President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida — which he calls the “Winter White House” — suffered a nearly 10% revenue drop in 2018, according to financial disclosure forms released Thursday by the Office of Government Ethics.
The Palm Beach resort took in almost $23 million in revenue, down more than $2 million from the previous year.
The Washington Post observes that 2018 was the “first full year after Trump’s political rhetoric drove away many of the national charities that once rented [Mar-a-Lago’s] ballrooms.”
Trump has complained that “being president has cost me a fortune.”
But his actual income is far from clear, since the legally required disclosure forms indicate revenues, not profits.
“While Trump reported making over $17 million in ‘management fees and other contract payments’” from his hotel management company in 2017, the new disclosures indicate “he made just $1.5 million in fees” last year, says NBC News.
Despite the declines at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Chicago hotel and several other properties, the overall report was mixed, showing increased or static incomes at resorts, hotels and golf clubs elsewhere.
“Revenue increased at both his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, where Trump spends summer weekends, and at his golf club in Northern Virginia, where Trump has played rounds with members of Congress and foreign leaders,” says the Post.
“But at places where Trump rarely goes — which can’t offer customers the chance to mingle with a president — there were declines.”