After Being Called Out, Trump Hotels Join Federal Fire Safety List

The change comes after a HuffPost report in July.
The Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. It's one of the five U.S. properties in the Trump Hotel Collection recently added to the federal list.
The Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. It's one of the five U.S. properties in the Trump Hotel Collection recently added to the federal list.
THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

All Trump hotels are now on the government’s list of hotels and motels that have been approved as “fire safe” for federal employees.

As The Huffington Post reported in July, a number of Trump Hotels properties were not on the approved list ― meaning that if he were president, Donald Trump’s staffers would not be allowed to stay there.

Only the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago was on the Hotel-Motel National Master List, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency maintains to ensure that federal employees traveling on government business stay in lodging that meets certain basic requirements, such as having fire alarms and sprinklers. Federal employees can’t be reimbursed for nights they spend at hotels that aren’t on the list, or attend conferences or events there.

Trump Hotels spokeswoman Christine Da Silva told HuffPost shortly after the original story ran that “there are many optional programs such as this which our hotels regularly evaluate. While some of our properties do not participate in this particular program, our hotels are extremely vigilant and adhere to required fire and safety codes.”

But in the weeks since the story was published, five hotels in the Trump Collection, as well as Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, have been added to the federal list of hotels approved for fire safety.

“When you contacted us regarding the list, we reached out to FEMA. The organization was very responsive and easy to work with so our properties were able to quickly be added,” a Trump Hotels spokeswoman told HuffPost Tuesday.

The process for being added to the list is indeed relatively easy, and 87 percent of the 53,423 hotels and motels in the U.S. are on it, according to data from FEMA and the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Properties that aren’t on the list are not necessarily unsafe, and local fire departments and a review of public records did not uncover any outstanding fire safety issues at Trump hotels.

The Hotel-Motel National Master List was created as part of the 1990 Hotel and Motel Fire Safety Act, which passed in response to deadly fires at hotels that lacked basic fire safety measure like effective sprinklers and alarms. One such tragedy was a fire at the Hotel Dupont Plaza in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on New Year’s Eve 1986, which killed 96 people and injured more than 140.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

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