Carlos Barria/Reuters
Four charities have pulled their fundraising events from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, in the wake of his response to a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Cleveland Clinic, American Cancer Society, and American Friends of Magen David Adom all said they wouldn’t hold their 2018 galas at the resort on Thursday. The organizations had held their annual events at Mar-a-Lago for a number of years.
On Friday, the American Red Cross announced it would not host its event at Mar-a-Lago either, saying in a statement that “it has increasingly become a source of controversy and pain for many of our volunteers, employees and supporters.”
The decisions to pull out of Mar-a-Lago come after a week of turbulent comments from the president regarding the white-supremacist protests that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“Our values and commitment to diversity are critical as we work to address the impact of cancer in every community. It has become increasingly clear that the challenge to those values is outweighing other business considerations,” the American Cancer Society said in a statement.
The organizations join a growing group of organizations and business leaders who have distanced themselves from the president after the events in Charlottesville. On Wednesday, the president said he would disband his two business councils, after a number of members of his manufacturing council started to drop out and his strategy and policy council had plans to dissolve the group.
Some groups that have hosted their fundraising galas at Mar-a-Lago in the past, including the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, had already decided not to return to the resort before this week. Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold reports that other major charities, including Susan G. Komen and the Salvation Army, have said in the past that they still have plans to hold their events at Mar-a-Lago.
The events can yield $ 100,000 to $ 275,000 for the resort, the Post has reported.
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/898344528775491585
We’ve reached out to 3 big nat’l charities still at yes: @SusanGKomen, @RedCross & @SalvationArmyUS. No response yet. pic.twitter.com/4QiRw1O4Yn
