Following widespread bipartisan criticism, President Donald Trump said Saturday his Doral resort in Florida would not host next year’s Group of Seven summit of world leaders after all.
“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,” he tweeted. “We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately.”
The president had been under fire for the choice, announced Thursday by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, because it could ultimately benefit him financially. Mulvaney said world leaders would be able to stay at his resort at cost.
But even pundits on Fox News, Trump’s favored news outlet, criticized the move as a violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which forbids gifts of any kind to a president from foreign leaders.
Trump initially defended the move, saying on Twitter, “I thought I was doing something very good for our Country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 Leaders.”
The House was expected to vote next week on a non-binding resolution condemning the decision to hold the G7 at Trump National Doral next year, according to two House leadership sources.
Trump tweeted that his Miami resort had a many advantages, including “tremendous ballrooms & meeting rooms,” and that the hosting would come “at ZERO COST to the USA.”
Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner and Alexandra Moe contributed.