How Trump Lost Millions On His D.C. Hotel -- Years After He Sold It

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

76% : In October 2016, two weeks before Trump won the presidency, the stately Trump International Hotel Washington D.C. celebrated its grand opening.
60% : But what few knew is that in order for that deal to happen, Trump had to step in with a loan.
57% : In winning the contract, Trump bested a consortium that included Hilton Worldwide and planned to develop the building as a Waldorf Astoria hotel.
49% : CGI also inherited the original lease Trump signed with GSA.
43% : One noticeable change, though, has been the arrival of new customers who would never have stepped foot in Trump's hotel: Nancy Pelosi's campaign, the Congressional Black Caucus's PAC and a fundraising committee for Kamala Harris, as well as Planned Parenthood and Politico all held events at the newly christened Waldorf.
41% : But Trump spent $200 million restoring the 1899 Romanesque Revival building, as well as committing to make monthly rent payments of at least $250,000 for 60 years.
41% : And a financial disclosure Trump filed in October 2023 revealed that he had loaned the firm $28 million.
37% : Trump first floated his money-losing hotel on the market in 2019, asking $500 million, CNBC reported.
36% : That's when Trump won a competitive bidding process to restore D.C.'s historic-but-dilapidated Old Post Office into a 263-room luxury hotel.
34% : As for the $28 million CGI owed Trump, that got wiped out.
29% : In 2021, now out of office, Trump tried again.
20% : The new leaseholder partnered with Hilton Worldwide, which lost out to Trump on the original procurement, to operate the hotel as a Waldorf Astoria.Trump, for his part, walked away from his nonviable hotel with a $127 million payout, according to evidence in the New York attorney general's civil fraud case.
11% : "[The] minimum base lease proposed by Trump would require Trump to obtain hotel room revenues which are simply not obtainable in this location based on the concepts for the redevelopment," the protest stated.

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