How stupid is Trump?

The records show the governments of Saudi Arabia, China and other nations spent more money at the Trump hotel than previously known

Officials from six nations spent more than $750,000 at former president Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington as they were trying to influence his administration, according to documents turned over to congressional investigators.

The records obtained by the House Oversight Committee from Mazars USA, Trump’s former accounting firm, show the governments of China, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates spent more money at Trump International Hotel — renting rooms for up to $10,000 a night — than previously known, during periods they were working to influence the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

“These documents sharply call into question the extent to which President Trump was guided by his personal financial interest while in office rather than the best interests of the American people,” Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chair of the committee, said in a statement Monday. “These documents, which the Committee continues to obtain from Mazars, will inform our legislative efforts to ensure that future presidents do not abuse their position of power for personal gain.”

The hotel records show lavish spending by foreign officials at Trump’s hotel. Malaysia’s prime minister spent $1,500 on a personal trainer during his eight-day, $259,724 stay, for example, and the Saudi Ministry of Defense spent $85,961 at the hotel for members of a Saudi delegation that included $10,500-a-night suites. Officials from Qatar spent more than $300,000 over three months ahead of a meeting between Trump and the emir of Qatar.

The Oversight Committee’s findings from financial documents build on extensive reporting by The Washington Post detailing how Trump’s hotel profited from foreign governments during his time in office, and the blurred lines between Trump’s business and his administration.

Last year, Maloney and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) released hundreds of pages of financial documents related to the Trump property from the General Services Administration — the agency that leased the federally owned property to Trump’s company — and estimated that the Trump hotel had received $3.7 million over three years in payments from foreign governments.

Trump and House Oversight reached a deal in September after years of litigation that would finally allow the committee to see a limited range of Trump’s records with Mazars to review his compliance with presidential ethics and disclosure laws.

The records released Monday cover a limited time period but Maloney requested additional documents from the National Archives, including all documents and communications related to the Trump hotel or hotel stays at Trump-owned properties, documents and communications related to foreign payments to the Trump hotel, and documents and communications related to Chinese or Russian tourism at the Trump hotel or stays by Chinese or Russian officials.

The committee also found that Republican lobbyists with close ties to the Trump administration who were working on behalf of these countries spent tens of thousands at the Trump hotel during the same time periods.

Elliott Broidy, the vice chairman of the Trump Victory Committee and the vice chairman of the Republican National Committee at the time, stayed at the Trump hotel “for four nights during the Malaysian Delegation visit and spent $5,345 over the course of September 2017,” Maloney wrote to Acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall in a letter laying out the committee’s findings. Broidy later pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent and admitted to secretly lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of Malaysian and Chinese interests.

former President Donald Trump’s campaign launch prevented a crowd of people from leaving what ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl called a “low-energy” speech.

...he reported on the crowd of people who tried to leave, but were prevented from doing so:

...I actually saw people trying to leave and people leaving early even before he was done. ... Perhaps a little concerned that the hall, the hall would empty out too much. They actually started preventing people from leaving.

...So now they’re no longer allowing people to leave.

Olivia Rubin of ABC News Investigations also posted video of the would-be escapees:

A crowd has formed by the exit of the ballroom as some try to leave Trump’s announcement speech before he has finished…. But security won’t let them. pic.twitter.com/O7C6QJfYgK

— Olivia Rubin (@OliviaRubinABC) November 16, 2022

Enforced attendance? Bad idea.

No, but see - that’s just how sneaky the radical leftists are. They wanted everyone to THINK they were Trump people, so that THEN, everyone would hate Trump, and … no, wait that can’t be it…

Okay see, Antifa and BLM were disguised as good old regular Americans, so that no one would SUSPECT that we, I mean they, no wait… I’ll get back to you.

It makes perfect sneaky radical libtard sense, I PROMISE.

I only talked about one thing, the frequency of hurricanes. Please don't convert the conversation into something else.

For God's sake. Read my posts before you respond to them. I didn't say the suit didn't mention it. I said that it was only one part of the suit, which was about a pattern of defamation lasting years.

As you might expect, many GOP power brokers are, shall we say, pretty unenthusiastic about once again tying their party’s electoral fortunes to a lying, divisive narcissist whose candidacy is compelled by the belief that running for president will make it harder for the Biden DOJ to send him to prison. One such power broker is news mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose various outlets have been conspicuously irritated with Trump since the midterm debacle. (The New York Post called him “Trumpty Dumpty.” Zing!) That said, as I wrote last week, the Murdochs are pragmatists who are very much aware that a good chunk of the Republican base remains enthralled with Trump—and that Trump’s base may well punish Murdoch if Fox News tries to kill the ex-president’s new campaign before it is clearly, verifiably dead.

How will Fox News handle this dilemma? If Wednesday morning’s Fox & Friends is any indication, Fox News may well cover this stage of Trump’s presidential campaign by, er, not covering it. The network’s morning show was once something of a daily ego boost for Trump. In 2017, I wrote that the show was in “lockstep with Trump’s reactionary agenda.” Trump and his proxies were frequent guests, while hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade spent most mornings effectively giving the president and his policies a big, warm hug.

On Wednesday morning, though, the three hosts seemed more like they were trying to wriggle out of the president’s grasp. While Fox & Friends did lead off the show with a discussion of Trump’s announcement, and while the hosts returned to the topic throughout the program’s three-hour run time, it was hardly the wall-to-wall Trump Fest that viewers would have seen in years past. This circumspection is notable because Trump’s announcement last night didn’t take anyone by surprise. Everyone knew it was coming, especially the producers of Fox & Friends, which is why it is difficult to see the arc of Trump’s favorite morning show following the announcement as anything but a deliberate editorial choice to dampen the impact of Trump’s attempted comeback tour.