While the charity galas that formerly dominated Mar-a-Lago ‘s winter season have all but vanished, the club owned by former president Donald Trump is making more money than ever by substituting events that attract some of the conspiracy-theorizing and hard-right parts of the MAGA universe . T he New York Times reported on the Mar-a-Lago events calendar’s rightward move and the profits Trump has generated from this, per Mediaite .
“According to federal and state campaign finance filings through the first quarter of 2024, more than $4.7 million has been spent on the property by candidates and political committees since Mr. Trump left the White House and made Mar-a-Lago his permanent residence.” https://t.co/r5XCvWD55u
— Marcus Baram (@mbaram) July 10, 2024
An examination of the evidence in the fraud lawsuit brought against the Trump Organization in New York by AG Letitia James indicated that Mar-a-Lago made $22 million in net profit in 2022. Mar-a-Lago, where Trump spends the majority of his time and where conservatives go in an attempt to placate Trump, has seen profits more than double then the rest of his clubs, per The New Republic .
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club raised its initiation fee from $100,000 in 2016 to $600,000 in 2022. Because the club Trump owns has around 500 members, it translates to almost $12 million—virtually free money for Trump. The Times points out that before Trump entered politics, Mar-a-Lago was mostly used as a location for lavish charity galas and very few political activities. The Times tallied 52 fundraiser events at Mar-a-Lago in the 2014–2015 season, before Trump declared his presidential candidacy. Only one of those events was political.
I’ll be on @msnbc in a few minutes to talk about how MAGA groups helped Mar-a-Lago, by rushing in to rent its ballrooms after big-time charities abandoned the place. https://t.co/YCMeYrIgRs
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) July 10, 2024
Following his controversial remarks in 2017 regarding the neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the Unite the Right demonstration, many apolitical charities pulled away from Mar-a-Lago and have subsequently been replaced with far-right gatherings. One of these is an annual event that started happening at Mar-a-Lago in 2018 and is organized by Turning Point USA, a conservative organization that targets college campuses with Christian nationalism.
Since Trump departed office, The Times has identified 130 individuals who have attended three or more Mar-a-Lago parties, many of them election deniers and Capitol rioters. There are 44 Republican candidates for office, state officials, and members of Congress, out of which 34 have gotten the prized Trump endorsement.
It remains incredible that the sitting president ran a private club where he welcomed input from paying members, and then it became a sort of court in exile, all while the US was paying him for the privilege of protecting him there It’s like something out of the 16th Century https://t.co/QNeqJ3hLkR
— XLProfessor (@XLProfessor) July 10, 2024
The report noted, “MAGA is a movement, and Mar-a-Lago is its epicenter,” pointing out that as the events on the schedule have changed, so has the makeup of the membership, with Trump’s detractors leaving and his ardent supporters replacing them. Along with a litany of conspiracy theories ranging from Pizzagate to utterly bogus allegations of election fraud, The Times also lists the rogues’ gallery of MAGA faithful who have frequented the club, including Dinesh D’Souza, Laura Loomer, Jack Posobiec, Rudy Giuliani, Roger Stone, Seb Gorka, Lara Logan, Charlie Kirk, and more.
Trump himself has, however, attempted to distance the politics from the Florida estate. “We don’t do too many of these things at Mar-a-Lago,” Trump claimed in March 2022 at a fundraiser. “I don’t want to make it a totally political place,” Trump added.
