A-Rod, once Yankee ‘joke,’ gets Trump out of pinch
Baseball star who was target of ex-president helping buy hotel for reportedly large profit
Former New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, once vilified by Donald Trump as a “druggie” and “joke” unworthy of wearing the pinstripes, is now a key part of an investment group seeking to buy the rights to the ex-president’s marquee Washington, D.C., hotel, people familiar with the deal told the Associated Press.
A-Rod’s involvement in the $375 million deal, which could close within weeks, would make the athlete-turned-entrepreneur an unlikely financial savior for Trump, allowing him to recoup millions he invested and perhaps even emerge with a profit from his money-losing hotel.
While published reports late last year identified the buyer as Miami-based CGI Merchant Group, the rights to lease the 263-room property near the White House are actually being purchased by a fund led by CGI that includes Rodriguez as a general partner, two people familiar with the deal told the AP. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deal, declined to detail Rodriguez’s stake other than to say he is a key investor.
Taking in $375 million would more than make up for the $200 million Trump’s company put into renovating the historic, federally-owned Old Post Office building into a luxury hotel after signing a lease with the General Services Administration in 2012, as well as the $70 million that a congressional oversight committee says the hotel lost during Trump’s four years in office.
Real estate experts say a more realistic price in the current Washington market would be $1 million per room, or about $260 million. But hotel brokers, consultants and other experts AP contacted say determining a fair value for this particular property is exceedingly difficult, in part because it’s a lease being sold.
Trump, a longtime Yankees fan, said in a 2012 radio interview that he was never a fan of Rodriguez’s — either as a player or person — citing an unspecified “bad experience” he had with A-Rod when he lived in Trump’s Park Avenue building.
Trump has also tweeted about A-Rod dozens of times, mostly in a span from 2011 to 2013 prior to Major League Baseball suspending Rodriguez for the entire 2014 season for use and possession of prohibited performance-enhancing substances, including testosterone and human growth hormone, and attempting to obstruct MLB’s investigation.
“The @Yankees should immediately stop paying A-Rod — he signed his contract without telling them he was a druggie,” @realDonaldTrump said on Opening Day 2013.
“Druggie A-Rod has disgraced the blessed @Yankees organization, lied to the fans & embarrassed NYC. He does not deserve to wear the pinstripes,” Trump said in another tweet.
But in recent years, there seemed to be a cooling off. Trump praised A-Rod when the two appeared together at a charity reception at his Bronx golf course in 2015. And Trump reportedly called the 14-time All-Star in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 for advice on how to handle COVID-19.
That didn’t stop Rodriguez and his then-fiancée Jennifer Lopez from appearing in an online campaign ad for Joe Biden just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, urging Hispanic voters to turn out for the Democrat.