{"id":1732,"date":"2024-11-13T20:37:45","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T20:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2024-11-13T20:37:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T20:37:45","slug":"dinner-at-mar-a-lago-is-for-power-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/dinner-at-mar-a-lago-is-for-power-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Dinner at Mar-a-Lago Is for Power Games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When\u00a0Donald\u00a0and\u00a0Melania Trump\u00a0come out to the predinner standing ovation on the Mar-a-Lago patio around 7:30 p.m., it\u2019s time for the Pledge of Allegiance. \u201cThen everybody claps,\u201d says\u00a0Mar-a-Lago\u00a0member and former\u00a0The Real Housewives of New Jersey\u00a0<\/em>member\u00a0Siggy Flicker<\/a>. \u201cWe do \u2018U-S-A, U-S-A.\u2019 People start crying. It\u2019s just beautiful to be out there in the garden. There\u2019s beautiful lighting and everybody\u2019s all around and it\u2019s just a magical place. The energy at Mar-a-Lago right now is like nothing I\u2019ve ever experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, over scallops and octopus and braised cabbage, the lobbying begins. Since Donald Trump won the election last week, Mar-a-Lago has been overtaken by billionaire advisers and MAGA believers planning to influence the second Trump term. In the past week, Flicker says she has seen formal and informal advisers on the gilded Palm Beach property, including Elise Stefanik, Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. \u201cI was just there on Friday having dinner with Kash Patel,\u201d she says of the former Defense staffer\u00a0rumored\u00a0to be in consideration for a top job at the CIA or FBI. Elon Musk is there\u00a0pretty much all the time, sitting at Trump\u2019s table at dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The billionaire X and Tesla owner is around so much he\u2019s even got his own intro music. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you know this, but Trump DJs Mar-a-Lago from his iPad,\u201d says\u00a0Melissa Re<\/a>in Lively<\/a>, another frequent presence at the club these days. \u201cSo he has a walk-on song for Elon Musk, which is \u2018Space Oddity.\u2019\u201dhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DCP88KAO1f0\/embed\/captioned\/?cr=1&v=14&wp=1196&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com&rp=%2Fintelligencer%2Farticle%2Fdonald-trump-inside-mar-a-lago.html#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A1459.300000011921%7D<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Election Night, Rein Lively has been at Mar-a-Lago as much as possible, lobbying for her dream job as the White House press secretary. The founder of an \u201canti-woke PR firm\u201d who gained prominence in conservative circles after a viral incident in which she is alleged to have destroyed a mask display at a Target, Rein Lively has extended her stay in Palm Beach by five nights in order to be where the action is. She says she keeps running into Tulsi Gabbard, the once-Democratic congresswoman and former presidential candidate who is now advising the second Trump transition. \u201cMe and Tulsi have this joke going,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause we\u2019re like, \u2018Hey, besty girl.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Rein Lively at Mar-a-Lago, with Tulsi Gabbard and donor Bill Pulte, who is “under consideration” for the HUD secretary post, according to an anonymously sourced<\/a> New York Post <\/em>story.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the impressive security footprint since the assassination attempts \u2014 and the\u00a0porous reputation\u00a0of the estate in Trump\u2019s first term \u2014 there are\u00a0very few restrictions\u00a0for Mar-a-Lago members and their guests. This may be a perk for a club that advertises a $1 million up-front fee plus $20,000 annually. \u201cI have about a half a dozen friends that are members, so it\u2019s actually not very difficult for me to get into Mar-a-Lago at all,\u201d says Rein Lively. \u201cSometimes I have multiple dinner invitations for the same night. I screwed up the other night and one of the members was pissed because I promised them I would sit at their table and then there was \u2014 and I hate to say this, but this is the way that it works \u2014 there was another table that was more influential. So, of course, I ditched the first table and sat at the second table, and the member who invited me to the first table was livid because you\u2019re really not supposed to do that. It really pisses off the director if you do not have your table correctly sat in full and all the people don\u2019t show up on time; it really messes things up over there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"US-VOTE-POLITICS-ELECTION\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Coast Guard outside Mar-a-Lago on Election Day. Photo: AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are just the beginning of the upcoming administration\u2019s power plays at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump spent 142 days<\/a> during his first term. \u201cWhy would you join now? You join now because you want to get close to Trump and you want to get some deal or something. You\u2019ll be there for four years. When he leaves office, you don\u2019t give a damn,\u201d said author Laurence Leamer<\/a>, who wrote a book<\/a> on Trump\u2019s most famous resort that he says got him banned from the club. \u201cIt\u2019s a dinner club, and you only go when Trump is there. You probably go once a week for four months in a season. You do that for four years, do the math \u2014 you\u2019re spending $18,000 a meal to just get in there. It\u2019s the most expensive meal you\u2019re going to have, but is it worth it if your company gets a $2 billion deal from the federal government? It\u2019s the best money you ever spent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With influence comes inconvenience. Leamer, who lives in Palm Beach, says that traffic has been dreadful since Trump has decamped to the Winter White House. \u201cThe island is cut in two,\u201d he says. \u201cIt takes you another half-hour or more to get from one side of the island to the other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Donald<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless you\u2019re in the curtained-off room<\/a> with Trump and his chief of staff, it can be difficult to know who among his loyalists is successfully currying favor with the impulsive president-elect. Rein Lively has a theory that the dinner seating is a tell-tale ranking system of sorts. \u201cEverybody\u2019s calculating, everybody\u2019s cutthroat,\u201d she says. \u201cEverybody wants to know who everybody\u2019s talking to and what they said and where they\u2019re sitting and why they\u2019re sitting and who\u2019s sitting with who. One night, it was raining and they had brought all the tables inside. So you could really tell by the way that the tables were sat who was the most important. And I found it very flattering that my chair was close to the president. And Elon gave me a high five last night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s both fun and hard work for a Republican basking in Trump\u2019s win \u2014 so much sun and golf and martinis and all that work to benefit from proximity to celebrity, power, and money. \u201cIt\u2019s House of Cards <\/em>on the lido deck,\u201d Rein Lively said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When\u00a0Donald\u00a0and\u00a0Melania Trump\u00a0come out to the predinner standing ovation on the Mar-a-Lago patio around 7:30 p.m., it\u2019s time for the Pledge of Allegiance. \u201cThen everybody claps,\u201d says\u00a0Mar-a-Lago\u00a0member and former\u00a0The Real Housewives of New Jersey\u00a0member\u00a0Siggy Flicker. \u201cWe do \u2018U-S-A, U-S-A.\u2019 People start crying. It\u2019s just beautiful to be out there in the garden. There\u2019s beautiful lighting and everybody\u2019s all around and it\u2019s just a magical place. The energy at Mar-a-Lago right now is like nothing I\u2019ve ever experienced.\u201d Then, over scallops and octopus and braised cabbage, the lobbying begins. Since Donald Trump won the election last week, Mar-a-Lago has been overtaken by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,5],"tags":[56,19],"coauthors":[54],"class_list":["post-1732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breakingheadlines","category-newyorkinfocus","category-opinion-pieces","tag-donald-trump","tag-new-york"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1734,"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/1734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyartisinal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}