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In 2017, there was Donald Trump’s White House. And then there was a parallel White House, not far from the president’s official residence. It was a mammoth old post office, which realtor Trump began converting into a hotel five years before he was elected president.
Trump may well have been secretly planning his political foray when he entered the fierce bidding to lease this building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Trump International Hotel had its grand opening two weeks before Trump was elected president in 2016. Soon enough, it became the most popular watering hole in Washington for cabinet members, leaders of both chambers of the US Congress, ambassadors, wheeler-dealers and well-heeled Republican operatives.
The hotel was the only place outside the White House where Trump ever dined during his four years as president. Going to Trump’s hotel was a short-cut for political fixers to make deals with top officials because they could avoid official scrutiny at the White House and circumvent its stringent restrictions. Meeting any Trump establishment VIP at a hotel would not be covered by the Freedom of Information Act, the US equivalent of India’s Right to Information (RTI) Act.
So, the glitzy hotel thrived from day one, charging an obnoxious $700,000 for day use of its ball room for four days during Trump’s inauguration as president. American media outlets reported that attendees paid a million dollars on the eve of Trump’s swearing-in for a “Leadership Luncheon” with the president at the hotel oozing luxury. Soon enough, many of the nearly 150 foreign embassies in Washington competed with one another to host their National Day receptions at the Trump hotel.
The capital grapevine had it once that Trump asked his chief of staff if Prime Minister Narendra Modi was staying at his iconic hotel while visiting the White House. Trump’s reaction on being told no―Modi preferred the Willard Intercontinental―is not known. India has never held any official reception on Trump’s property.
Also Read How Trump succeeded in converting Americans’ feelings of grievance into votes Trump’s approach to foreign policy meshes well with Modi’s bent towards strategic autonomy I was hosted at Trump International Hotel many times, often by ambassadors of several countries, who wanted to be seen at its plush bar not with their peers, but, curiously, with foreign correspondents. In turn, I entertained several Indian American Republicans there, including Keralite Vinson Palathingal, who famously went to the US Capitol during the January 6 demonstrations carrying India’s tricolour. Palathingal remains a steadfast ‘Trumpeteer’ to this day.
It was not that my Indian American guests could not afford the Trump hotel; they were intimidated by its aura and the presence of so many cabinet members, department heads and senators hanging around in the hotel lobby or wining and dining there. They needed to be with a compatriot who was familiar in its surroundings. After Trump left the White House, his neighbourhood hotel fell on bad times.
In May 2022, the hotel was sold and is now a Waldorf Astoria. But Trump should not have any regrets because his sale of this hotel broke many real estate records. The author was a foreign correspondent in Washington.
