Donald Trump's plan to take over a Washington, D.C. golf course has encountered a major new roadblock, with NOTUS reporting that local residents have staged fresh protests to draw attention to the situation.

According to the report, "cyclists, anglers, joggers and bird-watchers" gathered at East Potomac Park over the weekend to demonstrate against Trump's planned makeover of the park's Golf Links on Hains Point, part of his broader effort to reshape the nation's capital to his own liking. East Potomac Park sits on federal land managed by the National Park Service, an agency within the Interior Department, which is why decisions about the golf course and its trees fall to federal authorities rather than the D.C. government — a dynamic that has left local residents and advocacy groups relying on protests, public records demands, and litigation as their main avenues of pushback. The proposed work is reportedly scheduled to begin on September 1, and local park attendees and preservationists claim that several trees have already been removed.

"Wearing shirts with slogans like 'Save Hains Point' and holding signs with phrases such as 'Fore the People, Not the President,' dozens of people represented the activities — and communities — that could be at stake if Trump's plans move forward," NOTUS explained. "The rally was organized by the Washington Area Bicycle Association and Save East Po, a grassroots coalition aimed at protecting the area. It took place at the park's southernmost tip, not far from where a tree-removal crew was working Saturday. At least six trees around the golf course were removed by National Park Service employees. Several dozen others had been taken out in the days before the rally, alarming activists and preservationists."

The Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, defended the work in a statement, saying arborists are performing routine maintenance "with selective removal of hazard trees, non-native invasive trees, and declining and dying trees that cannot be brought back to good health through any degree of intervention."

However, Washington Area Bicycle Association (WABA) Executive Director Elizabeth Kiker said she is concerned that the three-day removal operation was "the beginning of them tearing this entire space out and building it to be something that is not for the public." Kiker said she and some other attendees watched a few of the trees being cut down.

"Maybe they were ailing, but boy they sure didn't look like it," Kiker told NOTUS.

A lawsuit attempting to halt Trump's plan for the public golf course is currently "stalled" in court. The administration has not disclosed the specific construction plans or a tree removal list. Kiker said the National Park Service informed them that construction is not moving forward on Tuesday, but cautioned: "We are still watching very carefully."

"We want to see the trees that they're planning on cutting down — they won't release that," Save East Po founder Alex Rosen told NOTUS. "There's renderings of what the future golf course is going to look like, but they won't release that. There's clearly plans that exist right now, but this administration is acting without any semblance of transparency, and that's the problem." With the reported September 1 start date approaching, the outcome of the stalled litigation and any further tree removal at the site are likely to be the next flashpoints in the dispute.