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Some Hotels Are Really Stepping Up to Help During the Coronavirus Pandemic but Trump’s Aren’t Among Them

Trump hotel in Las Vegas shot from the air.

During the current coronavirus pandemic, hotels have been a great resource. Rather than let all their unused food rot, many hotels have been donating it. The giant properties in Las Vegas have donated thousands of hundreds of thousands of pounds of food to food banks and other charities. Others are giving food directly to people in need, like one hotel group that set up food trucks to offer free meals to children who relied on their school’s lunch program.

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A ton of hotels–including some major luxury hotels–are also donating their now-vacant rooms to doctors, nurses, and other medical workers who need to be quarantined away from their families.

In Los Angeles, there’s a major effort underway right now to get the state’s homeless population, especially in Los Angeles, into vacant hotel rooms leased by the government.

Hotel owners and staff are doing so much right now that those who aren’t really stand out.

And the person who’s doing the least, of course, is Donald Trump.

Trump has been talking and tweeting about the great work being done by private businesses during the pandemic. His press briefings frequently include pointless statements from corporate CEOs. A few weeks ago, Trump tweeted, “America’s Private Sector is stepping up to help us be STRONG!”

But is Trump himself “stepping up”? Nope. ProPublica says they “examined the seven hotel properties and dozen U.S. country clubs owned by the Trump Organization and could find no sign that any are taking the sorts of civic-minded steps the president has urged.”

Trump has not been offering his hotel rooms to those in need. In fact, at least some still appear to be available to book for guests looking to pay hundreds of dollars a night, even in areas like New York with mandatory stay-at-home orders. His D.C. hotel has reportedly had about 10 guests (for 263 rooms) in recent days. ProPublica also confirmed that Trump’s Vegas hotel has not been among those donating food.

I wish this was even the tiniest bit surprising.

(image: Prayitno on Flickr)

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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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