President Trump offered to hold an annual meeting of world leaders at his golf resort in Florida. Then, the media and Democrats went berserk.
So, Trump on Saturday rescinded the invite.
“Based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020,” Trump wrote on Twitter. The president said his administration “will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately.”
Democrats accused Trump of trying to use the presidency to make money by hosting the G-7 international summit at the resort owned by his family.
Mick Mulvaney, the president’s acting chief of staff, announced the choice of Doral on Thursday, saying his staff had visited 10 other possible venues and concluded the Trump resort was “far and away the best physical facility.” On Sunday, Mulvaney said he was “honestly surprised at the level of pushback” after the announcement.
On Thursday, Mulvaney had downplayed Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, as a possible site. “I understand the folks who participated in it hated it and thought it was a miserable place to have the G-7,” adding that it was too small and too far away from airports for an international summit.
On Saturday, before Trump announced he would withdraw Doral from consideration, presidential candidate Joe Biden blasted the president. “Hosting the G7 at Trump’s hotel? A president should never be able to use the office for personal gain,” the former vice president said.
After Trump reversed his decision, the president took to Twitter to say he was simply trying to pick the best venue. And he said he was “willing to do it at NO PROFIT or, if legally permissible, at ZERO COST to the USA.”
“I thought I was doing something very good for our Country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 Leaders. It is big, grand, on hundreds of acres, next to MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, has tremendous ballrooms & meeting rooms, and each delegation would have … its own 50 to 70 unit building,” Trump wrote.
Trump went on to say the Doral site “would set up better than other alternatives. I announced that I would be willing to do it at NO PROFIT or, if legally permissible, at ZERO COST to the USA. But, as usual, the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners went CRAZY!”
I thought I was doing something very good for our Country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 Leaders. It is big, grand, on hundreds of acres, next to MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, has tremendous ballrooms & meeting rooms, and each delegation would have…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2019
…..its own 50 to 70 unit building. Would set up better than other alternatives. I announced that I would be willing to do it at NO PROFIT or, if legally permissible, at ZERO COST to the USA. But, as usual, the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners went CRAZY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2019
“Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington,” told the Associated Press that “Trump’s reversal Saturday ‘is a bow to reality, but does not change how astonishing it was that a president ever thought this was appropriate, or that it was something he could get away with.’”