South Florida Reacts To "The Donald" Drama
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - As companies, celebrities, and even city and county officials look at different ways they can sever ties with Donald Trump, the Trump machine in South Florida is still making money.
The Trump National Golf Resort in Doral still has customers, like the Ko family. Chris Ko heard the controversial comments Trump made about Mexican immigrants, but couldn't say no to his daughter, Olivia, who wanted to stay at the resort to celebrate her 8th birthday.
Trump golf club member Franco Sefaili is concerned about Trump's comments.
"I don't agree with the pronouncement of Mr. Trump," he told CBS4's Natalia Zea.
But it's not slowing down his golf game.
"I am member and I have to use my membership," Sefaili said.
Oors Fermin's wife is applying to work at the resort, even though their family is Latino and Fermin calls Trump a racist.
"He's a good businessman and gives a lot of people jobs..I was just looking and there's a lot of people working here, and they are Spanish, so, they're still working for him. They're not on strike," he said.
Trump PR folks would not grant CBS4 News permission to shoot inside its golf resort, and did not respond to our requests for an interview about how business is doing. The spokeswoman's only response was, "It's business as usual."
One South Florida native made headlines by cutting his ties with the Donald.
Carol City raised rapper Flo Rida bowed out from performing at the Miss USA pageant.
And national retailer Macy's cut ties with Donald, saying they would no longer sell his clothing line, which brought out some strong opinions from shoppers.
"I think he did it to himself….How can you have a man that hates a certain part of the population and then he's making money through that same population?" said shopper, George Ceballos.
Juan Rodriguez disagrees.
"Any people got the opinion, different…It's the opinion of Donald Trump."
But Macy's appears to be a bit slow in clearing its product shelves...CBS4 news found Trump Ties at a South Florida Macy's, though they were on deep discount.
"They have to take it off...everything," insisted shopper Karen Largo.
Macys.com is making good on the promise, the only Trump merchandise you can buy there is that of his daughter, Ivanka.
At this point it's not clear what the severed relationships will mean for Donald Trump's empire but here in South Florida, the negative publicity does not appear to be closing Trump's gates anytime soon.