More horrendous news for Trump’s failing D.C. hotel

It is not a great day if you are the owner of the property located at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004, a.k.a. Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C.

The Washingtonian recently popped into the luxury hotel to see how business was doing and, well, let’s just say things are looking about the same as or possibly worse than they have been for the last ten months or so.

At 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, there were barely a dozen people hanging out in the lobby. Loud music pulsated through the sound system, despite the bar being totally empty. And a sign near the entrance read HOTEL GUESTS & INVITEES ACCESS ONLY but, evidently, the policy wasn’t being enforced since the reporters were able to waltz right in without any issues.

Reporter Jane Recker writes:

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We camped out at the bar with a martini and a plate of fries, taking in the (lack of) scene. At one point, a maskless man approached us and asked, “Are you part of the Trump book club?” We were not. He wandered away, soon joining a small group across the room. A woman came to the bar and got a glass of Grenache. “I usually order the Trump wine,” she said, “but . . . .” She gazed around. “This is really a change from what it used to be. It used to be packed all the time.” She gulped her wine and left.

This seems to square with what numerous other journalists have reported in recent months.

In September, Forbes reporter Zach Everson was permanently banned from the luxury hotel when he went there to investigate why it was charging nearly six times the regular rate per room during a corporate event being hosted by a pest control company and noticed it wasn’t packed with any of the usual dignitaries or other D.C. power players that once hung out there on a regular basis.

Related: Trump hotels issue mask mandates, probably won’t impact business since nobody wants to stay there anyway

In February, CNN spoke to several employees who said business was down–like, waaaaay down–after the Trump’s election loss followed by the deadly insurrection the U.S. Capitol.  “It really, like, slowed down. It’s normal during this time of year to have this kind of slow down, but because of everything going on, it kind of really had a different time,” an unnamed staffer said.

And in January, New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer posted a video she had taken from inside the lobby that showed a cold, barren, and empty landscape. “Looks like they drained the swamp,” she tweeted.

Trump has been trying to offload the 263-room money-sucking property since 2019 with no interested buyers. He initially wanted $500 million for it, but dropped the price by a massive $100 million after his realtor quit and business nosedived.

Graham Gremore is the Features Editor and a Staff Writer at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter @grahamgremore.