President Donald Trump was expected to appear at the Trump International Hotel on election night but has cancelled those plans and will likely to be at the White House instead, The New York Times reported on Friday.
Advisers told the Times that Trump was originally going to appear at the hotel in Washington for an election night party — his campaign had even distributed multiple fundraising solicitations to his supporters. At least one of the solicitations included an image of President Trump and first lady Melania Trump, and the words: “Join us on election night.”the Times reported.
“November 3rd will go down in history as the night we won FOUR MORE YEARS. It will be absolutely EPIC, and the only thing that could make it better is having YOU there,” it read.
The Times pointed out that the gathering could potentially violate crowd size restrictions in the nation’s capital which limits gatherings to 50 people in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Trump has previously touted his well-attended rallies where few wear masks and which have at times preceded fresh outbreaks of COVID-19 infections.
Last month, President Trump held a ceremony for then Supreme Court nominee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, that public health experts called a “superspreader event” after a number of attendees including the President reported contracting COVID-19 within days of the ceremony.
The change of election night plans also comes as some Democrats have raised questions about the intermingling of Trump’s business with his office as president — and the move to host an event at his Washington hotel would likely reinforce those concerns, the Times points out.
The concerns are not unfounded — in 2018, Trump called his private Mar-a-Lago club “the Southern White House,” per the Washington Post.
An investigation earlier this month by The Times also revealed that more than 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Trump’s properties also raked in benefits from Trump and his administration — nearly a quarter of which had not been previously reported.