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Donald Trump, Over 18 Holes in Scotland, Plays 20 Questions

Donald J. Trump at Trump International Golf Links in Scotland on Saturday.Credit...Carlo Allegri/Reuters

BALMEDIE, Scotland — On the 10th hole of his golf resort here, Donald J. Trump — asked if defeating Hillary Clinton in November was more of “a par-3 or a par-5” — said it would “be very easy.” And on the 18th, when asked if he had more or fewer candidates on his vice-presidential short list than the par of the hole (a five), Mr. Trump allowed, “I’m getting calls from a lot of people, and they want it.”

Such was Mr. Trump’s whirlwind afternoon at Trump International Golf Links here: He touched down on Saturday in his helicopter and, a day after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union threw global markets into chaos, led the international news media on a mad scramble through the dunes of his windswept golf course.

Mr. Trump was finishing a two-day publicity tour of his Scotland golf resorts — on Friday, he visited Trump Turnberry — but between ribbon cuttings and family photos, news of Britain’s referendum kept intruding.

Asked what he would tell voters back home who are worried about losing their retirement savings, Mr. Trump dismissed the question. “Americans are very much different,” he said. “This shouldn’t even affect them. I mean frankly, if it’s done properly, if we had proper leadership.”

On Friday, Mr. Trump generated some criticism when, standing on foreign soil, he said President Obama may have contributed to the Brexit outcome and crowed that the declining British pound would benefit his business interests here. Asked on Saturday about the falling value of the pound after Thursday’s referendum, he said he hoped Britain’s currency would rebound — but reiterated that his business interests might prosper.

“I don’t want to have a plummeting pound,” Mr. Trump said. “But if it does plummet, I do well. And if it does well, I do well.”

“I do well in any case,” he concluded.

On the 14th hole, Mr. Trump waded into the controversy surrounding his proposed ban on Muslim immigration, saying that he would not have a problem with a Muslim from a place like Scotland entering the United States. That more or less echoed his vow, in the aftermath of the Orlando massacre, to ban immigrants from any country with “a proven history of terrorism.”

In an interview with DailyMail.com conducted on the 18th hole, however, Mr. Trump said he would welcome Muslim immigrants from any nation, though they would need to be “even more severely vetted if it’s one of the terror countries.”

Moments later, Steve Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s national finance chairman, approached a small group of reporters. Mr. Trump, he said, “wanted us to clarify that it is about terrorism and not about religion.”

Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, added, “Nothing’s changed.”

The day began with the executive vice president of Mr. Trump’s golf course saying that Mr. Trump would love to take advantage of the weather and give reporters a tour — but that it would not be an opportunity for them to ask questions.

But Mr. Trump quickly threw his team’s plans aside, urging reporters to follow his “golf buggy” through perhaps the “largest dunes anywhere in the world” and answering questions along the way. At one point, when Secret Service agents tried to halt the press, Mr. Trump looked down from his perch atop a dune and hollered, “Guys, get up here!”

At each hole, Mr. Trump riffed and ad-libbed, throwing out responses as if they were tap-in putts.

“Texas will never do that, because Texas loves me,” he said, when asked how, as president, he would handle it if Texas tried to secede.

“I am good at getting things zoned,” he offered at one hole, explaining how he shepherded his golf links here through a series of controversies.

Asked if he had been consulting with his foreign policy advisers over the British result, Mr. Trump seemed to dismiss advisers as a general class: “Honestly, most of them are no good,” he said. “Let’s go to the 14th!”

Briefly marring the day for the Trump team were a handful of demonstrators who appeared on his property. As the roughly two dozen protesters — hoisting Mexican flags and handmade signs — came over a hill and into the view of the gathered news media, resort staffers in red windbreakers immediately hustled the reporters onto the course and behind a hedge, out of sight of the disruption.

On the 18th hole, Mr. Trump had one final surprise to share. Do you know who I’m having dinner with tonight, he asked a reporter, before mouthing the name of his dining companion in two voluptuous syllables: “Ru-Pert,” he whispered, referring to Rupert Murdoch, the Australian media mogul who oversees News Corporation.

Moments later, as promised, Mr. Murdoch materialized with his wife, Jerry Hall. Mr. Trump hopped behind the wheel of a golf cart, and Ms. Hall climbed in beside him.

Then, with Mr. Murdoch, clad in sunglasses, hanging off the back, the trio set out for yet another tour of, as Mr. Trump put it, “one of the great sights of the world.”

Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.

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