Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announced Thursday that the upcoming G-7 summit will be hosted at President Trump’s resort in Miami, the Trump National Doral Golf Club, from June 10–12 of next year.
“It was almost like they built this facility [to host the summit],” Mulvaney said. “Doral was by far and away — by far and away — the best physical location.” In answering questions about whether the decision to host the summit at the property would violate ethics rules, Mulvaney claimed that hosting the G-7 at Doral was “millions of dollars cheaper” than hosting it at other potential locations, and said Trump was hosting the event “at cost,” and “has no interest” in profiting from the summit.
In August, during the 45th G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, Trump proposed Doral as a prospective location, calling it “really fantastic.”
“With Doral, we have a series of magnificent buildings — we call them bungalows,” Trump said at the time. “They each hold from 50 to 70 very luxurious rooms with magnificent views. We have incredible conference rooms, incredible restaurants. It’s like — it’s like such a natural — we wouldn’t even have to do the work that they did here.”
Trump’s comments sparked a House Judiciary Committee statement saying that it would investigate the proposal.
When asked if the decision puts Trump’s attacks on the Bidens over Ukraine into suspect, Mulvaney brushed off the question.
“The Trump family made their money before they went into politics,” he said. “That’s a big difference.”