The Trump Organization's decision to expand its hotel chain with mid-market properties into "real America" has nothing to do with politics or the presidency, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who took over the organization's management, said in an interview after announcing the new hotels.
"It has nothing to do with politics," Donald Trump Jr. told ABC News Chief National Correspondent Tom Llamas on "Good Morning America" Tuesday.
"We're trying to make money off a hotel brand that we feel there's an underserved market to. I think more companies could probably do better by being a little bit more patriotic."
The new chain, called "America Idea," was created, however, after the brothers traveled across the country campaigning for their father, President Donald Trump.
"I mean, trust me, between Eric [and] myself, we stayed in every one of these hotels in every little market in the country," his sons told Llamas. "And we just saw there, there was a void missing. And I think we're excited to try to fill it."
The new hotels, while owned by the Trump organization, will not have the word "Trump" in their names, the company revealed during an announcement Monday in New York.
The first Scion hotel will open in Cleveland, Miss., and will feature "approximately 100 rooms, suites and extended-stay accommodations, a 6,000-square-foot spa and fitness center, a 5,000-square-foot event hall" and other amenities, an organization press release said.
"This is real America," Eric Trump said. "And to be able to go in there and cater to them as well; I think that's a beautiful thing."
Both brothers along with Eric Trump's wife, Lara, are already involved with Trump's 2020 re-election campaign, and met with Republican National Committee leaders in late May to discuss strategy.
Trump's re-election campaign offices also are located in Manhattan's Trump Tower.
Eric Trump told ABC that his father has "zero conflicts of interest" between the presidency and the family business. He insisted he and his brother don't talk about business activities with his father, although he told ABC that he plans to give his father profit reports from the organization "probably quarterly."
"We don't talk about the activities of the business. We don't talk about what we're doing in the business," Eric Trump said. "It doesn't blur the lines. You're allowed to show that. And remember, the president of the United States has zero conflicts of interest. Zero."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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