
Trump doesn't want people to know about the bedbugs at his Doral hotel — and he's blaming Democrats for it.

If Trump has his way, his Doral hotel is going to be the site of the 2020 G-7 meeting of world leaders. Unfortunately, it's already the site of a bedbug infestation.

Back in 2017, the hotel settled a lawsuit with a traveler who spent the night at Doral and woke up with "dozens of bites" and his "back and neck riddled with red blotches after he slept at the resort’s $300-a-night Jack Nicklaus-themed villa." In defending the lawsuit, the Trump corporation argued that the traveler was somehow responsible because he "conducted himself so carelessly and negligently."

Perhaps realizing that argument made no sense, the hotel eventually agreed to settle the matter without admitting any fault.


The story was covered in early 2017 when the settlement happened, but it resurfaced Monday after Trump's announcement he'd hold the G-7 at his personal business and make money off of it. Trump, predictably, is blaming the Democrats. In a tweet on Tuesday, he declared there were "no bedbugs at Doral" and that the "Radical Left Democrats" had started a "false and nasty rumor" once they heard the G-7 would be at Doral.

There's no evidence at all that the Democrats were the one that pushed the bedbug story back into the limelight, but lack of evidence never stopped Trump from saying something.

One of the reasons the bedbug story seems credible is that Trump's supposedly luxury hotels are hotbeds of health violations. In 2017, health inspectors tallied 15 violations — just in the kitchens — against Mar-a-Lago. Staff wasn't tracking the freshness of hazardous food, milk was stored at too high a temperature, and sushi fish wasn't treated for parasites. Pools at his resorts in Florida have been shut down 10 times in the last year alone. There, inspectors found improper pH levels, which can cause the spread of diseases. With all of that, it's easy to believe that Doral was full of bedbugs.

This is what happens when you have a president with no regard at all for the Emoluments Clause. He's continually facing these tawdry lawsuits because he refused to divest from his companies, and he's continually looking for ways to profit from the presidency.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.