\n<\/p>\n
The room is what\u2019s known as a \u201csensitive compartmented information facility,\u201d or SCIF, which was erected at Mar-a-Lago to allow the president a space to discuss classified information. It appears to be the same room from which Trump monitored the raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in January. A White House source explained to Vanity Fair<\/em> that Mar-a-Lago security is handled by the Secret Service, which has also set up secure communications capabilities at the club. Typically, presidents would conduct these operations from the Situation Room of the White House, but according to multiple sources close to the president, he vastly prefers the comforts of his South Florida resort.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole fucking place is his man pad,\u201d explained one longtime friend of Trump\u2019s. \u201cHe feels so in control in Mar-a-Lago. That is where he launches some [of the] most important geopolitical activities.\u201d Trump, who seems afflicted with an intense aversion to being alone with his thoughts, also appears to enjoy the incessant stimulation that Mar-a-Lago provides.<\/p>\n \u201cA relaxing night for you and me might be a quiet dinner with friends or at home with family,\u201d said one Mar-a-Lago member who has known Trump for years. \u201cFor him, a relaxing night is to sit out and have 500 people watch him.\u201d When Trump is at the resort, as he is many weekends, his presence is all-consuming. \u201cHe\u2019ll walk over to get a Diet Coke at the bar,\u201d the old friend said. \u201cSecret Service lets him go. But every eye in the whole fucking restaurant follows every fucking step he takes.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not an exaggeration to say that many members pay for the privilege of being around Trump. \u201cHe\u2019s surrounded by people he likes to impress and he likes to give a show to. That\u2019s almost a membership perk,\u201d said Michael Wolff, a journalist who has spent time with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and written several books about him. \u201cIt\u2019s a surreal feeling that such major world events are being discussed and taking place at the same club that we were at,\u201d said Rosalyn Yellin, a Palm Beach socialite and star of Netflix reality show Members Only<\/em>, a Real Housewives<\/em> knockoff. She has been a Mar-a-Lago member since 2021 and attended the gala on Friday night. \u201cThe energy was electric in the room,\u201d she told me. Yellin said she\u2019s been at the club during other spectacles, including when Javier Milei, the unruly president of Argentina, visited.<\/p>\n It is an extreme demonstration, nightly, of what Gore Vidal called \u201cthat peculiarly American religion, President-worship.\u201d Except in this case, the president is a deeply unpopular figure who just launched a deeply unpopular war in the Middle East. No matter. At Mar-a-Lago, Trump is God, and his worshippers have paid a hefty tithe (memberships were ratcheted up<\/a> to $1 million in 2024). \u201cTrump could shoot someone at Mar-a-Lago and they\u2019d stand up to applaud him for it,\u201d said the old friend. \u201cHe walks on water at Mar-a-Lago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll of those people are, to say the very least, uncritical,\u201d said Wolff. \u201cSo all of the affirmation that he wants, he can get.\u201d A number of sources I spoke with also suggested that the demographics of his South Florida resort\u2014older, richer, and neoconservative in their politics\u2014are more inclined to support the kind of aggressive foreign interventions he\u2019s pursued while down in Florida, from the Maduro operation in Venezuela to the attack on Iran. \u201cWhen he goes down there, he gets all these old, fucking wealthy people,\u201d the friend explained. \u201cNo one\u2019s going to lose a kid or get shipped off. And they want to blow shit up and blow people up. That\u2019s old-school Republicanism right there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n