MIAMI – The White House says it has chosen President Donald Trump's golf resort in Miami as the site for next year's Group of Seven summit.
The announcement Thursday comes at the same that the president has accused Joe Biden's family of profiting from public office because of Hunter Biden's business activities in Ukraine when his father was vice president.
The G-7 summit will be held June 10-12. The idea of holding the event at Trump's resort has been criticized by government ethics watchdogs.
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said they started out with a group of about 12 possible locations and narrowed it down to one.
It became apparent at the end of that process that Doral was by far and away, far and away the best physical facility for this meeting," Mulvaney said.
The announcement comes just months after President Trump had suggested, while he was at the 2019 G-7 summit, that his resort be used next year.
But Mulvaney says that's not why they reached this decision, and the Doral resort was chosen based on a range of factors.
And, he did give one interesting reason as to why it was picked over another location.
"There was one place, I won't say where it was, but we actually had to figure out if we were going to have oxygen tanks for the participants because of the altitude, so yeah there's just limitations at other places," Mulvaney said. "We thought of the 12 places that we looked at and you'd recognize the names if we told you what they were that this was by far and away the best choice."
Doral police on Thursday told Local 10 News that planning for the event is just in its beginning stages and they're going to rely heavily on their local, state, and national partners for help.
The Mayor of Doral also discussed security of the event with Local 10 News' Ian Margol.
"It takes a lot of preparation," said Doral mayor Juan Carlos Bermudez. "This, obviously, is going to be on a different scale. It's going to take a lot of inter-agency work. We will be the lead agency but we will be working with Miami-Dade County, Secret Service and maybe other agencies. (We'll) try to make sure this goes off as successfully as possible."
Mulvaney also insisted the president would not make any money off of the summit, saying the event would be done at cost.
Trump has touted his resort, saying it's close to the airport, has plenty of hotel rooms and offers separate buildings for every delegation.
When the United States has hosted the summit before, it has been held in Puerto Rico; Williamsburg, Virginia; Houston; Denver; Sea Island, Georgia; and Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.