Trump Kids is “the closest most children will ever come to feeling like royalty,” Eric Trump boasted at the program’s introduction in 2009.
Guests’ children are pampered with plush bathrobes and slippers, personalized Trump Kids’ business cards, and “kiddie cocktails.” There are specially priced Trump Teen facials and massages and a “Personal Attaché.” The program also provides more common hotel amenities like cribs and nanny services. “So relax,” the Trump Kids site implores parents, “pop in their favorite children’s DVD and see how easy family travel can be with the luxury family-friendly hotels of Trump Hotels™.”
But bathrobes and business cards for hotel guests’ kids are not what people mean when they ask if an employer provides child care. Donald Trump doesn’t seem to know that.
When he bragged about Trump Kids in Iowa last year, he claimed it was a child care benefit the Trump Organization offers its workers: “You know, it’s not expensive for a company to do it. You need one person or two people, and you need some blocks and you need some swings and some toys. You know really, it’s not expensive. It’s not an expensive thing. I do it all over. ... They call them Trump Kids. ... Another one calls it Trumpeteers.”
In fact, neither program is aimed at employees’ kids, and neither the Associated Press nor HuffPost has found any evidence that Trump provides child care for his employees in the U.S.
Trump Kids affords luxury amenities to guests’ children at Trump hotels, adding the cost of many of those services to the parent’s final bill.
The Trumpeteers program provides camps and other activities for the kids of club members and guests at his golf courses in Charlotte, North Carolina; Jupiter, Florida; and Miami. The Trumpeteers Kids Camp at Trump National Doral in Miami costs between $250 and $350 a week, according to a online registration form.
On Thursday, AP first reported that calls to Trump hotels and golf courses found no Trump properties that provide child care services for employees. HuffPost reached the same conclusion from its own conversations with employees at every Trump hotel and golf course in the U.S.
HuffPost also searched state databases of registered child care facilities and did not find any at a Trump hotel, golf course or office building.
The Trump International Beach Resort near Miami also offers another program called Planet Kids. A promotional video on YouTube says that “trained counselors will keep your kids happy all day long with beach and pool games, sports, arts and crafts, and evening events.”
But like Trump Kids and Trumpeteers, Planet Kids is neither for employees nor a registered child care program.
The Trump Organization’s vice president and assistant general counsel, Jill Martin, said in a statement that the company “is very proud of the family-friendly environment it fosters.” She added, “We take an individualized approach to helping employees manage family and work responsibilities.”
When HuffPost called the company’s Trump Tower headquarters on Fifth Avenue in New York, the person who answered the phone seemed confused by a question about corporate child care benefits. “You must have the wrong number,” she replied.
Asked about on-site child care, an employee at Trump National Doral said, “You mean Trump Kids?”
A human resources employee at the Trump International Las Vegas said the hotel provided health insurance, paid time-off and 401(k) retirement plans to its white-collar workers. “You know, the basics.”
The hotel does not, she said, provide child care.
This story has been updated with a statement from Jill Martin of the Trump Organization.
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.