"Some of his businesses around the world are not doing particularly well, but the ones he frequents as president are doing better than ever," says Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, a D.C.-based accountability organization. He says golf courses where Trump plays regularly, in New Jersey and Virginia, are doing well.
"You see that at the Trump International Hotel, which got to raise rates in 2017 and went from predicting that it would run a loss to turning a profit. ... You also see increased profits at Mar-a-Lago, which the president has rebranded as the 'winter White House,' " he says.
Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., is a few blocks from the White House. The president has been known to dine in a large open-air restaurant. O'Brien says lobbyists, diplomats and members of the Trump administration frequent that hotel and not simply because it has comfortable rooms and good food.
"They are seeking access. And Trump and his family profit from the fact that he's president and they have a hotel in town ... and they're making good money off that," he says, adding those profits may make up for the ones lost at his other properties.