Trump lauds Newt Gingrich for on-air sparring with Fox's Megyn Kelly

Donald Trump made a detour to Washington on Wednesday to officially christen a downtown hotel bearing his name, even as his campaign sets its sights on Florida as its make-or-break battleground state less than two weeks before Election Day.

Aides insisted it was a non-campaign event, but when Trump took the stage he railed against bloated military hospital construction projects, blasted Obamacare price spikes and congratulated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for sparring Tuesday night with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in a contentious primetime interview.

"That was an amazing interview," Trump said as he pointed at Gingrich. "We don't play games, Newt, right? We don't play games."

Gingrich and Kelly had tussled over whether news coverage of sexual assault allegations against Trump compares fairly to stories about the ongoing release of hacked emails from top aides to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Clinton planned to mark her 69th birthday by making campaign stops in Florida. Her campaign also released two new television commercials it described as "closing arguments" to viewers in several battleground states. One of the messages is voiced by actor Morgan Freeman.

Trump stood on a ballroom stage alongside three of his grown children who oversee his hotel projects at what was billed as the official grand opening of Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, just blocks from the White House. Trump's co-mingling of his business interests and presidential aspirations were on clear display in and around the glitzy ballroom where he spoke.

A staffer employed by the campaign made final touches on the podium on stage. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a top Trump surrogate, was on hand and spoke to reporters about the campaign. Gingrich sat in the front of the room.

Speaking after his daughter, Ivanka, who has overseen the redevelopment of the Old Post Office Building, Trump said the project "shows how to work with our government and to get things done. My theme today is five words: Under budget and ahead of schedule. So important. We don't hear those words too often in government – but you will."

Later, he noted that he would campaign later Wednesday in North Carolina before visiting other battleground states.

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It was one of many instances in which he has simultaneously promoted his business and political interests. The last time Trump held a major public event at his hotel in the District of Columbia was last month, when he acknowledged for the first time that President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

He has also met privately there with hotel employees and used it for interviews and meetings with his foreign policy team. NBC News reported Wednesday that Trump has made at least 32 visits to the site since its transformation began nearly two years ago.

On Tuesday, Trump staged a photo-op with employees of his Trump National Doral golf resort near Miami and sought to speak about both campaign themes and his company. He raised money at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach on Monday.

Over the summer, after he effectively clinched the GOP nomination, Trump flew to Scotland to promote his golf courses there. He announced his campaign last year in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. He even put Trump branded products on display at an event in March.

But Trump's holdings have suffered several setbacks. Two restaurant tenants backed out of the Washington project and room rates listed there in recent weeks are deeply discounted from the original planned prices. The Trump empire recently announced the launch of a new brand, Scion, that will replace the family name on some company properties going forward amid published reports that several properties have seen a drop in business since Trump launched his campaign.

Trump's reference to Gingrich's Fox interview came after one of his top campaign aides made an apparent threat against Kelly via Twitter on Tuesday night.

Dan Scavino, a senior aide, tweeted that Kelly "made a total fool out of herself tonight- attacking @realDonaldTrump. Watch what happens to her after this election is over."

When Gingrich raised objections in the interview to the level of coverage of the hacking of Clinton's emails, Kelly shot back: "That is worth covering. And we did."

Gingrich persisted: "I mean, you want to go back through the tapes of your show recently. You are fascinated with sex, and you don't care about public policy."

Gingrich dismissed the allegations against Trump during the interview, but repeatedly referred to former president Bill Clinton as a "sexual predator" – citing allegations by several women against the 42nd president dating back to the 1970s. Gingrich led Republican congressional investigations of Bill Clinton in the 1990s that resulted in his impeachment. But the Clinton inquests also brought subsequent GOP congressional losses that forced Gingrich to step down as speaker.

Meanwhile, top Republican Party officials said the party's ground operation – now staffed by 3,100 paid organizers — is having a discernible impact on early voting in states such as North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin and Iowa.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called the difference between where the party's ground game is now compared to 2012 "pretty remarkable," adding that it "will pay dividends for our party on all levels."

"Because of the ground game, now we are seeing Democrats being taken down a notch in early voting," he told reporters on a conference call.

Already, RNC organizers have knocked on more than 12 million doors – surpassing the 11.5 million the party's field staffers contacted in the entire 2012 race, officials said.

"We are very confident that it will show dividends," political director Chris Carr said of the party's field program. "This is the largest that we have ever seen in terms of paid organizers."

Party officials said the operation to get out the vote for the entire GOP ticket would be "fully funded," despite the Trump campaign's decision to largely wind down high-dollar fundraisers in the final weeks of the campaign. The bulk of the proceeds from those events went to the RNC for its national voter mobilization effort. But RNC leaders, including Priebus, continue to fundraise for the party, officials said.

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Bill Palatucci, general counsel to Trump's transition team, on Wednesday also denied a Reuters report that the operation is scaling back in order to focus on Trump's chances for victory.

"Everybody here has a very workmanlike attitude," Palatucci said in an interview.

Campaigning in Lake Worth, Fla., Clinton acknowledged the opening of Trump's new hotel by noting that she was traveling Wednesday with Jose Andres, the Washington-based celebrity chef who backed out of plans to build a restaurant at the site.

"While the hotel may be new it's the same old story," Clinton told supporters. "He relied on undocumented workers to make his project cheaper. Most of the products in the rooms were made overseas and he even sued to get his taxes lowered. We know he's used undocumented workers. And that's one of the things he's run his campaign on, about deporting undocumented workers."

Interviews conducted by The Washington Post with construction workers at the Trump hotel found that the firm may have been relying on some undocumented workers. Several workers, who hail mostly from Central America, earned U.S. citizenship or legal status, while others acknowledged that they remained in the country illegally.

On "The Breakfast Club" radio show on Wednesday, Clinton was asked why she thinks the historic nature of her candidacy isn't resonating more.

"I have tried to emphasize to people that, hey, just like President Obama was a really good president – and the fact that he was black I think was historic and unprecedented – but he also claimed and owned his excellence, and that's why I'm saying, 'Okay – I think it's really exciting and historic that I would be the first woman president, but I have a lot of work I want to do.' And I hope that people will say, 'Hey, she's getting it done.' That's how I think about it."

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The Washington Post's Abby Phillip in Lake Worth, Fla. and Elise Viebeck, Jonathan O'Connell, Jenna Johnson, Matea Gold and John Wagner in Washington contributed to this report.