Trump pushes his Florida hotel for next G7 summit

It's got great parking, wonderful rooms, access to an airport, and the president of the United States notes the Florida hotel that he owns and wants to be the site for the next G7 summit doesn't have bedbugs.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump blamed "Radical Left Democrats" for spreading a "false and nasty rumor" about a bedbug infestation at his golf resort in Doral, Florida.

"No bedbugs at Doral," Trump wrote in a midmorning tweet. "The Radical Left Democrats, upon hearing that the perfectly located (for the next G7) Doral National MIAMI was under consideration for the next G7, spread that false and nasty rumor. Not nice!"

On Monday, Trump held a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the end of the G7 summit in Biarritz, France. Trump then sought to make a case for convening at the Trump National Doral Miami in 2020 when the US hosts the summit.

"Doral happens to be ... only five minutes from the airport, the airport's right next door," he told reporters. "And by the way, my people looked at 12 sites, all good, but some were two hours from the airport, some four hours.

"We have a series of magnificent buildings. We call them bungalows, they each hold from 50 to 70 rooms. They have magnificent views," he said. "Each country can have their own villa."

Trump said he would not directly benefit from hosting the G7 at his golf resort: "From my standpoint, I'm not going to make any money. In my opinion, I'm not going to make any money."

Fox News reported that Trump's advisers have cautioned against pushing the hotel as a G7 site amid concerns about the ethics of the president personally profiting from an official government event.

One former US senator, Republican Rick Santorum, said that such a move could be in "violation of the law".

"The fact is that the president should not be doing this," Santorum said on a CNN TV program. "It would be a violation of the law as far as I understand it. I hope this is the last time he mentions it."

The Washington Post reported that just hours after Trump suggested the property, the hash tag #TrumpBedBugs began trending on social media, in response to a January 2017 Miami Herald report about claims from a Doral guest in 2016 about waking up with dozens of bedbug bites. The guest sued the resort and reportedly reached a settlement in 2017, shortly after Trump's inauguration.

Meanwhile, the newspaper that Trump has repeatedly criticized for publishing "fake news" and has said is "failing", said on Monday that its newsroom has bedbugs. The New York Times said that it had found evidence of bedbugs in the newsroom and elsewhere in its building and has hired professional cleaners to sweep the affected areas.

"All affected areas have already been treated," Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha told The Hill in a statement on Monday.

Reuters contributed to this story.