1103 Trump at Mar-a-Lago

I could not resist, I got sucked into the Vanity Fair article (it's CoViD lockdown, sooo much time) and then there was a link to a House and Garden article with the history of Mar-a-Lago ... the upkeep cost was about $1m a year ... 50 yrs ago!

Former President Donald Trump had a surprisingly candid response when challenged over the tens of thousands of lies he told during his time in office, according to the author of a new tell-all book.

“We asked him why, as president, he thought it was OK for him to continually tell the American people things that were not true, to lie again and again and again,” Washington Post journalist Philip Rucker recalled of interviewing Trump on Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“And he said to us, ‘You know, there’s a beautiful word, and it’s called disinformation,’” Rucker said.

Rucker and fellow Post journalist Carol Leonnig sat down with Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, in March for their book documenting the last months of his presidency. The tell-all, titled “‘I Alone Can Fix It’: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” was released Tuesday.

When asked why Trump bothered to do the interview, given his attacks on the media in general and the Post in particular, Leonnig suggested that the former president knew he was addicted to the attention.

”It is a sickness in some respects,” she said. “However, I would argue part of the reason he sat with us for so long is because we were eager to hear his explanations ... his narrative of this incredible, consequential and ultimately catastrophic year. We wanted him to have a chance to explain that.”

Trump’s main grievances centered on “how often people around him failed him,” she added. “I think it’s so interesting his narrative is basically that he alone was the brilliant genius and everyone else was an enemy or a weak, paltry stand-in.”

I heard their ballroom seats 800; but then, it is probably an appropriate abode ... if one considers the size of Trump's ego, ostensibly nothing less than - wait for it - 128 rooms would do. One. Hundred. Twenty. Eight!

To think this man made it to the presidency ... what - one can only wonder - does that say about the United States of America?! Anyway, one can just see how Trumpists see him as royalty ... as their king. Myself? I must say it beats me how blue-collar workers - apparently the largest contingent of his adherents - can fall for this clown (Biden was right). Strange.

Vanity Fair interview “I’M GETTING THE WORD OUT”

INSIDE THE FEVERISH MIND OF DONALD TRUMP

TWO MONTHS AFTER LEAVING THE WHITE HOUSE

In an hours-long interview with Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker for their new book I Alone Can Fix It, the former president repeated his election lies, bashed Mitch McConnell (“he’s a stupid person”), and teased a triumphant comeback.

Seventy days had passed since Donald Trump left Washington against his will. On March 31, 2021, we ventured to Mar-a-Lago, where he still reigned as king of Republican politics. We arrived late that afternoon for our audience with the man who used to be president and were ushered into an ornate sixty-foot-long room that functioned as a kind of lobby leading to the club’s patio.

A model of Air Force One painted in Trump’s proposed redesign - a flat red stripe across the middle, a navy belly, a white top, and a giant American flag on the tail - was proudly displayed on the coffee table facing the entrance. It was a prop disconnected from reality. Trump’s vision never came to be; the fleet now in use by President Biden still bears the iconic baby blue-and-white livery designed by Jacqueline Kennedy.

“Used to be” is not a phrase anyone dares use to describe the president inside his Palm Beach castle. Here, beneath the gold-leaf ceiling of winged griffins and crystal chandeliers, Trump still rules, surrounded day and night by applauding fans, obsequious courtiers, and dutiful servants. At the perfectly manicured Mar-a-Lago, none of the disgrace that marked the end of his presidency pierces Trump’s reality. Here, he and his aides work to maintain the gospel according to Trump, with the most important revelations being that Donald Trump was the greatest president of all time and was unjustly denied a second term ...

... “Good conversation,” Trump said. “I’m getting the word out.”

The interview, he said, was “a great honor.” He offered to do another if we needed to ask anything else and shrugged off the mention of how many hours he had already spent answering our questions.

“I enjoyed it actually,” Trump said, a twinkle in his eye. “For some sick reason I enjoyed it.”

(It is a long article, but ever so compelling a read.)

Now, if one wishes to know exactly where the interview took place, here are some images from Mar-a-Lago (meaning sea to lake). House & Garden

Covering 20 acres of prime beachfront real estate in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, stretches from Lake Worth to the Atlantic Ocean. Trump's 128-room house was built between 1924 and 1927 for cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. The lavish rooms are a homage to European opulence, described as 'Hispano-Moresque' style, with Italian influence in the form of Florentine frescoes and Venetian arches.

Marjorie Post bequeathed her house to the U.S. government in 1973 in hope that it would be used as the 'winter White House'. However, extortionate upkeep costs, estimated at around $1 million annually, meant that the government was not interested, and returned the house to the Post Foundation in 1980.

When the estate went on the market for $20 million, Donald Trump was looking to purchase a Palm Beach home and set his sights on Mar-a-Lago, offering $15 million. This offer was rejected and Trump instead purchased the beach at the front of the property. After threatening to build to obstruct the ocean view of Mar-a-Lago, he secured purchase of the home for $5 million, plus an additional $3 million for the antiques and furniture, in 1985.