Trump Puts a Presidential-Size Spotlight on His Brand -
By ERIC LIPTON and NOAH WEILANDMARCH 26, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s Saturday started with a trip to the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va.
By Saturday night, on one of the few weekends since the inauguration
that Mr. Trump remained in Washington, the president was dining at the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House.
Photos of Mr. Trump surfaced on social media on Saturday and Sunday
that appeared to show him in golf shoes and out on the golf course on Saturday, and then sitting at the golf club, during his short visit Sunday, watching a game of golf on television.
The warm welcome Mr. Trump received Saturday night at the Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue offered a hint of why Mr. Trump may visit his family’s establishments
so often: He is almost guaranteed the kind of enthusiastic crowd he would never find at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains.
White House officials have said Mr. Trump goes to his clubs and restaurants because he is comfortable there, but critics increasingly argue
that the visits are priceless advertising and that Mr. Trump and his family are using the presidency as a way to enrich themselves.
