Trump family insists their brand hasn't been damaged

By Louis Nelson

10/27/16

With Donald Trump's controversial presidential campaign dominating the headlines for at least two more weeks, both the candidate and his children said Wednesday that they are largely unconcerned by the notion that the GOP nominee might have damaged the family’s valuable name brand.

“I think the brand is hotter than it's ever been, but it doesn't matter to me. I don't care,” Trump said in an interview that was taped Wednesday and aired Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America." “It doesn't matter. I don't care about the brand. I care about the country.”

“I think we have the hottest brand in the world right now, and I think buildings like this are a testament to what we do every day,” Eric Trump said, with his father and adult siblings surrounding him.

The family talked with anchor George Stephanopoulos inside the Trump International Hotel Washington, the luxury Pennsylvania Avenue property that Donald Trump visited Wednesday for a ribbon cutting.

While the hotel has gotten largely positive reviews, business has been less than brisk in the month since its soft opening. A New York Magazine report revealed that the break-even rate for the hotel’s rooms is $750, but some could be had during a weekend earlier this month for below $500. Rooms at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, another of Washington’s five-star hotels, in the nearby Georgetown neighborhood, were priced at $1,139.

Other Trump properties have suffered as well. In the wake of a 2005 recording on which Donald Trump can be heard describing in vulgar terms how he would grab women by their genitals with impunity because of his celebrity status, shoppers launched an online campaign calling for a boycott of Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories line. Asked about the campaign, titled #GrabYourWallet as a reference to Trump’s obscene language, Ivanka Trump told Stephanopoulos that “the beauty of America is people can do what they like.”

For another of the business mogul's sons, Donald Trump Jr., the White House bid has only expanded the family’s brand and attached it to something greater than real estate.

“The brand is much more than New York City. This is a global brand,” Trump Jr. said. “I mean, when you look at the people he's touching on a daily basis, the presidency, fixing America is so much bigger than any of that regardless.”