Trump says his Doral club doesn't have bedbugs, doesn't mention the roaches and other health-code violations.
Bedbugs.
The New York Times has an infestation, and one of its conservative columnists is getting slammed — even by President Trump — for complaining about being called a bedbug by a guy on Twitter. And after Trump spent a not insignificant portion of his taxpayer-funded trip to Biarritz, France, doing a hard sell on hosting world leaders at his private Doral golf resort outside Miami, people rediscovered that the Trump Organization settled a lawsuit in 2017 with a guest who said his face, back, and arms had been devoured by bedbugs at the Doral's luxury Jack Nicklaus Villa in 2016.
The confidential bedbug settlement is real, but on Twitter, Trump insisted — twice — that the bedbugs were fake.
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Well, you know what they say about people with verminous properties throwing tweets...
"Investigators never found bedbugs" among the Doral's "lengthy history of health-code violations," The Washington Post reports. "But the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation has discovered numerous problems in recent years," ranging from "minor complaints such as dirty kitchen appliances, to more egregious violations such as live roaches near ovens and food preparation areas."
It's not just the Doral — New York health inspectors found mice "filth flies," and roaches in Trump Tower's food areas in recent years, The Daily Beast reported. "Trump Tower's roach situation, though, paled in comparison to the infestation at Doral, where Florida authorities reported 524 health-code violations from 2013 to 2018."
Those violations included "approximately 20-25 live roaches ... in the kitchen food prep area and behind a utensil table inside a wall crack" in 2015, plus "live, small flying insects" and other food-related issues. The violations were so egregious that inspectors recommended the state temporarily shut down the Doral kitchen, though it's not clear anything happened other than an $800 fine.
"Despite the resort's recurring issues, however, investigators found almost no problems during a May inspection," the Post notes. Read more about the Doral's various health code violations at The Washington Post.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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