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New York City is breaking multi-million dollar contracts with the Trump organization after President Donald Trump’s involvement in last week’s riots on Capitol Hill, Mayor Bill de Blasio reported on MSNBC on Wednesday.
“The contracts make it very clear that if the company and the management of that company engage in illegal activities, we have the right to break the contract,” said de Blasio. “Inciting an insurgency against the United States government is clearly criminal activity.”
In a follow-up statement, the mayor’s office said, “New York City will not be associated with these unforgivable acts in any form, manner or form, and we are taking immediate action to terminate all contracts of Trump Organization. “
The contracts cover the Wollman and Lasker rinks in Central Park and the famous carousel – which the Trump Organization has managed since the 1980s – and the Trump Golf Links golf course at Ferry Point in the Bronx, which it has managed since 2015.
“Yet another example of Mayor de Blasio’s blatant disregard for the facts,” Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and son of the president, said in a statement to NBC News. “New York City has no legal right to terminate our contracts and if they choose to go ahead, they will owe the Trump organization over $ 30 million. more than political discrimination, an attempt to violate the First Amendment and we plan to fight vigorously.
The mayor’s office said the contracts would be canceled in accordance with their termination clauses. The Central Park concessions will end within a month after the notice is sent, while the golf course will take “several months” to relax, the mayor’s office said.
On Sunday, the Professional Golfers Association of America pulled the 2022 PGA Championship, one of the most important tournaments in professional golf, from the President’s Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey, days after his supporters stormed the US Capitol.
“This is a breach of a binding contract, and they have no right to terminate the agreement,” the Trump organization said in a statement on Sunday. “We have had a great partnership with the PGA of America and we are incredibly disappointed with their decision.”
The Ferry Point contract contained a clause that the course would attract championship events, but the PGA’s cancellation likely casts doubt on its ability to fulfill that obligation.
The president won the loyalty of business leaders who were prepared to look the other way as he ushered in the largest corporate tax cut in history, business allies close to Trump told NBC News . Wall Street rewarded this allegiance with euphoric growth, while Main Street stumbled.
But the images and inescapable arrests of capitol breakers and staunch, anti-Semitic and white nationalist supporters have prompted some of Trump’s stalwarts to sever ties.
Just two weeks ago, Trump was seen as the Republican Party’s “kingmaker” whose influence would loom for the foreseeable future. But last Wednesday everything changed.
Some of Trump’s main business supporters have started to forcefully withdraw from the president.
“I feel betrayed. OK?” Billionaire businessman Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot and a major GOP donor, told CNBC on Wednesday morning. “Last Wednesday, if it doesn’t break the hearts of all Americans, something is wrong. I didn’t sign up for this. “
“I’m going to do everything I can from day one to make sure I do my part to make Joe Biden the most successful president in the history of this country,” Langone said.
Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire CEO of Blackstone and one of Trump’s biggest donors in the financial sector, also lent his support to Biden. After the January 6 Capitol riot, Schwarzman said he was “shocked and horrified by this mob’s attempt to undermine our constitution. As I said in November, the election result is very clear and there has to be. have a peaceful transition of power. “
Business allies close to Trump told NBC News that the president’s abandonment was real and unlike anything seen in his history.
Now they worry about what the increasingly cornered and desperate Trump might be doing in his final days in office.
The implosion of support represents the self-inflicted downgrade of the Trump brand from an imprimatur of glitter, luxury and excess to a piece of tough political extremism and will severely undermine its ability to capitalize on its name in commercial sense. traditional after he leaves the White House.
Leisure and hospitality, already hit by the pandemic, are unlikely to be profitable avenues for the president, except for a niche audience.
Department stores are unlikely to welcome her daughter Ivanka’s shuttered clothing line to their shelves after she calls the rioters “patriots.”
Some members of Trump’s golf clubs have even reportedly started to reconsider their membership, fearing “possible protests and vandalism,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Trump’s fundraising ability could now be curtailed to capitalize on his allegations of electoral fraud – but even here some donors are suing to get their money back and payment processors are breaking ties. Potential foreign donors to Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and the extended family may be wary of corrupt ties and reduced access.
Meanwhile, corporate backlash against the president for his role in the deadly attacks on the Capitol continues to grow.
After Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank, two of Trump’s preferred lenders, say they will no longer do business with President Professional Bank, a Florida-based lending entity that has loaned Trump’s company millions of dollars , said Tuesday that she, too, was cutting ties.
“Professional Bank has decided to no longer engage in new business with the Trump Organization and its affiliates, and will end the relationship,” Todd Templin, a public relations representative for the company, told NBC News in a communicated by email.
Cushman & Wakefield, one of the nation’s largest real estate services companies, has said it will no longer do business with the Trump Organization, a spokesperson for the company told NBC News in an email. The company previously managed leases in some of Trump’s top properties, including Trump Tower.
Trump also has a 60-year lease from the Government Services Administration to operate the former post office in Washington as the Trump International Hotel, where it has become a must-see watering hole for internationals and those seeking to win the favors of the administration. expensive rooms for long stays and organizing events.
Despite a clause saying the lease could not benefit an elected official, the GSA, which Trump oversees, said his boss was in compliance because he was a civilian when he signed the contract. The GSA has blocked attempts by Democrats to investigate the conditions.
“The government could suspend and propose the exclusion of the Trump organization, in which case it could also not continue its trade relations with the Trump organization,” said Steven Schooner, professor of contract law at George University Washington, to NBC News in an email.
“The US government never does business with companies that lack business ethics and integrity, or that have been indicted,” he said.
The GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
What other relationships and buildings could fall?
The 436-acre Donald J. Trump State Park, a few miles north of New York City, was donated by Trump to the state after it was unable to secure development approval to make it a golf course . It contains the crumbling blocks of a former mansion of William D. Baldwin, an elevator mogul of the Golden Age.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office did not respond to an NBC News investigation into the park’s future.
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