Trump's Filthy, Unhealthy Properties Are About To Get Filthier And Less Healthy

Trump is a danger to public health... I think we all know that already. But so are his various businesses. Trump's hotels, restaurants and resorts are frequently cited for health and safety violations-- rodent droppings, cockroaches, mice,  filth, unsanitary conditions, feces everywhere, bed bugs. Examples:

• In 1988, Trump was fined $300 by the City of New York for a sidewalk shed outside Trump Tower that was not up to code.
• In 2003, the Trump organization was cited by the New York City Department of Buildings for failure to maintain an elevator.
• In 2004, Trump Palace was fined $105 by the City of New York for possessing unregistered fuel burning equipment. According to city data, Trump has not yet paid this ticket.
• In 2009, the Trump Organization was fined $500 by the New York City Department of Buildings for failing to maintain Trump Tower to code.
• In 2010, the Trump Organization was fined $250 by the New York City Department of Buildings for failing to maintain Trump Tower to code.
• In 2011, the Trump Organization was fined $250 by the New York City Department of Buildings for failing to maintain Trump Tower to code.
• In 2012, Trump’s Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago was fined $46,000 by the EPA for environmental damage.
• In 2013, Trump Soho was fined $3,950 by the City of New York for failing to submit four annual tests for backflow preventers-- a violation of New York’s water code. With interest, Trump now owes the city $5,389.05 in unpaid fines on this violation.
• In 2014, Trump Cafe and Grill in Trump Tower was cited for 9 health violations-- 6 of them deemed “critical”-- including filth flies, dirty food-contact surfaces, and cold food stored at an improper temperature.
• In 2014, Trump Bar in Trump Tower was cited for 4 health violations-- 3 of them deemed “critical”-- for adulterated food, dirty food contact surfaces and cold food stored at an improper temperature.
• In 2015, Trump Park Avenue was fined $125 by the City of New York for failing to prevent unnecessary fire alarms-- a violation of New York’s fire code. Trump has not paid the ticket, and with interest he currently owes the city $144.29
• In 2015, Trump Cafe and Grill in Trump Tower was cited for 9 health violations-- 6 of them deemed “critical”-- including dirty food-contact surfaces, dirty wiping cloths, and cold food stored at an improper temperature.
• In 2015, Trump Bar in Trump Tower was cited for 2 health violations-- 1 of them deemed “critical”-- for dirty food contact surfaces.
• In 2015, the kitchen at Trump Soho was cited for 2 health violations-- one of them deemed “critical”-- for improperly stored sanitized equipment.
• In 2015, the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point was cited for 8 health violations-- 4 of them deemed “critical”-- including filth flies.
• In 2016, Trump criticized the Colorado Springs Fire Department for enforcing the fire code at one of his campaign rallies.
• In 2016, Trump Winery was fined $250 by Arizona officials for failing to comply with the state’s shipping regulations.
• In 2016, Trump Cafe and Grill in Trump Tower was cited for 5 health violations-- three of them deemed “critical”-- including live roaches and cold food stored at an improper temperature. • In 2016, Trump Bar in Trump Tower was cited for 2 health violations-- 1 of them deemed “critical”-- for dirty food-contact surfaces.
• In 2016, the kitchen at Trump Soho was cited for 2 “non-critical” health violations.
• In 2016, the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point was cited for 2 health violations, 1 of them deemed “critical.”
• In 2017, Trump’s restaurant at Mar-a-Lago was cited for 13 health violations, including undercooked fish and hot raw meat-- just days before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had dinner there. The inspection brought the clubhouse to a combined 78 health violations in just 3 years.
• In 2017, Trump Cafe and Grill in Trump Tower was cited for 6 health violations-- 2 of them deemed “critical”-- for the presence of filth flies and hot food stored at an improper temperature.
• In 2017, Trump Bar in Trump Tower was cited for 3 health violations-- 1 of them deemed “critical”-- for the presence of filth flies.
• In 2017, the kitchen at Trump Soho was cited for 3 health violations-- 1 of them deemed “critical”-- for the presence of mice.
• In 2017, the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point were cited for 4 health violations-- 3 of them critical-- including the lack of a food protection certificate.

Meanwhile the lies are unending, even as they endanger the health of Americans coast to coast. There's never been anyone in the White House like Trump before-- and, hopefully, there never will be again. Have American voters learned a lesson? I wish I could answer that affirmatively.

Trump's businesses have always cut corners and gotten by with the cheapest, meanest efforts at superficial cleanliness in the entire hospitality industry. There are reasons why Trump has used his first term to try to obliterate regulations that keep the public safe from unscrupulous businessmen like himself. But all this is about to get much worse as the war on coronavirus comes to Trump properties. Ben Protess, Steve Eder and Eric Lipton reported for the New York Times how "health restrictions have led to cutbacks at hotels and golf courses. But the swimming pool remains open at a Florida resort, and a New York golf course offers 'fresh air' without caddies." The Trump Organziation's already filthy kitchens, restrooms, hotel rooms, etc are about to become much filthier and much more unhealthy as Trump lays off cleaning staff everywhere.

Reeling from the global fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump’s family business has cut back hotel operations, closed some golf courses and restaurants and shed dozens of workers-- all while pushing to keep other properties open and promote them on social media.

In recent days, the Trump Organization cut staff from hotels in New York and Washington, halted new reservations at a hotel overlooking the Las Vegas Strip and closed golf courses in Los Angeles and the Miami area, according to people with knowledge of the matter. It also closed the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, which normally would be at a peak right now, with regular seasonal visits by Mr. Trump himself.

The cutbacks, expected to continue in coming days, were a last resort, a company executive said, as the priority had been keeping thousands of employees and contract workers on the job. The company has a portfolio of more than a dozen golf clubs and at least partially owns or operates five-star hotels in Chicago, Hawaii, Las Vegas, New York, Vancouver and Washington, as well as Ireland and Scotland.

Generally, the company has folded the tent only when local authorities mandated it, despite a growing national urgency to limit social gatherings and close nonessential businesses. In an interview, Eric Trump, the president’s son who manages the family business, said the company was trying to limit shutdowns.

“As an organization we are following federal, state and local direction and guidance very carefully,” he said.

For those properties that remain open, the company has continued promotional campaigns on social media and through direct email.

On Friday morning, Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, a public course in the Bronx, invited guests on Twitter to play a round: “Looking to get some #freshair? The golf course is a great place to relieve stress and exercise social distancing #openingday.”

Similarly, the president’s golf club in Hudson Valley, N.Y., was closed for the winter season but opened its course to members on Wednesday as a sort of cure for cabin fever, according to an email reviewed by the New York Times.

“Governor Cuomo has recommended that we use public spaces and parks for exercise and relaxation,” the club said in the email to members. “With this in mind, we are opening the golf course to give you an opportunity to get out of the house and enjoy the great outdoors!”

...For now, the president’s company has continued to accept new reservations at its hotels in Chicago and on Central Park West in New York. But the New York hotel is shedding staff, laying off 40 employees so far, and reducing the hours of others, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In a letter to owners of hotel units in the building on Thursday, Matthew Vandegrift, general manager of the property, called it an “unprecedented event” and warned of a “significant shortfall in revenues.”

“While we recognize that hope is not a strategy, I can assure you we are thoroughly analyzing expenses,” Mr. Vandegrift wrote, in the letter obtained by The Times. “Strategies have been deployed to mitigate the expected financial losses as a result of COVID-19.”

Also this week, the Trump Organization shuttered most amenities inside its Washington hotel-- the restaurant, bar and spa-- to comply with a local order. Ordinarily a magnet for Republican officials and lobbyists, the property was turning away anyone without a room key or a reservation on Wednesday.

Mickael Damelincourt, the managing director, posted a message on Twitter showing the hotel’s empty lobby. “A sleepy America’s Living Room... Ready to rebound bigger than ever... Be safe everyone!!!” he wrote.

The hotel has roughly 5 percent occupancy, and 95 percent of the staff is not working at the moment, according to John Boardman, the executive secretary-treasurer of Unite Here Local 25, a union with 174 workers at the hotel. He called it a “real skeleton staff” in the same predicament as other nearby hotels. The union is negotiating benefits for displaced workers with the Trump hotel and others.

“The industry is devastated,” Mr. Boardman said. “It is devastated in the near term, and what we are starting to see is a round of longer-term cancellations as the uncertainty increases. We are not expecting people to be called back to work any time soon.”

Over the past week, several Trump businesses, on their various social media accounts, gave little sense that something was amiss. The Doral resort near Miami suggested a Friday the 13th game of golf and a round of drinks at the bar. On Monday, the Westchester, N.Y., golf club showed off its 101-foot waterfall. And on Sunday, the Washington hotel invited guests to join in for “Dessert Night” on Fridays.

But by Wednesday morning, many of the accounts posted an American flag and a variation of a message sending well wishes to patrons during “these uncertain times.”

As recently as last Saturday morning, the Trump golf club in Bedminster, N.J., e notified members of plans to “remain open,” adding, “We hope that you and your families will continue to see it as a place where you can relax and enjoy the terrific weather we’re having before spring has even started,” an email reviewed by The Times said.

That night, the club hosted a private party, a person with knowledge of the gathering said.

But after Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey instituted various restrictions on recreational businesses, the club notified its members on Tuesday that although they could still play golf, there would be no caddies, or pretty much any other services. “Wash your hands!” the email exhorted.

The president’s Mar-a-Lago club was the site of events earlier in March that included several people who have since been confirmed to have coronavirus, including two Brazilian officials who accompanied President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil to a dinner with Mr. Trump at the resort on March 7.

Last week, The Trump Organization sent out a notice to Mar-a-Lago members notifying them that the club would be cleaned on Monday but remain open the rest of the week.

Now, the club has closed, at least temporarily, based on calls for social distancing.

Not far away, at the golf resort in Doral, another of Mr. Trump’s highest-profile properties, the company was still accepting new reservations on Friday, though it had shut down its courses and restaurants. Still, according to a hotel employee, the family pool remained open.

A Stopped Clock Asks Two Good Questions — Will Trump Resign? Will Democrats Impeach Him?

Trump Impeached; Pence Pleased (source)

by Gaius Publius

In a piece called "Do Democrats Want an Impeachment Fight?" Pat Buchanan asks two key questions for people not focused on the story behind the story, the story of which the story we're watching is just a part. Those question are:

• Will Trump resign?
• Will House Democrats impeach him?

Yes, I know this is Pat Buchanan we're going to quote, or "Pat F-ing Buchanan" to use the name he's known by on the left. Still, he's been doing some decent work lately — like a stopped clock that's still managed to be right more than twice a day.

(In the era of Trump, does time circle back on itself? That's probably more true than not. We do seem to be caught in a Groundhog Day loop of real problems like climate, Trump tweets about lawyers, and dollar-driven media focus on just the tweets.)

Here's Buchanan on each of these questions. I think his analysis is pretty spot on (with one proviso, which I'll offer at the end). First, part of Buchanan's intro (my emphasis throughout):

Would a Democratic House, assuming we get one, really impeach a president for paying hush money to old girlfriends?

Hence the high-fives among never-Trumpers are premature.

But if Cohen’s guilty plea and Tuesday’s conviction of campaign manager Paul Manafort do not imperil Trump today, what they portend is ominous. For Cohen handled Trump’s dealings for more than a decade and has pledged full cooperation with prosecutors from both the Southern District of New York and the Robert Mueller investigation.

Nothing that comes of this collaboration will be helpful to Trump.

Keep in mind Mueller's ability to keep Cohen, Manafort and many others "singing" as you read on. Now our two questions.

Will Trump resign? Buchanan on that:

Trump is not going to resign. To do so would open him up to grand jury subpoenas, federal charges and civil suits for the rest of his life. To resign would be to give up his sword and shield, and all of his immunity. He would be crazy to leave himself naked to his enemies.

No, given his belief that he is under attack by people who hate him and believe he is an illegitimate president, and seek to bring him down, he will use all the powers of the presidency in his fight for survival. And as he has shown, these powers are considerable: the power to rally his emotional following, to challenge courts, to fire Justice officials and FBI executives, to pull security clearances, to pardon the convicted.

Second, will House Democrats attempt to impeach him? Buchanan again:

Democrats who have grown giddy about taking the House should consider what a campaign to bring down a president, who is supported by a huge swath of the nation and has fighting allies in the [rightwing] press, would be like.

Why do it? Especially if they knew in advance the Senate would not convict.

That America has no desire for a political struggle to the death over impeachment is evident. Recognition of this reality is why the Democratic Party is assuring America that impeachment is not what they have in mind.

Today, it is Republicans leaders who are under pressure to break with Trump, denounce him, and call for new investigations into alleged collusion with the Russians. But if Democrats capture the House, then they will be the ones under intolerable pressure from their own media auxiliaries to pursue impeachment.

Taking the House would put newly elected Democrats under fire from the right for forming a lynch mob, and from the mainstream media for not doing their duty and moving immediately to impeach Trump.

Democrats have been laboring for two years to win back the House. But if they discover that the first duty demanded of them, by their own rabid followers, is to impeach President Trump, they may wonder why they were so eager to win it.

Don't be shocked if House Democrats under Nancy Pelosi or any other Speaker take impeachment off the table. Some will call that Democratic cowardice, but Buchanan is right about the other factors as well. Right now it's Republicans who are under pressure. If Democrats take the House, the pressure will shift to them — and the country will split even further and more violently.

Are Democratic leaders ready to fight that war? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. We'll just have to wait and see. Regardless of what's moral and right though, there are no good near-term political choices.
I agree with Buchanan that either way, we're in for a hellish year.

How Mueller Can Remove Trump Without Congress

If you've read this space before, you won't be surprised at the next suggestion. There is a way for Mueller to remove Trump from office. Let's go back to Buchanan's explanation of why Trump can't resign:

Trump is not going to resign. To do so would open him up to grand jury subpoenas, federal charges and civil suits for the rest of his life. To resign would be to give up his sword and shield, and all of his immunity. He would be crazy to leave himself naked to his enemies.

He's right as far as he goes. But what if Mueller takes the threat of life in court, and the legal destruction of the Trump Organization, off the table?

In other words, what if Mueller sits down with Trump, just the two of them, and says this:
​
“Sir, these are your choices. You can stay in office until Congress impeaches you and the Senate convicts, which you think will never happen. And while you're doing that, I’ll burn down the Trump Organization till it’s a smoking hole in the ground. Keep in mind we just flipped your CFO. He's already talking.

“Then, when you finally do leave, you'll leave broke. The only structure in the world with your name on it will be your mailbox, and inside that you'll find a lifetime of summons to court. That's your first option.

“Your second option: You walk out of here now for any reason you like, congratulate Mr. Pence on his good fortune, and I will make all of your troubles go away — forever.

“It's up to you, sir. Which do you choose?”

I still think this is how the endgame plays out, with a deal offer no one talks about on TV. And I think Trump takes the deal.

To all appearances, Mueller's job is to get rid of Trump and not soil the designated heir (Mike Pence). That's what the whole of the mainstream press and much of the voting public is cheering and wants. I don't think Mueller plans to disappoint.

Side note: If you're cheering for Trump to fall and not asking just as loudly why Mueller is playing hands-off with Pence, you're cheering for Pence to replace Trump. If so, no problem — I hear people say "first things first" all the time. But it would be good to admit that this is what we'll get if Mueller gives Pence a pass while taking everyone else to the cleaners.

GP
 

The Deadbeat Theory, an Occam's Razor Explanation of Donald Trump's Subservience to Putin

"Trump and Russia: Which conspiracy is it?" is the title of this cartoon. What if it's both?

by Gaius Publius

It's very hard to write about "Trump! Russia!" in today's environment, though I've tried. On the one hand, so many things may be true but can't really be proved, and on the other, so many things that may not be true at all are presumed true, that it's hard to find — and even harder to present — the actual evidenciary basis for the many allegations.

Is Trump's behavior "treacherous," as John Brennan, Obama's CIA director, recently wrote? That's quite a serious charge. Treachery means treason, the kind they hang you for.

Is Trump being blackmailed by Putin, as Nancy Pelosi has implied several times? That's quite a serious charge as well, though she won't commit to holding House hearings on the matter if she's elected speaker, which may suggest she doesn't believe the charge herself. But after all, if a president really were being blackmailed — by anyone — isn't it the constitutional duty of Congress to investigate and, if true, stop it? If she believed her words, why would she shirk her duty on such an important matter?

Is Trump an "agent of Russia" or a "Russian asset,"as any number of writers have asserted? This too is a serious charge, and puts us into a John LeCarré world of spies and double dealing.

Finally, as I've asked many times, is it possible there's more to this story than almost anyone is reporting? Could some (but not all) of what Democrats and the anti-Trump media are asserting be correct, while at the same time, some (but not all) of what pro-Trump partisans are saying is also true?

The obvious answer is, yes, of course it's possible. Far stranger things have happened in the world of spooks and government officials. After all, the CIA also had "high confidence" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Either they blatantly lied — a possibility with any intelligence service — and served up "information" that Establishment consensus wanted served up, or "high confidence" doesn't mean what most people think it means. (Most people think it means "proof.")

George W. Bush, new-minted Hero of the Resistance, looking for Saddam's WMD, the ones our intelligence community had "high confidence" he possessed

And let's not forget, Resistance hero Robert Mueller is also the Bush FBI director who subverted (kinder souls say "bungled") the 2001 Anthrax Attack investigation when it looked like it was pointing in the wrong direction. "Wrong direction" means pointing to a domestic conspiracy that may have involved right-to-life religionists, an angle Mueller's FBI refused for eight years to pursue.

As a result he proved almost nothing. Mueller didn't even prove that the purported "lone gunman" in that attack, Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide after he was finally accused, was even involved, just that his lab was.

Is it possible Mueller is handling the Trump-Russia investigation in the same way he handled that one — and, as before, working for Establishment players whose motives he's not disclosing? Or has he really transformed himself into the paragon of integrity, the shining knight in armor, that we now wish him to be?

What can we truly believe, independent of what we may want to believe, and what the voices all around us are shouting?

The Deadbeat Theory

Let's start here in our search for more solid ground, with a piece by Thom Hartmann. He writes that there are three prominent and plausible (if only remotely) theories that explain Trump's recent apparent subservience to Vladimir Putin. These are:

• The Manchurian Candidate theory
• The Wannabe Dictator theory
• The Deadbeat theory

Each theory has its adherents and logic, but for Hartmann's money, the third makes the most sense. I'll leave you to read the whole of his piece to see his presentation of the first two explanations (his titles are descriptive; the theories assert what you think they assert).

About the Deadbeat theory, Hartmann writes this:

We all know that Trump is both a terrible negotiator and a terrible businessman. Dozens of his companies have gone down in flames, thousands of small businesses and workers have been screwed out of money he owed them, and his bankruptcies are legendary.

If the American people didn’t seem to think this was a big deal, the American banks sure did. After Trump’s last bankruptcy, so far as press reports indicate, he could no longer borrow money at reasonable rates here in the U.S., and a real estate developer who can’t borrow money is rapidly out of business.

So Trump, as his son Eric tells it, turned away from U.S. banks and went to a number of Russian billionaires for his money. In 2014, when asked directly how he could have acquired $100 million in cash for new golf course acquisitions, Eric Trump famously said, “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

So, if President Putin were to order his own billionaires to get their money back out of Trump’s properties and refuse to give him any more, Trump could well end up broke.

Really broke.

As in, losing all his properties, from Mar-a-Lago to Trump Tower.

Imagine Trump in a world in which no human structure says "Trump" but his own mailbox. It's safe to say that aside from his family, or some of its members at least, what Trump prizes most in the world is money and the Trump Organization, a fact that makes Trump uniquely vulnerable to blackmail (including by Robert Mueller, who's investigating its finances).

After describing why "losing all his properties" may terrify Trump, Hartmann continues:

Trump isn’t afraid of being exposed as a lout or a racist; he’s afraid of being financially wiped out if Russian oligarchs pull out of Trump properties.

It’s why he’s even willing to take the risks and political hit by defying the Constitution and hanging onto the Trump Hotel in D.C.—he needs the money to keep his businesses afloat.

In 2016, Fortune magazine analyzed his federal public filings, and concluded that he’s both less wealthy than he says and appears, and that he regularly lies about it.

Occam’s razor dictates that, like with everything else in Trump’s entire life, this is all about money and its relationship to his own fragile self-image. If a few Russian oligarchs said, “Nyet,” he would suffer severe damage, both reputational and business-wise, and it may well be damage from which he couldn’t recover....

A man who depends on you for his financial lifeblood is a man more willing to give in around governmental and policy areas.

Now that Robert Mueller has, according to some reports, acquired access to Trump’s business records, all this may be coming out, which may explain why Trump seems so obsessed with, and frightened by, Mueller’s and the FBI’s “witch hunt.”

He concludes: "This is one of the few scenarios that explain pretty much everybody’s behavior within the Trump Crime Family, as well as the people in their immediate orbit."

It's true we're still hip deep in speculation, and speculation has been getting a very bad name lately, with statements like these — "We just watched a U.S. president acting on behalf of a hostile power" — being bandied about.

Still, Occam's Razor might allow us to restrict our thoughts to motives that, absent other evidence, make the most sense.

GP
 

Trump's Toxic Brand Is Now Less Than Worthless

Every time another Trump property is called out for being a major hub or criminal activity-- like in Baku and more recently, Panama City, the Trump's go to great lengths to explain that they don't own the hub and they don't know anything about it... all they do is rent the building Trump's name. In fact, all his bullshit about being a multibillionaire was always based on the "value" of his name as a brand. Before he moved into the White House, he owned about $940 million in real stuff you can sell but the $10 billion dollar claims about his worth were all based on his brand being worth any random number of billions of dollars.

Well, it turns out the nearly bankrupt Trump Soho is paying him for his name--paying him to take it down and end any association between the hotel and the toxic Trump brand. Back in April we mentioned that the Trump Soho's sushi restaurant, Koi, shut down. Grubstreet explained that "his controversial campaign’s harsh rhetoric and administration’s agenda have made many potential customers uneasy about giving their business to Trump’s properties. Residents of Manhattan’s Trump Place successfully changed their property’s name, two celebrity chefs famously backed out of D.C.’s Trump International Hotel and others were unwilling to replace them, and Trump’s new line of hotels won’t bear his name. Then last December, a month after three NBA teams announced they wouldn’t stay at his hotels, members of the Cleveland Cavaliers (including Black Lives Matter supporter LeBron James) refused to stay at the Trump Soho. Now, that hotel’s restaurant operator, Koi, an international chainlet of sushi spots for beautiful people, is shuttering its outpost there. But this isn’t a closing as usual. It’s collateral damage from the rise of Trump." Trump's name will come off the hotel and the Trump Organization will cease managing the property.

Trump SoHo has emerged as one of the clearest examples of how Trump's divisive politics have redefined his luxury hotel and real estate company, which spent years courting upscale customers in liberal urban centers where he is now deeply unpopular.

...The deal to remove the Trump name was made with the Trump SoHo condominium board and the property's majority owner, CIM Group, a California-based real estate investment firm. The hotel is divided into condominiums whose owners allowed them to be rented out as hotel rooms.

"We recognize and sincerely appreciate [the Trump Organization's] contributions to this exceptional asset," Bill Doak, CIM Group's first vice president of hotels, said in a statement.

The release did not specify what the building would be renamed or who would run it. Trump Organization and CIM Group officials declined to answer questions about the reasons for the move.

Officials described the transaction as a "buyout" but did not specify whether any money changed hands between the Trump Organization and the building's owners. The president's business now receives 5.75 percent of the hotel's operating revenue as a management fee, according to company documents posted online by Reuters.

This will be the third time since Trump's election that his name has been removed from a building. In July, the Trump name was taken off the Trump International Hotel in Toronto after the property's owner reached a similar buyout deal. The hotel will be reopened as a St. Regis, according to the Toronto Star.

And last year, the owners of three Trump Place apartment buildings in New York announced that those properties would be renamed after tenant complaints. Trump's company no longer had a business relationship with the buildings.

...[T]he Trump Organization has seen greens-fee revenue fall at its golf courses in Los Angeles and the Bronx, and it has lost dozens of customers who rented out banquet rooms for parties or golf courses for charity tournaments.

One of the biggest changes has happened at Mar-a-Lago, the president's for-profit social club, which doubles as the "winter White House" in Palm Beach, Florida. Last summer, 19 charities canceled galas or other fundraisers they had planned for this winter at Mar-a-Lago, costing the Trump Organization hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

The SoHo hotel was once a jewel of the Trump empire. Opened in 2010, it offered Hudson River views, a spa named after Ivanka Trump and a location in one of New York's most fashionable neighborhoods. Trump promoted the property on his reality show The Apprentice.



In 2012, prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney's office scrutinized the property's development as part of an investigation into whether Trump's children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. committed fraud by misleading condo buyers about the project, according to a report last month from ProPublica, WNYC and the New Yorker. District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. decided not to pursue charges.

In its early days, the hotel attracted Hollywood celebrities and many NBA teams. "When I stay here in New York, I'm at the Trump SoHo," Oklahoma City Thunder star Russell Westbrook told GQ in 2014, saying the hotel's luxe lobby had inspired his fashion designs.

But by this year, at least 11 of the 12 NBA teams that previously stayed at Trump SoHo had quit. Some cited logistical reasons. Others said they could not stay at a hotel with Trump's name on it.

"The president has seemingly made a point of dividing us as best he can," Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr told the Washington Post in an interview earlier this year. His team quit using Trump SoHo in 2016. "He continually offends people, and so people don't want to stay at his hotel," Kerr said. "It's pretty simple."

Trump SoHo hotel rates have fallen dramatically. Rooms are routinely offered online for below $300 a night. Luxury Manhattan hotels took in an average daily rate of $451 in the second quarter of this year, according to the accounting and consulting firm PWC.

The Trump Organization does have plans to expand its hotel business, targeting areas where Trump's political brand is more popular.

Those plans include two new, less-expensive brands of hotels called Scion and American Idea. But since those brands were announced in June, progress has been slow. The three discount hotels that were supposed to start the American Idea brand are still operating under their old names.

And at the site chosen for the first Scion hotel, in Cleveland, Mississippi, construction stopped weeks ago while Trump Organization and its partners reworked plans.