Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, was standing in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping in far northeast Philadelphia, as close to a Trump enclave as a decidedly Democratic city gets, highlighting alleged examples of voter fraud when the networks called the presidential race for Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The surroundings were humble for such a seminal moment — a podium set up in front of a closed garage door decorated with a campaign poster — especially after a presidential tweet in the morning had advertised something that sounded a lot more upscale.
“Lawyers News Conference Four Seasons, Philadelphia. 11:00 a.m.,” President Trump tweeted Saturday morning, before issuing a corrective and explaining that he did not mean the luxury downtown hotel near the city’s convention center and was referring instead to a business called Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
The correction quickly met with derision and glee among many blue-checkmark Twitter users, who assumed the campaign had accidentally booked the wrong venue. The landscaping business, after all, was situated near a porn shop, Fantasy Island Adult Bookstore, and a crematorium.
The apparent mishap went viral, with celebrities weighing in. “Four Seasons Total Landscaping is also my secret code name for a bikini wax,” the actress Emmy Rossum tweeted Saturday evening.
The actual hotel issued its own corrective. “To clarify, President Trump’s press conference will NOT be held at Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia,” the corporate account tweeted. “It will be held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping— no relation with the hotel.”
In reality, the mistake was not in the booking, but in a garbled game of telephone. Mr. Giuliani and the Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski told the president on Saturday morning their intended location for the news conference and he misunderstood, assuming it was an upscale hotel, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
But the campaign had always intended to hold the news conference in a friendlier part of town. The president’s team had struggled with news conferences in this Democratic stronghold all week. Since Wednesday, the streets outside of the Convention Center have been filled with pro-Biden protesters chanting, “Count every vote!” On multiple occasions, the Trump campaign surrogates were drowned out and surrounded by the much larger pro-Biden crowd.
Earlier this week, Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, and Mr. Lewandowski attempted to hold a celebratory news conference after obtaining a favorable court order in Pennsylvania. But a local D.J. blasting Beyoncé completely overpowered Ms. Bondi, who was forced to simply hold up the order as most of the media gathered nearby could not hear her speaking.
Dan Scavino, the keeper of the presidential Twitter feed and a deputy White House chief of staff for communications, eventually tweeted out the corrective, people familiar with the event said, while White House officials overall were rolling their eyes and dismissing the entire embarrassing episode as another “Rudy special.”
The campaign declined to comment, as did the White House.
On Saturday evening, while Mr. Biden was addressing the country in his first remarks as president-elect, Mr. Lewandowski tweeted: “All great Americans in PA use Four Seasons Total Landscaping. They love this country and are American Patriots. Thank you!!”
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November 08, 2020 at 09:00AM
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Which Four Seasons? Oh, not that one. - The New York Times
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