NewsMacroOnce an Outrage, Now Barely Noticed: Trump to Host G20 Summit at His Miami Golf Club

Once an Outrage, Now Barely Noticed: Trump to Host G20 Summit at His Miami Golf Club

Author: Alternet·

Key Takeaways

  • •Trump is scheduled to host the G20 summit at his Trump National Doral Miami golf club on December 14-15, the same venue he proposed for a 2019 G7 summit before scrapping the plan amid objections from his own party.
  • •New York Times reporter Peter Baker writes that the extent of self-enrichment by Trump, his family, and friends in the second term has effectively moved the boundaries of what is viewed as unacceptable conduct.
  • •Examples cited in the report include roughly $2.2 billion in personal enrichment since the term began, acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar, administration-granted immunity from potential back taxes, a Trump TV trademark filing, and taxpayer-funded campaign advertising ahead of the midterm elections.
  • •Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior counsel on the Ken Starr investigation, described the G20 venue decision as small in scale but an easily understood illustration of how Trump has lowered standards for acceptable behavior.
  • •A recent Gallup poll found that 89% of U.S. adults believe government corruption is widespread, up 10 percentage points from the prior year and the highest reading in 20 years.
Once an Outrage, Now Barely Noticed: Trump to Host G20 Summit at His Miami Golf Club

President Donald Trump's second term has featured self-dealing on such a scale that scandals that once set the political world on fire during his first term now barely attract attention, according to a recent report.

"When President Trump decided in his first term to host the annual Group of 7 summit of world leaders at his own private golf club in Miami, the act of self-dealing was so astonishing that it incited an uproar among fellow Republicans, forcing him to scrap the idea," reported The New York Times' Peter Baker on Sunday. "Now in his second term seven years later, Mr. Trump has decided to host the Group of 20 annual summit of world leaders at his private golf club in Miami in December — and this time the plan has generated practically no protest."

The Group of 20 brings together the leaders of the world's largest economies each year to on global economic policy, with the summit's host chosen through a rotating presidency among member governments — a structure that puts this December's arrangements, down to the venue, in the hands of a president whose own business operates the club in question. The Miami property is the same one Trump tried to steer the 2019 G7 to before he abandoned the plan amid the uproar from his own party.

Baker added, "The unprecedented blitz of self-enrichment by Mr. Trump, his family and his friends since he returned to the White House last year has become so extensive, so profligate and so brazen that he has effectively moved the goal posts of what is considered out of bounds. An act that was deemed an outrage in 2019 is barely noticed in 2026."

The reporter cited a number of examples of Trump's over-the-top corruption in his second term, including enriching himself by $2.2 billion since it began, accepting a luxury jet from Qatar, having his own administration grant him immunity from back taxes he might owe, filing a trademark for Trump TV even as he supports it with taxpayer money, and using taxpayer dollars to launch campaign advertisements for himself and his Republican Party ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.

"The decision to bring the leaders of the G20 nations and their considerable entourages to Trump National Doral Miami from Dec. 14 to 15 in some ways offers the most clear-cut case study of how the standards have changed, not just from other presidencies but from Mr. Trump's own first term," Baker reported.

He then quoted Paul Rosenzweig, who served as senior counsel to Ken Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton. "Let's be honest — in the world of all the bad things he's done, this is pretty small," Rosenzweig told Baker. "But it is a really good, easily understood example of how he has defined deviancy down."

Last month, a poll revealed that Americans are increasingly upset by the perceived corruption in the government under Trump.

"Breaking: @Gallup has dropped a new poll that's consistent with our own corruption survey findings: the American public's alarm over political corruption is at record highs and is driving broader distrust in government," the Brennan Center's Daniel Weiner posted on X at the time.

As the Gallup Poll wrote, "Americans' perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. are at their highest level in 20 years, with 89 [percent] of U.S. adults saying it is widespread. That figure is up 10 percentage points from last year and well above readings in the 72 [percent] to 79 [percent] range between 2010 and 2025."

One irony of Trump's focus on his golf courses as moneymakers is that he is notorious for cheating while playing his favorite game. Sports journalist Rick Reilly, an expert on golf who wrote a book about Trump's relationship with the sport called "Commander in Cheat," wrote that Trump was infamous among caddies for cheating as well as stiffing club members and staff.