The Shield of the Americas summit happens at the President's golf resort in Doral.

OK. Pull up a stool. Saturday morning. Doral, Florida. The Trump National Doral Miami, a golf resort, a property the President owns, hosts a summit of Latin American heads of state. The summit is called the Shield of the Americas. It is, in the State Department release, a security alliance. It is, in the President’s opening remarks, the largest hemispheric gathering in the history of the world.

Hon. The largest hemispheric gathering in the history of the world did not include Mexico. Or Brazil. Or Colombia. Three of the four largest economies in the hemisphere. Did not come.

Mexico is the neighbor. The neighbor did not come. Brazil, hon, is the biggest country in South America by every metric. Brazil did not come. Colombia, hon, is the country the President is threatening to invade this week over cartels. Colombia, understandably, did not come.

Who did come, hon? Argentina. Bolivia. Honduras. The Dominican Republic. That is, with all due respect to those four countries, not the largest hemispheric gathering in the history of the world. That is the President’s friends.

The summit, hon, opened with a signing ceremony in which the President signed a proclamation establishing the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition. The coalition is, in the fact sheet, a new mechanism under which the United States and participating nations will use military capabilities to disrupt and dismantle narco-terrorist networks. The fact sheet lists seventeen nations as participants. Reporters at the summit, hon, on the floor of the ballroom, counted eight heads of state and six foreign ministers. Eight plus six is fourteen. Seventeen is in the fact sheet. Fourteen is on the carpet.

You ever notice how the fact sheet is always more confident than the carpet?

The coffee, hon, was at the resort. The bar was at the resort. The banquet was at the resort. The coffee, the bar, the banquet, hon, were paid by the State Department, on a contract, to a company that is the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization, hon, is the company the President owns. So the Shield of the Americas summit, hosted by the President, in the President’s resort, paid the President’s company with State Department money to cater the President’s summit about a security alliance the President drew up. I am not making this up.

I will tell you what this is, hon. This is not a summit. This is a wedding. And it is the President’s wedding. And the President’s family is the State Department. And the catering bill is the security alliance. And the bride is Argentina.

The Counter-Cartel Coalition, on Saturday afternoon, signed. The Mexican government, on Saturday afternoon, issued a statement saying it was not consulted. The Mexican government, hon, is the single largest counterparty in the cartel file. The Counter-Cartel Coalition did not consult Mexico about the cartels. On the cartel coalition. In the cartel hemisphere.

Funny how that works.