Six of Donald Trump’s seven top-earning hotels and clubs are shut down due to coronavirus and he’s suddenly all hot to reopen businesses nationwide. Go figure.
In addition to Mar-a-Lago, the Trump Organization has closed its Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club and hotels in Las Vegas; Doral, Ireland; and Scotland. Those properties together produce $174 million a year in revenue, or $478,000 per day, The Washington Post reports. It’s not hard to imagine what’s going through Trump’s mind as he thinks about COVID-19’s effect on the economy.
Trump’s hotels in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York are still open—but their restaurants are closed, which is another revenue hit. At the Washington hotel alone, 160 people have been laid off. But Trump is much more enthusiastic about a hotel bailout than a serious restructuring of how the U.S. treats people like hotel workers. Again, go figure.
Donald Trump is always all about Donald Trump. The coronavirus pandemic is not going to change that, and we have to assess his actions through that lens, always. That said, when he calls for businesses to reopen, he’s not just thinking about profits at his own properties. He’s also thinking about his reelection chances, and because his strategic thinking only looks about a week forward in time, he’s not able to consider the effect on his reelection chances (or hotel profits) when deaths spike, overwhelming the medical system and, yes, damaging the economy all over again.