Trump eyes hosting election night party at his DC hotel
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has his eye on hosting an election night party at his own hotel in the nation’s capital.
Over the past
several days, the campaign has pushed out fundraising emails in the
president’s name offering donors the chance to enter a drawing “to join
Team Trump at the Election Night Party in my favorite hotel,” in
Washington, suggesting he will use his luxury hotel as the backdrop for
reacting to election results. The campaign has also spotlighted plans
for the party in fundraising blasts from the president’s son Donald
Trump. Jr.
“November 3rd will go down in history as the night we
won FOUR MORE YEARS. It will be absolutely EPIC, and the only thing that
could make it better is having YOU there,” Trump said in a fundraising
solicitation.
For Trump, an election night party at his own hotel
is symbolic for a businessman who leveraged his celebrity as a reality
star and New York real estate magnate to win the nation’s highest
office.
Critics see it as one more reminder of how the president
has used his office to personally profit as foreign leaders,
conservative supporters and administration officials use the lobby of
Washington’s Trump International Hotel as an unofficial clubhouse for
the Trump presidency.
Since 2017, the president and Republican
National Committee have held several fundraisers at the president’s
Washington hotel in the historic Old Post Office building, which the
president’s company leases from the federal government.
Over the
course of his presidency, the Trump campaign, the RNC and their
joint-fundraising committees have spent over $7.4 million at
Trump-branded properties.
The Washington hotel, which is blocks
from the White House, has been sold out for weeks for Election Day as
well as the days before and after Nov. 3. A basic room then is going for
$1,200 a night, nearly triple the $476 room rate on Monday.
“Donald
Trump has spent his entire presidency funneling taxpayer, campaign,
special interest and foreign government money into the business that he
still owns,” said Donald Sherman, deputy director of the nonprofit
government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington. “In some ways, election night is going to be the pinnacle of
his self dealing.”
The White House referred questions on the
president’s election night plans to the Trump campaign, which did not
respond to requests for comment.
It’s unclear how big Trump’s
election night party will be. The District of Columbia, under
coronavirus protocols, has capped mass gatherings at 50 people.
The
president has sidestepped the district’s rules, which hold no weight on
federal property, at other recent events. The president hosted hundreds
of people on the White House grounds for an Independence Day weekend
celebration, for his Republican National Convention speech in August and
again at last month’s Rose Garden announcement of the nomination of
Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Several attendees,
including Trump, tested positive for the coronavirus in the days
following Barrett’s event. Few guests wore masks.
District of
Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters on Monday that she had heard
of plans for an election night party and added, “We will be in touch
with our licensee, which is the hotel.”
Bowser also more broadly
questioned Trump’s wisdom in holding large gatherings at a moment when
cases are spiking in the U.S. Trump was expected to host a ceremony on
the South Lawn of the White House on Monday after an anticipated Senate
vote to confirm Barrett.
“You can believe that you can go to the
White House and get COVID and that nothing’s going to happen to you.
Perhaps,” Bowser said. “Or you can die from it.”
Trump held his
2016 election party in his then-hometown of New York. But he booked his
victory party at New York’s Hilton in Midtown Manhattan because his own
nearby Trump International Hotel & Tower didn’t have a big enough
room.
It’s unclear how much of a presence Trump himself will be in
the election night festivities this time. With a significant portion of
the electorate opting to mail in their ballots, that could delay
tabulation of results.
Sherman noted that Trump, whenever he
leaves office, will have a Secret Service detail for the rest of his
life like other past presidents. With every Trump trip to one of his
properties, taxpayers will cover the tab of agents protecting the 45th
president.
“I have a high level of confidence that Donald Trump will find a way to have government or special interest money go to his hotels regardless of the outcome of next week’s election,” Sherman said.
Associated Press writer Brian Slodysko contributed to this report.