Tag: Trump Mar-a-Lago

Election Denial and $16 Spritzers: Welcome to Florida’s Trump Coast

Lured south by sunshine, golf, and money, the former president’s allies and hangers-on have formed an alternate universe that revolves around Mar-a-Lago.

Since he left Washington in turmoil in January, Donald Trump has spent the bulk of his brief, contentious post-presidency holed up in what Karl Rove calls his “Fortress of Solitude”—Mar‑a‑Lago, his private club in Palm Beach. It’s an odd sort of isolation: Although he’s largely cut off from the outside world, Trump is hardly alone.

Tossed from the White House, banished from Facebook and Twitter, Trump has never seemed more distant from public consciousness. But while he can’t broadcast out, those same platforms offer a surprisingly intimate glimpse into his new life, thanks to the prolific posting of the club’s guests. At every moment of his day, Trump is bathed in adulation. When he enters the dining room, people stand and applaud. When he returns from golf, he’s met with squeals and selfie requests. When he leaves Mar-a-Lago, he often encounters flag-waving throngs organized by Willy Guardiola, a former professional harmonica player and anti-abortion activist who runs weekly pro-Trump rallies in Palm Beach. “Give me four hours and I can pull together 500 people,” Guardiola says. Trump recently invited the self-proclaimed “biggest Trump supporter in the country” for a private consultation at his club.

In this gilded Biosphere, Trump encounters no one who isn’t vocally gratified by his presence. When he speaks extemporaneously, so many guests post footage that you can watch the same weird scene unfold from multiple vantage points, like the Japanese film Rashomon. Trump seems so comfortable, the journalist and Instagram sleuth Ashley Feinberg has noted, that he’s taken to wearing the same outfit for days on end. Blue slacks, white golf shirt, and red MAGA cap are to the former president what the black Mao suit is to his old frenemy Kim Jong Un. Club members say his new lifestyle agrees with him. “Presidents when they finish always look so much older,” says Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire founder of Interactive Brokers LLC, who lives three doors down from Mar-a-Lago. “Not true for Trump.” Continue reading.

The Flag-Hugger-In-Chief Flies A Nonstandard, Cheaper One At Mar-a-Lago

Under President Eisenhower’s executive order, government offices must fly the standard U.S. ensign. Trump doesn’t at his “Southern White House.”

PALM BEACH, FLORIDA – The president who literally hugs and kisses the U.S. flag to show his patriotism appears to fly a nonstandard version, particularly on windy days, at his Florida resort, perhaps to save money.

Donald Trump calls Mar-a-Lago the “Southern White House” and has hosted foreign leaders there, complete with military honors, suggesting it is an official residence. Despite this, the property fails to fly the standard U.S. ensign, which under a decades-old executive order, all official buildings are required to use.

Under that directive, signed by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1959, who before winning the White House commanded the Allied forces in Europe that defeated Nazi Germany, executive branch offices are to use the official flag that is precisely 1.9 times as long as it is tall, with the blue “union” in the corner stretching 40% across the length. Continue reading.

On a Saturday Night in Florida, a Presidential Party Became a Coronavirus Hot Zone

New York Times logoA weekend getaway at Mar-a-Lago put the president in contact with several people who later tested positive for the virus. The White House physician said the president had tested negative for the virus.

WASHINGTON — The lights were low and the disco balls spinning as a cake with a fiery sparkler shooting flames into the air was brought out to a robust rendition of “Happy Birthday,” joined by President Trump. The birthday girl, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., then pumped her fist in the air and called out, “Four more years!”

It was a lavish, festive, carefree Saturday evening at Mar-a-Lago a week ago in what in hindsight now seems like a last hurrah for the end of one era and the beginning of another. In the days since then, the presidential estate in Florida has become something of a coronavirus hot zone. A growing number of Mar-a-Lago guests from last weekend have said they are infected or put themselves into quarantine.

A week later, the White House physician announced on Saturday night that the president had tested negative for the virus, ending a drama that played out for days as Mr. Trump refused repeatedly even to find out whether he had contracted it after exposure to multiple infected people. The result came less than 24 hours after the White House put out a misleading midnight statement saying there was no need for such a test at roughly the same time the president by his own account was actually undergoing one in deference to public pressure. Continue reading.

Far-right group warning of Islamist infiltration to hold banquet at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club

Washington Post logoA far-right group that believes Islamists are infiltrating the U.S. government will hold a banquet Saturday night at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, according to a permit issued for the event.

The group, the Center for Security Policy, has also spread the false idea that former president Barack Obama is a Muslim and alleged that mainstream Muslim organizations in the United States are secretly agents of anti-American jihad.

The group has rented a ballroom for Saturday at Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla., for its annual Freedom Flame Award Dinner. The 200-person event, named after the group’s flaming-torch symbol, previously was held in New York City and Washington.

View the complete November 22 article by David A. Fahrenthold on The Washington Post website here.