Day 1,003: Trump blames Democrats for stopping his blatant corruption
In what would have been one of the most blatantly corrupt moves in American history, the White House announced earlier this week that Donald Trump’s South Florida resort would host the G7 summit next year.
Forget norms and even ethical concerns, Trump’s resort hosting the summit would clearly violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
After days of outrage, Trump announced late Saturday night that his resort would no longer host the summit. He, unsurprisingly, blamed Democrats and the media.
There’s a lot to unpack there. First, there’s no way to guarantee that Trump wouldn’t profit, since Trump is both the giver and receiver of services. He’s setting his own prices. Moreover, in the past, Trump has routinely profited off the government visiting his resorts. Also, the publicity value of the summit being held at his resort would have been tens of millions of dollars.
And while Trump said that they will “begin the search” for another site, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said earlier in that week that they had looked into other sites already.
For Democrats, they should absolutely take Trump’s blame as a badge of honor. But it’s also pretty clear that even Republicans wanted no part in defending these shenanigans, amid having to defend Trump on the Ukraine scandal and abandoning the Kurds in Syria.
The GOP’s rising frustration is a break from the past three years, when congressional Republicans almost uniformly defended Trump through a series of scandals that engulfed the White House. There’s now a growing sense among a quiet group of Republicans that the president is playing with fire, taking their loyalty for granted as they’re forced to “defend the indefensible,” as a senior House Republican said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly.
A few Republicans are starting to say they flat-out won’t do it anymore — particularly the president’s choice of his Trump National Doral Miami golf resort for next year’s Group of Seven summit of world leaders, a selection that will benefit him financially.
Even House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who frequently appears on Fox News to praise Trump, seemed uncomfortable about the Doral decision. Asked if he had a problem with it, he responded: “I don’t know how decisions are made on something like the G-7. Secret Service and a lot of other agents are involved with that and concerned about security . . . so I don’t’know what factors they used in deciding the locations.”
Trump still heads one of the most corrupt governments in American history. It’s just a smidgen less corrupt than it was yesterday.
1,003 days in, 459 to go
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