This is what a G-7 site search usually looks like

The Obama administration picked Camp David to host the 2012 G-8 summit to provide a sense of intimacy for world leaders wrestling with the economy. The George W. Bush administration tapped Sea Island, Ga., in 2004 to create an informal vibe as prime ministers zipped around on golf cart-van hybrids.

Before then, Denver in 1997 shined a spotlight on the American West. Williamsburg, Va., in 1983 showcased American history and whimsy.

Now, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to host the 2020 G-7 summit at his own golf club in Florida — and his near-instantaneous reversal in the face of Republican opposition — the Trump team will need to come up with a new theory of the case.

As the White House resets its location search, officials from past administrations say it will have to balance messaging, logistics, security, infrastructure — and the president’s own demands.

“What they’re up against is not that there’s a single American city that can’t handle a summit. They can. They’ve all proved it,” said Anne Edwards, a longtime public events planner who worked with several administrations and countries. “But now it’s up against the president’s disappointment that it can’t be Doral. That’s going to be their big leap.”

Former Democratic and Republican staffers who planned G-8 and other similar summits said there’s no formula to the search, but it typically begins with the White House weighing its policy objectives along with the image it wants to present to the world — or to Americans.

Then begins the process of seeking and culling specific locations. “You very quickly boil it down to about four or five. It’s kind of like a job search: You look at 100 resumes, and 30 minutes later you’ve got four candidates,” said Jack McDougle, director of the liaison group for the 2004 G-8. “Then you do a real deep dive on those four or five.”

In 2004, that list comprised Sea Island; Mt. Washington, N.H.; the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia; the Biltmore in North Carolina; and Kiawah Island, S.C., according to the summit’s executive director, Bob Goodwin. The Bush administration wanted to stay within the Eastern time zone and a nonstop flight from D.C., and it contacted the sites. (Administrations don’t typically bid out an overall summit, but they do solicit bids for individual components, like a fleet of cars, after choosing the location.)

Goodwin said Mt. Washington was never considered very seriously, but they made the New Hampshire visit for political reasons. They ultimately chose Sea Island for its vibe, lodging and seclusion — the ocean and an alligator-studded swamp on either side served as good security and anti-protester buffers, he said.

Before selecting Doral, the Trump administration visited several locations and considered three other finalists — one in Hawaii and two in Utah, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said last week.

“It became apparent at the end of that process that Doral was far and away the best physical facility for this meeting,” Mulvaney said.

The Deseret News suggested the Utah venues were Montage Deer Valley and the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City, but representatives at both told POLITICO they had no information.

Greg Jenkins, who was a deputy assistant to George W. Bush and director of the advance office, criticized Mulvaney’s comment last week that Doral was better than any other option.

“The finalists that we actually went to look at, all of them would have worked,” Jenkins said last week before Trump reversed course. “So to have a finalist list where only one could possibly work seems like stacking the deck to me, and a waste of money.”

A summit of this type is a massive undertaking — Goodwin started working more than a year out in 2003, eventually overseeing more than 200 employees and $25.6 million in State Department funding. An administration has to figure out transportation and lodging for thousands of attendees from several countries, each with its own press corps and set of demands.

Summits this major are typically designated National Security Special Events. So as advance teams and then senior officials conduct site visits for the finalists, the Secret Service runs a security review process to advise the White House on what it would take to make each location safe.

Former Obama DHS official Juliette Kayyem said the Trump administration appeared to have insufficiently coordinated security vetting before announcing Doral. The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold reported that Doral’s mayor found out about the selection from watching the announcement on TV.

“Any serious review would also have taken into account and assessed state and local resources,” said Kayyem, who was in charge of intergovernmental coordination for summits like this. “So the failure to notify any of the state or locals who would be impacted by an event like this was to me … another clear sign that this was not a real review.”

Ethical concerns aside, some former officials said Doral would have made a strong host due to its sprawling size and amenities, and that not many other places are able to satisfy a G-7 summit’s many demands. “These days in particular, that list does get pretty small quickly,” McDougle said.

But others cited the summer heat in Florida, close proximity to the Miami airport and disruption to neighbors as major drawbacks — and said there’s no shortage of sites that an administration could make work.

“I would tell them to get creative,” said Johanna Maska, director of press advance for Obama who helped move the 2012 summit to Camp David from its original location alongside the NATO summit in Chicago. “There’s a lot of extraordinary gems that you could show off.”

The White House hasn’t yet said how it will proceed with the search for a Doral alternative, although Trump floated Camp David in his announcement tweet this weekend. Milwaukee, for one, has thrown its hat in the ring.

But ultimately, all the logistical and security considerations in the world may have to contend with an Oval Office occupant self-styled as the ultimate event host.

On Monday, Trump bemoaned the public outcry that had forced him to cancel Doral as the venue. “I was willing to do this for free,” he said. “It will cost a fortune for the country” elsewhere.

“At the end of the day,” Mulvaney told Fox on Sunday, “he still considers himself to be in the hospitality business.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Jack McDougle’s name. It also partially misstated Greg Jenkins’ former title. He was a deputy assistant to George W. Bush and director of the advance office.