Fox News host Jesse Watters mocked Democrats on the House Oversight Committee for trying to claim foreign government stays at hotels owned by former President Donald Trump amounted to influence peddling.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland released a report Thursday claiming foreign governments paid $7.8 million to Trump’s company for staying at various hotels owned by the former president in New York, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. Oversight Committee Democrats claimed the payments violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
“Democrats spent the last seven years investigating if Trump is corrupt and what did they come up with? Some foreigners stayed at Trump’s hotels while he was president,” Watters said. “That’s it. Seven years. A few people from overseas stayed at some of Trump’s hotels while he was president, and Democrats say that’s against the law. In four years, they found a couple million bucks and hotel charges from a few guys from Mexico, China, Saudi Arabia, Canada. It’s like a rounding error to a guy worth billions.”
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“By the way, Trump didn’t even own the hotels while he was president,” Watters continued. “He transferred ownership to his sons. What did the sons do with the money? They didn’t buy hookers and crack with it. Any money that came from foreigners was donated to the U.S. treasury. That’s the scandal. Don and Eric didn’t get diamonds and cars. They took the money and gave it back to you, the taxpayers.”
Trump owns luxury hotels and resorts in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Honolulu, Virginia, Miami and Scotland, according to his website. Trump sold the Washington, D.C. hotel in 2022 to CGI Merchant Group, which rebranded the location into a Waldorf Astoria.
“Did Trump pocket the Chinese room bills and then go soft on China?” Watters asked “No. He launched a trade war, unlike the Biden family that took four times the cash and took it easy on Beijing.”
The House Oversight Committee estimated that the Biden family received at least $24 million from foreign companies and nationals through a web of shell companies in a September memo.
“You want to know the main difference between the foreigners spending money on the Trumps and Bidens? The Trumps have a business. What do the Bidens have? 20 shell companies,” Watters said. “With the Trumps we know what the money was for: Room and board and maybe some cocktails, maybe some waffles. What did foreigners give Biden the money for? He doesn’t have a hotel. The Biden family business doesn’t even have a website. It was a bribe. And they didn’t even pay taxes on the bribes.”
Harold Hutchison on January 5, 2024
