WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump will host world leaders at a G-7 economic summit in 2020 at his Doral golf resort in Miami, the White House said Thursday – despite swiftcondemnation from lawmakers and the president's critics who said he is profiting from the presidency.

"It's not the only place," acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said. "It's the best place."

Mulvaney tried to head off criticism about the propriety of using one of the president's properties for a summit, but he acknowledged lawmakers would scrutinize the arrangement.

"I get the criticisms, so does he," Mulvaney said of Trump. "Face it: He'd be criticized regardless of what he chose to do."

Democrats denounced the decision as nothing more than self-dealing that involves the nation's foreign policy. They pointed out Trump is making the move as his campaign hammers away on the notion that Democratoc rival Joe Biden's son Hunter profited from his father's role as vice president during the Obama administration.

"This is corruption, plain and simple," tweeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., one of the Democratic presidential candidates.

More:House Judiciary Committee to investigate Trump's desire to use his Doral resort

House Democrats said they will try to make Doral an issue as part of a congressional debate on government spending. The House Appropriations Committee said two provisions in a spending bill would “prevent the President from spending federal funds at Trump properties.”

Democrats will press those items as the Senate debates the spending plan, the appropriations committee said in a statement.

"Senate Republicans will have to choose whether to stand up to this blatant corruption or once again allow President Trump to violate basic norms and profit off the Presidency,” the statement said.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would investigate what he called the "most brazen" example of how the president violates the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution. Trump faces several lawsuits questioning whether foreign leaders staying at his properties is a violation of the clause.

"He is exploiting his office and making official U.S. government decisions for his personal financial gain," Nadler said.

Mulvaney said the G-7 will take place June 10-12, 2020, less than five months before the U.S. presidential election in which Trump seeks a second term.

Trump traveled to Texas for a series of events on a busy news day that included impeachment testimony on Capitol Hill and a negotiation to temporarily halt hostilities between Turkey and Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Trump signaled his plans for Doral while attending the most recent G-7 summit two months ago in France, calling his club in Miami a "great place."

"It's got tremendous acreage, many hundreds of acres, so we can handle whatever happens,” Trump said Aug. 26 during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "It has buildings that have 50 to 70 units in them, so each delegation can have its own building."

Trump said Doral is "right next to the airport, for convenience. And it's Miami. Doral. Miami. So it's a great area."

The G-7 is a high-profile, yearly gathering of leaders from the world's largest industrialized economies: the United States, Italy, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany. The most recent took place in August in the resort town of Biarritz, France.

Last month, House Democrats said they would investigate Trump's plans to host the G-7 at Doral.

Trump's "personal financial interests are clearly shaping decisions about official U.S. government activities" said a joint statement from Nadler and Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., chairman of the subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

The Doral plan violates the constitutional prohibition of emoluments, the lawmakers said, calling it "perhaps the first publicly known instance in which foreign governments would be required to pay President Trump’s private businesses in order to conduct business with the United States."

The move comes as the Trump campaign argues that Hunter Biden profited by serving on the board of a Ukrainian company when Vice President Joe Biden was the Obama administration's point person on Ukraine.

'They love the location':Trump says his Florida golf resort may host next year's G-7 summit

The G-7 discusses joint responses to trends in the global economy. Created during the oil crises of the 1970s, the G-7 held its first summit near Paris in 1975. (The group was also known as the G-8, when Russia was a temporary member).

Members of the G-7 rotate hosting duties. The past two times the United States hosted were in presidential election years.

In 2012, President Barack Obama planned to have the summit in his hometown of Chicago but switched the venue to Camp David. In 2004, President George W. Bush hosted the event at Sea Island, Georgia.

In defending Doral as a G-7 site, Trump disputed a media report that the resort has had bedbug problems, blaming Democrats for spreading false stories.

"No bedbugs at Doral," Trump tweeted Aug. 27. "The Radical Left Democrats, upon hearing that the perfectly located (for the next G-7) Doral National MIAMI was under consideration for the next G-7, spread that false and nasty rumor. Not nice!"