go out there and hit the blue monster at doral. but that no longer is an attraction. right. the resort from what we ve seen, we ve seen trump organization documents. it s in pretty sharp decline from 2015 to 2017 rkts just two years, the net operating income, basically profitability dropped 70%. and trump s name is driving away people that might have come there otherwise. in fact, the trump organization representative blamed trump s name as the cause of this decline. what is there an agency, like if the pentagon did a no-bid contract, what would happen? i mean, i believe we ve had instances like this where a pentagon official who used to work for a company somehow orchestrates a no-bid contract. right. in this case, if you own a company, if you are a pentagon contracting officer and you gave a giant no-bid contract to yourself, that s illegal. you d go to jail for that. those conflict of interest laws, by design, don t apply to the president. but we always had sort of an honor
then there s the fact that back to i think maybe even back to truman the major contractor that runs inaugural events has been the same major contracting firm, and they get the same gig every year through democrats and republicans first and second inaugurations. they were also contracted by the trump inauguration. they ended up getting paid about as much money as melania trump s friend but we know what they did because they always do the inauguration and it s not exactly a no-bid contract but the sole source contractor for these things for the united states for decades. that s right. this is a firm that has been paid to do previous inaugurations, like you said, a firm that sort of specializeness producing trade shows. they re more of a known entity and this firm is not a known entity but didn t even exist more than i think it was six weeks before the inauguration.
set up only one month before the inauguration, set up in december of 2016. then there s the fact that back to i think maybe even back to truman the major contractor that runs inaugural events has been the same major contracting firm, and they get the same gig every year through democrats and republicans first and second inaugurations. they were also contracted by the trump inauguration. they ended up getting paid about as much money as melania trump s friend but we know what they did because they always do the inauguration and it s not exactly a no-bid contract but the sole source contractor for these things for the united states for decades. that s right. this is a firm that has been paid to do previous inaugurations, like you said, a firm that sort of specializes in producing trade shows. they re more of a known entity and this firm is not a known
president s approach to north korea, calling it a huge risk to americans. and actually, there s a trifecta tonight. if you are looking at departures and potential departures for people in high-profile roles in the trump administration. the washington post is now out with a brutal report on corruption allegations, involving housing secretary ben carson. juliette alperren is reporting that secretary ben carson was warned. he was warned in writing. he was warned in person, that he was giving the appearance of using his position for his son s private gain. but secretary carson, nevertheless went ahead with hud events that appear to have materially benefitted his children. and actually appear to have been designed to materially benefit his children. one agency that s part of hhs, centers for medicare and medicaid services also reportedly awarded a no-bid
his children. one agency that s part of hhs, centers for medicare and medicaid services also reportedly awarded a no-bid contract to a firm run by secretary carson s daughter-in-law, that his son is on the board of. even for the trump administration, these are serious corruption allegations against ben carson. not least because even trump-appointed ethics officials were the once who repeatedly went on the record warning him to not do these things to benefit his family, but he did so anyway, despite having received that formal advice in advance. now, in a normal congress in a normal time, that s the kind of thing that would be front page news for days and lead to multiple congressional investigations. it would be something a whole presidency was remembered in a bad way. in our life it time right now, though, this s just a wednesday. oh, ben carson corruption allegations, mm-hm. but there are, alongside all