Trump shifts

Trump campaign turns infomercial

Two weeks out and Trump shifts his focus back to his real job – real estate.

By Shane Goldmacher and Eli Stokols

Donald Trump has less than two weeks left in his presidential campaign, but his closing argument sounds as much about his business interests as his electoral ones.

As Hillary Clinton and her surrogates fan out across the battleground states, Trump’s schedule has found plenty of room for self-promotion that seems aimed well past Nov. 8, including two stops in two days promoting his hotels and the soft launch of what many see as the prototype for a post-campaign Trump TV.

On Monday, Trump’s campaign launched a nightly Facebook live news program — on the heels of a report that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had spoken with a top industry dealmaker about setting up a Trump network.

On Tuesday, Trump summoned the press corps to one of his Florida properties and lavished praise on it. “One of the great places on earth,” he crowed.

On Wednesday, he returns — for the fourth time this presidential cycle — to his new Washington, D.C., hotel for what his campaign has billed as a “ribbon-cutting” to celebrate its grand opening.

“Politics is a side hobby for Trump, kind of like fishing or model railroading. Hotels, that’s serious business, and I hear the hotel is fabulous,” said Curt Anderson, a top Republican strategist. “Which of his aides would like to take credit for scheduling this trip to D.C.? Is no one able to stand up to this guy? No one at all?”

Never before has a businessman-turned-politician gotten so close to the White House by leveraging his private success and apparent management prowess into a compelling outsider's case to run the country. And never before has a presidential campaign looked so much like an infomercial.

From the start, Trump has promoted and patronized his own properties, from riding down the gilded escalators in Trump Tower as he announced his campaign in June 2015 to hosting primary-night news conferences at lavish Mar-a-Lago and reimbursing himself with campaign cash spent to fly on his own 757 jet and rent premium campaign office space inside his flagship building. And while Trump won’t meet his infamous 2000 prediction — “I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it” — he does seem determined to ensure that the national spotlight that remains fixated on him helps brighten the Trump Organization’s bottom line.

Hope Hicks, a Trump spokeswoman, defended the decision to divert to liberal Washington, D.C., for a ribbon-cutting with only 13 days left before Election Day. “Mr. Trump is attending the opening of his latest project, what many say is the finest hotel in the country,” she said in an email. “He is extremely proud of the development, which was finished under budget and ahead of schedule. He will be there to commemorate the completion of this important project and support his children, who worked so hard along side of him to accomplish this.”

Trump’s stops in D.C. to draw press to the hotel date back to March, when the property was still under construction. “In about a week it gets covered with marble, beautiful marble from different parts of the world,” Trump said then.

That was only the start of the hype.

“One of the great buildings of Washington, one of the great buildings in the country,” he went on. “One of the biggest ballrooms in Washington and by far the most luxurious,” he said. “One of the great hotels of the world,” he predicted. When he was done, he lamented that “nobody asked about the hotel.” And so he led a crush of cameras and reporters on a tour.

Trump returned in early September for a tour, handing out exclusive footage and photos to Breitbart, the publication formerly run by his campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon. And he came back the next week for his much-hyped news conference to address his years-long false charge that President Barack Obama is not an American citizen. Trump took no questions. He did speak at length about his hotel after television networks showed live footage of the ballroom for a full hour while waiting for the GOP nominee to appear.

CNN’s Jake Tapper said the bait-and-switch amounted to a “political rick-roll.”

When Trump toured the property again during that event — and his campaign physically blocked a television producer from joining the TV cameras — the TV networks’ pool decided to delete their footage in protest.

That Trump is returning to D.C. — a jurisdiction that he has virtually zero chance of capturing next month — has Republicans sighing about his motives. “Unconventional” has become their euphemistic byword.

“The only rationale I think he’d have for that is he sees the handwriting on the wall and he wants to do his best to also protect his brand,” said a frustrated senior Republican strategist, who did not want to criticize the nominee publicly.

Because federal campaign-finance law requires that the campaign pay to use Trump’s properties, every room rental, hotel room and event held there helps his business. While Trump has contributed roughly $56 million to his campaign, the use of his properties — and personal jet — has offset the cost of those contributions.

Through the end of September, Trump’s campaign has paid, for instance, more than $200,000 in facility fees and other expenditures to his various golf properties, including about $53,000 to the Trump National Doral Miami, where he campaigned on Tuesday.

Trump’s traveling press corps was kept in the dark about the nature of Tuesday’s event, as they were bused through the beige stucco gates, ushered through the gilded lobby and down to a hallway with a view of the patio where a stage had been erected.

Only then did campaign staffers explain what the vaguely described "campaign event" would be: a photo op featuring Trump and several of his employees, who were in a line outside being wanded by Secret Service agents.

Shortly after the media were escorted outside, Trump emerged in his usual navy suit and red tie, applauded by his employees as he strode slowly across the red bricks and onto the stage where he joined them in clapping.

With a live network camera pointed at the microphone, Doral general manager David Feder, spoke — not about Trump but his resort, which he noted has been awarded with numerous distinctions, including Successful Meetings Magazine's "Best renovations, 2016" honor.

Trump, stepping to the microphone moments later, followed suit.

"We're very proud of this," he began. "It's 800 acres in the middle of Miami. It's been a tremendous success. We could have renovated the inexpensive way with paint; but instead we ripped it down to the steel, rebuilt Doral."

"We've had tremendous success," Trump continued. “The bookings are through the roof. And I must tell you, the land is great — the Blue Monster is one of the great golf courses in the world, the new Blue Monster.”

Trump’s latest exploits have received fawning coverage on his Facebook channel. Bannon, the campaign CEO who stepped down as chairman of Breitbart News to join the campaign, reacted to the suggestion last week that Trump might launch a news network simply by saying, “Trump is an entrepreneur” — twice.

Trump isn’t the only one giving signals of looking past the election. His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, has tried in recent days to artfully create some distance between herself and the controversial candidate. During the last debate, Conway retweeted a reporter's observation that Trump's offhand remark about "bad hombres" was "Trump being Trump" while his other, sharper answers were "Conway-esque."

She also sat for an extended segment at her home with CNN’s Dana Bash, and brushed aside questions about whether she agrees with her candidate’s threats to sue the women who have accused him of assault — "It's his campaign, and it's his candidacy,” she said.

“It's not for me,” Conway said, “to take away a grown man's Twitter account.”