Second luxury hotel dumps Trump’s name out of sheer embarrassment

According to a new report from The New York Times, Trump SoHo will become the second property that the Trump Organization has pulled out of since he came into office. In June, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto also removed Trump’s name from its building.

The New York Times notes that “the SoHo hotel has struggled to attract guests at five-star prices and has dropped its rates to keep rooms occupied.” The company is having a hard time selling condominiums in the building, and when the main restaurant in the building closed a few months ago, one of the lawyers associated with the deal said it was due to a decline in business “since the election.”

Trump is being paid a premium to end the SoHo entanglement early, which will allow the owners to remove his unpopular name from their building quickly.

Both properties were examples of the sleight of hand Trump has employed to make himself sound like a more impressive real estate executive than he was. He owned neither property, but instead managed them and lent his name to the buildings.

The inner workings of the hotel business are still largely a mystery because Trump refuses to release his tax returns, even though he has not severed his financial relationship with the Trump Organization.

But publicly available data show that his presidency is hurting the bottom line. Patrons, particularly the high-end patrons that Trump has targeted, do not want to do business with a man who had kind words for Nazis.

Trump continues to use his position to advertise his properties, forcing the public to subsidize millions of dollars in free advertising for Trump properties and golf courses.

The one area in which Trump properties have thrived is in their role as bribery hubs, attracting money from Republicans, influence peddlers, and foreign entities hoping to sway Trump their way. Multiple lawsuits are pending, highlighting that these arrangements are legally problematic and in violation of constitutional prohibitions on government officials enriching themselves.

Trump is once again in retreat, with his grandiose rhetoric backfiring on him in the business world just as it has in the realm of politics. He may make money under the table — but in the full view of the public, Trump continues to fail.