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Trump to host G7 at his own Florida resort property

vesper said:
Yes if it was legally possible for him to do so.
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Donate? I heard they claimed "atCost" Which is a bull**** term in the hotel industry.
 
PoS said:
This is a big nothingburger. It's the POTUS's privilege to decide on the venue. Big deal.
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Have you bothered to actually read the Constitution or do you think Third World status is something we should aim for ?
 
vesper said:
President Trump happens to own a piece of real estate that checks all the boxes of being accommodating to host the G-7 including considerations over security. He wanted to do so with no cost to the taxpayers. This shouldn't be surprising as he has donated his pay as president back to the people's purse to be used toward the opioid crisis, veterans and parks and recreation to name a couple.

Instead of looking at this as a generous offer to save the taxpayers a lot of money, you and your ilk immediately started barking that evil Trump was trying to benefit himself. Well you and the rest of the people on this forum whose hair has been on fire since the day he won the 2016 election can now put the flames out over this incident and deal with the 40 million it takes to host one of these events. But never fear, before the end of the day we can count on your hair will be on fire once again over something as you tout your self-righteous indignation over everything he does using your measure of double standards......, often repeating things that are not even true. All it takes is for someone to make an accusation and by golly you are right there to scream he is guilty! Like the 2 1/2 years you started countless threads claiming Trump was a treasonous asset for Russia.
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No cost to the taxpayers? Where do you get that gibberish? And even Floridians don't want to be in Florida during Hurricane season.
 
Oborosen said:
No, you can make a rational case for such. Seeing as Trump removed himself from that position so long as he's president and there is no issue with him even suggesting, nor following through with the idea. So long as the rules for such business are followed to the letter.

I'm just not looking for any small thing to be upset about.
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That's not even an attempt. What you cannot get around is when the boss is on both sides of the decision, and the negotiations, it cannot EVER be a fair process. It's always going to be some version of, "I looked around the entire country/state/city and what do you know? I have decided that my business is the most deserving of state money!!! And I and me decided on the terms of this contract, and it works out great for ME!!"

And the "rules for such business" are laid out in the various emoluments clauses and prohibitions on them "of any kind whatever" are some REALLY BROAD prohibitions, because the founders were not idiots. If the President in this case wants to avoid those broad prohibitions, the rules are also crystal clear - go to Congress and get the Congress to approve of the arrangement. That also makes a lot of sense because instead of POTUS and POTUS being on both sides, approving the deal and the terms, Congress is a disinterested observer who POTUS has to convince about the deal and the terms.
 
Jay59 said:
That's the biggest joke of the thread. You assume criminal intent.
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What I assumed is something far more ordinary, which is that when President goes searching for who is most worthy of state money, and decides that President is most deserving, it's self dealing, and it's corrupt, because that process cannot ever be a fair one. When President negotiates the terms with President, that cannot be a fair process.

And there is a solution, and it's in the Constitution - get CONGRESS to approve of the deal.
 
Just read this news that Trump has reversed field. Glad he came to his senses; though the fact he even announced is yet another example that the man has limited ability to distingush right from wrong. Not a good quality in a President.

My speculation here is that one of his political advisors told him that this emolument violation would surely show up as an Article of Impeachment, which would compromise his Republican Senate support forcing Senator to make a choice between sanctioning the emolument (and endorsing corruption) or be forced to vote for conviction on that Article. The "self-enrichment" aspect of emoluments is pretty easy for the public to understand, as Americas generally are not keen on governmental corruption. It would have been a sticky wicket politically.
 
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The reason this Doral G7 debacle has been called off has nothing to do with the Democrats. Trump has told the Dems to go F*** themselves more than once, and their predictable outrage did not faze him in the least.

The real reason for Trump changing his mind came from within his own party.

A lot of Republicans would like to be re-elected next year and they are seeing Trump's bulls*** self-dealing crap as just another unnecessary issue that they have to go back to their constituencies and defend. It's not helpful.
 
Oborosen said:
Yes, more assumption and more allegation. Not like that's really far out of line for most of you to do. But seeing as this isn't actually going to happen, I think the lot of you are going to have to find something new to cry about.
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I always thought this g7 stuff was just wrong on its face, and that one doesn't need to assume anything to come to the conclusion that Trump hosting the G7 at his property is wrong.

Maybe Trump supporters just don't know what the rules are? Maybe it's that simple?

Let's review...

Maybe the next topic can be that Trump shaves only two days a week and not three.. sounds about right for whatever kind of outrage the lot of you like to stoke.
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It's important that Trump tried to abuse his authority and engage in self-dealing.

Self-dealing - Wikipedia

Self-dealing is the conduct of a trustee, attorney, corporate officer, or other fiduciary that consists of taking advantage of their position in a transaction and acting in his own interests rather than in the interests of the beneficiaries of the trust, corporate shareholders, or their clients. According to the political scientist Andrew Stark, "n self-dealing, an officeholder's official role allows her to affect one or more of her own personal interests." It is a form of conflict of interest.
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It's important that Trump tried to put himself in a position where he would be violating the emoluments clause.

Title of Nobility Clause - Wikipedia

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
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upsideguy said:
My speculation here is that one of his political advisors told him that this emolument violation would surely show up as an Article of Impeachment, which would compromise his Republican Senate support ...
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Stealers Wheel said:
The reason this Doral G7 debacle has been called off has nothing to do with the Democrats. ... The real reason for Trump changing his mind came from within his own party.
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I disagree with both. Trump has shown time and again he has neither morals nor does he care if he breaks the law. Neither does he care about Republicans.

The main thing he cares about is $$. So Dems stopped this because House of Representatives has the power of the purse and they told Trump they were not going to pay for it:

On Friday, new legislation to block the plan was introduced by Democrats in Congress ... The bill, called “Trump’s Heist Undermines the G-7 (THUG) Act”, would have cut off all federal funding for the move, and require the White House to turn over all relevant documents that show how administration officials decided on Doral.
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Source (Thanks to TU Curmudgeon for the source)
 
vesper said:
President Trump happens to own a piece of real estate that checks all the boxes of being accommodating to host the G-7 including considerations over security. He wanted to do so with no cost to the taxpayers. This shouldn't be surprising as he has donated his pay as president back to the people's purse to be used toward the opioid crisis, veterans and parks and recreation to name a couple.
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When Mulvaney announced the deal, he did NOT even suggest that it would be at "no cost" to taxpayers It was announced that it would be for no profits, which is entirely, completely, apples and dump trucks different, and he wouldn't commit to Trump opening up his books on the "at no PROFIT" claim. After the deal was withdrawn, Trump invented the "at no cost" claim.

Instead of looking at this as a generous offer to save the taxpayers a lot of money, you and your ilk immediately started barking that evil Trump was trying to benefit himself. Well you and the rest of the people on this forum whose hair has been on fire since the day he won the 2016 election can now put the flames out over this incident and deal with the 40 million it takes to host one of these events.
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Huh, it's weird that a serial liar who has refused all transparency with his personal finances wasn't trusted when he claimed that he wouldn't make a "profit" on this deal! Do you take the word of the serial liars on your life? Of course you do, right? After all, just because they lied to you about 108 things, doesn't mean you shouldn't trust them on #109!!

And the "selection" process was hopelessly non-transparent. The WH said they evaluated a place in Tennessee, my state. No one knows which property. I don't know how much it would have cost at this unknown property, so how can I evaluate savings when there are no cost estimates for holding it at Doral versus at ?????????????

As I've also mentioned, there's a process for getting around the emoluments clauses and the self dealing concerns - get Congress to sign off on the location. Put the deal and the terms in writing, in a contract, make this public including the costs, who would bear them, etc. and then ask Congress to vote on it and give their blessing.

But never fear, before the end of the day we can count on your hair will be on fire once again over something as you tout your self-righteous indignation over everything he does using your measure of double standards......, often repeating things that are not even true. All it takes is for someone to make an accusation and by golly you are right there to scream he is guilty! Like the 2 1/2 years you started countless threads claiming Trump was a treasonous asset for Russia.
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If you want to have the common courtesy of backing up your BS allegations, please do so. The threads I started claiming Trump was a treasonous asset for Russia is ZERO, for example. And if you think I repeated something untrue, quote me.

But if you need to resort to lies about me to defend Trump, that should tell you something about what Trump is forcing his defenders to do to defend his conduct, and I'd be upset if Trump was doing that to me.

FWIW, the important opposition here came from Republicans.
 
ClaraD said:
No cost to the taxpayers? Where do you get that gibberish? And even Floridians don't want to be in Florida during Hurricane season.
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From Trump of course, who invented this part of the deal after he announced it was withdrawn.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
.....its own 50 to 70 unit building. Would set up better than other alternatives. I announced that I would be willing to do it at NO PROFIT or, if legally permissible, at ZERO COST to the USA. But, as usual, the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners went CRAZY!
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And even the "at zero cost TO THE USA" is a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, given that one big problem is foreign governments paying Trump, and if he had a fundraising committee where donors interested in gaining influence with Trump paid the costs, it would make the conflicts WORSE, not better.
 
I'm glad Trump backed down on this.

I'm sad ethically-challenged Trump supporters still don't understand the difference between right and wrong.
 
Slavister said:
I disagree with both. Trump has shown time and again he has neither morals nor does he care if he breaks the law. Neither does he care about Republicans.

The main thing he cares about is $$. So Dems stopped this because House of Representatives has the power of the purse and they told Trump they were not going to pay for it:



Source (Thanks to TU Curmudgeon for the source)
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How does Trump tell the Dems to go F*** themselves? In this case it's spelled V E T O, that is, if this silly bill would actually get a vote in Moscow Mitch's senate. Besides that, if Trump didn't get the funding, he could just declare a "national emergency" and take the money from the Pentagon or VA.

Of course Trump doesn't care about Republicans. He does, however realize that he would be served well in a second term if he had an impeachment-proof GOP in the senate.
 
Only a criminal idiot like Crooked Donald would even suggest this -- but here's a solution. Don't charge anyone, it's free for everyone, his treat -- it's on The Donald and the G7 is his guest.

Afterall, he's really rich - said so himself. So, what's the big deal?




EDIT: Just saw it was called off an hour ago. I can't say I'm surprised, I never believed the PTB would let this happen. It's good to know there are (sometimes) still adults in the room to slap-down this criminal idiot.

:cool:
 
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Stealers Wheel said:
How does Trump tell the Dems to go F*** themselves? In this case it's spelled V E T O, that is, if this silly bill would actually get a vote in Moscow Mitch's senate. Besides that, if Trump didn't get the funding, he could just declare a "national emergency" and take the money from the Pentagon or VA.

Of course Trump doesn't care about Republicans. He does, however realize that he would be served well in a second term if he had an impeachment-proof GOP in the senate.
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Good point. Thanks.
 
vesper said:
Yes if it was legally possible for him to do so.
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If the offer came "all expenses paid" such that the only benefit he'd personally reap is the publicity for his resort, I wouldn't reject it outright.

Having said this, Pres. Trump knows his detractors and enemies are legion, and that anything involving a summit and one of his businesses would stir up outrage and claims of malfeasance. Dangling it in front of them to watch them explode isn't a political tactic I endorse. If he gets burned by the public perception that he wanted to no-bid the G7 for resort revenue, that's his own fault.

At the very least, he should have opened the venue to bidding. The resort could have entered a bid of $0.01, and if (when) it won, this would not only demonstrate that it was selected fairly but also that the bid was a charitable donation (i.e. the publicity wasn't worth the cost to all other bidders). If this is what he was actually proposing, disregard the criticism.
 
JasperL said:
When Mulvaney announced the deal, he did NOT even suggest that it would be at "no cost" to taxpayers It was announced that it would be for no profits, which is entirely, completely, apples and dump trucks different, and he wouldn't commit to Trump opening up his books on the "at no PROFIT" claim. After the deal was withdrawn, Trump invented the "at no cost" claim.



Huh, it's weird that a serial liar who has refused all transparency with his personal finances wasn't trusted when he claimed that he wouldn't make a "profit" on this deal! Do you take the word of the serial liars on your life? Of course you do, right? After all, just because they lied to you about 108 things, doesn't mean you shouldn't trust them on #109!!

And the "selection" process was hopelessly non-transparent. The WH said they evaluated a place in Tennessee, my state. No one knows which property. I don't know how much it would have cost at this unknown property, so how can I evaluate savings when there are no cost estimates for holding it at Doral versus at ?????????????

As I've also mentioned, there's a process for getting around the emoluments clauses and the self dealing concerns - get Congress to sign off on the location. Put the deal and the terms in writing, in a contract, make this public including the costs, who would bear them, etc. and then ask Congress to vote on it and give their blessing.



If you want to have the common courtesy of backing up your BS allegations, please do so. The threads I started claiming Trump was a treasonous asset for Russia is ZERO, for example. And if you think I repeated something untrue, quote me.

But if you need to resort to lies about me to defend Trump, that should tell you something about what Trump is forcing his defenders to do to defend his conduct, and I'd be upset if Trump was doing that to me.

FWIW, the important opposition here came from Republicans.
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You handed the microphone to him. Don't complain if he talks.
 
COTO said:
If the offer came "all expenses paid" such that the only benefit he'd personally reap is the publicity for his resort, I wouldn't reject it outright.

Having said this, Pres. Trump knows his detractors and enemies are legion, and that anything involving a summit and one of his businesses would stir up outrage and claims of malfeasance. Dangling it in front of them to watch them explode isn't a political tactic I endorse. If he gets burned by the public perception that he wanted to no-bid the G7 for resort revenue, that's his own fault.
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This is so silly. You are basically saying if Trump does something bad then Trump will be accused of doing something bad by his political opponents.

Well, duh.
 
ClaraD said:
No cost to the taxpayers? Where do you get that gibberish?
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Since not a single American taxpayer is going to receive a bill from Mar-A-Lago with the item "G-7 Conference Charges (your share)" that means that the G-7 Conference will be held at "no cost to the taxpayers" (the US government will be "picking up the tab" and the US government is NOT a "taxpayer".

[The above form of "Internet Rebuttal" has been specifically and officially approved and endorsed by "Devoted Online Lovers of Trump" Inc. (a non-partisan, independent, research and analysis organization exempt from federal taxation that is dedicated to bringing you the true truth and not the false truth that anyone who doesn't believe 100% of what Donald Trump says tries to tell you the so-called "facts" are), "Pro-Life United Gun Enthusiasts and Manufacturers for Jesus", and “"The ‘First Amendment Rights Trust’ Foundation”.]
 
JasperL said:
That's not even an attempt. What you cannot get around is when the boss is on both sides of the decision, and the negotiations, it cannot EVER be a fair process. It's always going to be some version of, "I looked around the entire country/state/city and what do you know? I have decided that my business is the most deserving of state money!!! And I and me decided on the terms of this contract, and it works out great for ME!!"

And the "rules for such business" are laid out in the various emoluments clauses and prohibitions on them "of any kind whatever" are some REALLY BROAD prohibitions, because the founders were not idiots. If the President in this case wants to avoid those broad prohibitions, the rules are also crystal clear - go to Congress and get the Congress to approve of the arrangement. That also makes a lot of sense because instead of POTUS and POTUS being on both sides, approving the deal and the terms, Congress is a disinterested observer who POTUS has to convince about the deal and the terms.
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Now that Mr. Trump has come out with his "Presidential Decree" that (semantically) translates out to


<pouty&whining voice>
Well, since you won't let me play by MY rules, I'm going to put my foot down and demand that everyone plays by the rules that everyone has always played by.
</pouty&whining voice>
​

this whole issue can be completely forgotten - can't it?
 
JasperL said:
When Mulvaney announced the deal, he did NOT even suggest that it would be at "no cost" to taxpayers It was announced that it would be for no profits, which is entirely, completely, apples and dump trucks different, and he wouldn't commit to Trump opening up his books on the "at no PROFIT" claim. After the deal was withdrawn, Trump invented the "at no cost" claim.



Huh, it's weird that a serial liar who has refused all transparency with his personal finances wasn't trusted when he claimed that he wouldn't make a "profit" on this deal! Do you take the word of the serial liars on your life? Of course you do, right? After all, just because they lied to you about 108 things, doesn't mean you shouldn't trust them on #109!!

And the "selection" process was hopelessly non-transparent. The WH said they evaluated a place in Tennessee, my state. No one knows which property. I don't know how much it would have cost at this unknown property, so how can I evaluate savings when there are no cost estimates for holding it at Doral versus at ?????????????

As I've also mentioned, there's a process for getting around the emoluments clauses and the self dealing concerns - get Congress to sign off on the location. Put the deal and the terms in writing, in a contract, make this public including the costs, who would bear them, etc. and then ask Congress to vote on it and give their blessing.



If you want to have the common courtesy of backing up your BS allegations, please do so. The threads I started claiming Trump was a treasonous asset for Russia is ZERO, for example. And if you think I repeated something untrue, quote me.

But if you need to resort to lies about me to defend Trump, that should tell you something about what Trump is forcing his defenders to do to defend his conduct, and I'd be upset if Trump was doing that to me.

FWIW, the important opposition here came from Republicans.
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I'd be interested in seeing the federal government's "Request For Proposals" with respect to hosting the G-7 conference.

Don't most government contracts require that an RFP be issued if the total estimated cost is more than a certain amount (and/or where there is [at least potentially] more than one possible supplier)?

Would you like to bet that there actually was an RFP?

Even if there was no RFP, I'd just be overjoyed to see even a single commercial venture come forward and disclose the letter from the US government inviting them to make a proposal for hosting the G-7 conference.

Would you like to bet that one will?
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
I'd be interested in seeing the federal government's "Request For Proposals" with respect to hosting the G-7 conference.

Don't most government contracts require that an RFP be issued if the total estimated cost is more than a certain amount (and/or where there is [at least potentially] more than one possible supplier)?

Would you like to bet that there actually was an RFP?

Even if there was no RFP, I'd just be overjoyed to see even a single commercial venture come forward and disclose the letter from the US government inviting them to make a proposal for hosting the G-7 conference.

Would you like to bet that one will?
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I won't make that bet. Here in Tennessee no one knew which property was being evaluated, at least that I saw. Might have been the airport Holiday Inn, or the 'glamping' campground in Townsend at the entrance to the Smokies for all we know.
 
W_Heisenberg said:
I'm glad Trump backed down on this.

I'm sad ethically-challenged Trump supporters still don't understand the difference between right and wrong.
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Don't be silly, of course they understand the difference between right and wrong:

  • Anything that Mr. Trump does is RIGHT.
    *
  • Anything that anyone but Mr. Trump does is WRONG.
    *
  • Mr. Trump and his current supporters are always RIGHT.
    *
  • Anyone who is neither Mr. Trump nor one of his current supporters is always WRONG.
    *
  • Anyone who used to oppose Mr. Trump but who now supports him has always been RIGHT.
    *
  • Anyone who used to support Mr. Trump but who now opposes him has always been WRONG.

Don't bother to thank me for clearing up that confusion for you, I'm always happy to lend a hand.
 
W_Heisenberg said:
This is so silly. You are basically saying if Trump does something bad then Trump will be accused of doing something bad by his political opponents.

Well, duh.
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I'm saying that his offer wasn't inherently "bad" but that he surely knew his opponents would denounce is as such and overreact in so doing. Hence I condemn his politicking, or, at the very least, lack of discretion.

Antagonism for the sake of antagonism is the last thing America needs right now.
 
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