ABC News(WASHINGTON) — It’s a joke Donald Trump has made often.
“I always said I’m getting to Pennsylvania Avenue one way or another, so here I have!” Trump said in Sanford, Florida on Tuesday.
Indeed, on Wednesday he left his run-through of battleground states for a stop in the city where he hopes to reside. He officially opened his new hotel, Trump International, in an old post office in Washington D.C.
“Today is a metaphor for what we can accomplish for this country. Same kind of thing. This building is a historical landmark, a true American original. It had all of the ingredients of greatness, but it had been neglected and left to deteriorate for many, many decades,” Trump said, flanked by his three eldest children.
It is yet another example of the Republican nominee mixing business with presidential — a phenomenon becoming more common as the election nears its close.
The hotel opening in the nation’s capital had not been billed as a campaign event — technically he was there as the owner. But Trump couldn’t help reverting to campaigning, at times lapsing into his stump speech, attacking Obamacare and the underfunding of the Department of Veteran’s Affairs.
The mix has gone both ways.
On Tuesday, the campaign hastily summoned the press to Trump National Doral golf course near Miami, Florida. Trump took the stage and began to tout the architecture of the course.
“So we are very proud of this,” he said. “We could have renovated the inexpensive way with paint, but instead we ripped it down to the steel, rebuilt Doral. Even if you look at the ballroom, that’s a brand new ballroom that didn’t exist. We took it down to the absolute steel.”
At the event, Trump was flanked by employees who took the stage when called to deliver glowing reports about the Republican nominee. As the multicultural group spoke, Trump joked with one employee, “This guy better say good or else I’ll say ‘You’re fired,’ I’ll say, ‘Who is that guy?'”
A Latino employee said that it was an honor to work for Trump and that he supports him completely.
“And I didn’t pay you to say that right?” Trump said. But, of course, since the man is an employee, Trump had.
Trump was also eager to remind everyone there that before he was a politician, he was a businessman. If the election doesn’t go his way, he’ll be one after Nov. 8, as well.
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