The name of the new hotel chain is American Idea. It was inspired by stories heard in small towns on the campaign trail. The owner is now president of the United States.
That said, the Trump Organization wants to make something perfectly clear: It is not exploiting the presidency for profit.
The suggestion is “pure, unadulterated nonsense,” said Eric Danziger, CEO of the company’s hotel division, Trump Hotels. “I’m sure you’ve heard of American Express. I’m sure you’ve heard of American Airlines. … We didn’t invent the word ‘American.’ ”
President Donald Trump has been criticized for raising membership fees at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, boasting of his new Washington hotel that has become a favorite spot for foreign diplomats and benefiting from trademark approvals from China for possible future business there.
Now comes his company’s latest venture: a hotel chain.
The American Idea chain was unveiled Monday night in New York at a Trump Tower party hosted by the president’s two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., and featured a video showing the Washington Mall.
The first family plans to franchise the mid-market hotels, taking a cut of revenue, and leaving the management and ownership of the buildings to other developers. The first three are planned for Mississippi.
“They’re cashing in on the red states,” said Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “I’m not surprised that the Trump family would look to opportunities to commercially exploit his political success.”
Ethics expert Edwin Williamson, a former State Department legal adviser, isn’t so bothered by the new chain. He noted that the president is not bound by the federal ethics laws that limit other public officials from pursuing business interests while in office, and said he thinks Trump critics and the media are too fast to see conflicts of interest where there are none.
“There may be people who want do business with them because they are the president’s sons. But I don’t know what you do about that,” Williamson said. Anyway, he added, the deals struck will probably be “normal business transactions that meet the standard of the marketplace.”