Trump Team Holds News Conference Outside Drab Landscaping Firm, Next to Adult Book Store

By Daniel Politi, Slate

08 November 20

 

n Saturday morning, shortly before the AP and other news outlets called the election for Joe Biden, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to announce that his lawyers would be holding a “big press conference” in Philadelphia. But there seems to have been some major confusion about where it would be held. First Trump tweeted it would take place at the “Four Seasons, Philadelphia.” Trump later corrected himself and said that the news conference was going to be held at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping. And the Four Seasons Hotel sent out its own tweet, making sure everyone knew that the news conference would not be held there but rather at the landscaping business that has “no relation with the hotel.”

Trump, a hotelier at heart, announces a press conference at Philadelphia's "Four Seasons" at 11, before specifying it's at Four Seasons Total Landscaping at 11:30. pic.twitter.com/HmTIPeukNG

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) November 7, 2020

I feel like we didn’t focus enough on the fact that someone in the Trump campaign meant to schedule the “four seasons hotel” but definitely accidentally scheduled this “four seasons landscaping” store and they had to follow through with it. Veep was not this good. pic.twitter.com/DTJIQGsKHG

— Alex Sexton (@SlexAxton) November 7, 2020

When journalists arrived at the site of the news conference, they were flabbergasted by the scene and many quickly speculated that someone in the Trump campaign made a serious mistake. After all, the parking lot of a landscaping business in the outskirts of the city in an industrial part of town was a drab backdrop for a news conference by a president who wanted to convince Americans he still had a chance of winning. And making matters even stranger, the landscaping business was between an adult bookstore and a cremation center. The location led to lots of mockery online, and many people were very happy with the scene that was ripe for mockery, and some saw as a poignant metaphor of the failure of the Trump campaign.

This is not over. For we shall mount our righteous stand at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Next to Fantasy Island Adult Books. Across the street from the Delaware Valley Cremation Center. Between the fire extinguisher and yellow hose. #MAGA pic.twitter.com/hxuAsbEjXi

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) November 7, 2020

When the history books look back at this period, the first sentence should be: “It started with a ride down an escalator and ended with a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.”

— Seth Fiegerman (@sfiegerman) November 7, 2020

Four Seasons Total Landscaping is the most 30 Rock joke of the entire election cycle

— Evan Rytlewski (@Evanryt) November 7, 2020

the switcheroo from the four seasons hotel to “four seasons total landscaping” feels like an metaphor for the president’s standing in the Pa tally as the week has progressed https://t.co/lkCTtWguge

— Justin Sink (@justinsink) November 7, 2020

At the news conference, Rudy Giuliani insisted that Trump was not going to concede the election and claimed without presenting any evidence that ballots had been tampered with in Pennsylvania. It seems Giuliani first heard that that the networks had called the election for Biden at the news conference, and he vowed that the campaign would file several lawsuits because Republican observers were not allowed to inspect ballots. “Seems to me somebody from the Democratic National Committee sent out a note that said don’t let the Republicans look at those mail-in ballots,” Giuliani said without any evidence.