What economic anxiety? Trump mob stays at $8,000-a-night hotel after attempted coup

Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington D.C. received record numbers of room service orders from its visitors the week his supporters stormed the Capitol, undercutting the oft-repeated assumption that Trump supporters are working class.

On Thursday evening, the managing director of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Mickael Damelincourt, tweeted about “record breaking numbers” for room service this week.

“So proud of our @TrumpDC In Room Dining Team for record numbers this week,” he wrote in the tweet.

According to a report featured in the Substack newsletter 1100 Pennsylvania, as well as other social media reports, Trump’s hotel rates spiked as high as $8,000 a night on Wednesday evening — and a bowl of cereal ordered from in-room dining services costs $15.

The Pennsylvania Avenue hotel features a luxurious spa, called The Spa by Ivanka Trump, which offers a Himalayan salt chamber, a high-tech fitness center, a studio for manicures and pedicures, and a “candlelit relaxation lounge,” according to the website. It also offers patrons facials and full-body massages.

Rates for Friday night have since dropped to around $500 a night, according to the hotel’s website.

Other wealthy Trump supporters have made headlines this week in Washington.

A Texas real estate broker, Jenna Ryan, traveled to the attempted coup via private jet and posted photos and video footage of herself in attendance, including one posing next to shattered windows at the Capitol.

‘We the people are pissed off… We flew by a private jet, God wanted us here today. Trump is my president,’ she said in a live stream.

Later, she tweeted, “We just stormed the capital. It was one of the best days of my life.”

Prominent anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson posted on Facebook that she was “with the president” Wednesday and “mildly in the fray,” claiming she was pepper-sprayed. In another since-deleted Facebook post, she claimed to have been on the Capitol steps.

Johnson spoke at the Republican National Convention and has made waves for encouraging racial profiling of her biracial son and falsely claiming the COVID-19 vaccine contains aborted fetal tissue.

According to a Texas Observer report, sources have claimed Johnson abandoned her work at Planned Parenthood to become an anti-abortion activist because she was facing bankruptcy and offered $3,000 speaking gigs.

An email from Ambassador Speakers obtained by the American Independent Foundation lists her current speaking rate as $12,500 a gig plus travel. Some internet sources estimate she has a net worth of at least $1 million.

Other figures in attendance have jeopardized lucrative careers for their participation in the Capitol riots. A North Texas lawyer was fired from his job as associate general counsel at Goosehead Insurance after filming himself at the events, and the CEO of a Chicago-area marketing consulting firm has been placed on a leave of absence for his participation.

Trump has long touted himself as the champion of the average American, his supporters depicted as disgruntled working-class citizens.

“Today’s Dems are the party of the rich,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted in early December. “GOP is and should be the party of the working class.”

According to a 2016 report, the median household income of Trump voters that year was around $72,000 a year, compared to the national median of $55,775.

While many Trump supporters are indeed working-class, others are quite wealthy — as demonstrated by their ability to stay at an $8,000-a-night hotel during a coup.

A Forbes report has noted that wealthy voters are more likely to be Republicans than the average American, with only 28% of Americans identifying as Republicans — while close to half of American billionaires do.

Exit polls from 2020 have shown that among voters with household incomes of $100,000 or higher, the majority — 54% — voted for Trump, with only 42% voting for Biden. Back in 2016, only one-third of Trump voters had a household income at or below $50,000, according to MSNBC.

Still, Trump supporters continue to insist that the MAGA movement is motivated by concern for the plight of the working class.

“I’m scared to death of what’s happening in this country, the socialism movement, of freedoms being taken away,” said one Sacramento Trump supporter who attended the riots. “It seems like the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting more poor.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.