Lawyers for Donald Trump say the controversial comments he has been making while running for the presidential nomination have caused business to increase at his hotels and their restaurants to grow, not shrink, as Washington celebrity chef Jose Andres has claimed.
The presumptive GOP nominee is in the process of suing Andres for $10 million, reports
CNN, after he and fellow chef Geoffrey Zakarian announced last year they were backing out of their plans to open restaurants in Trump's Old Post Office Pavilion Building project in Washington D.C., after Trump made his election-announcement comments about Mexico sending criminals into the United States.
Andres' team, meanwhile, has countersued Trump for $8 million, saying that his comments would drive away business by at least 12 percent.
According to an analysis by industry expert Roger Cline, the Trump team said, the data from before and after Trump's political statements show that five of the six Trump-branded hotels in the country are continuing to perform well, and the restaurants in them are performing better.