{"id":21297,"date":"2017-02-04T04:58:42","date_gmt":"2017-02-04T04:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=21297"},"modified":"2017-02-04T04:58:42","modified_gmt":"2017-02-04T04:58:42","slug":"protests-vetting-order-follow-trump-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/protests-vetting-order-follow-trump-florida.html","title":{"rendered":"Protests over vetting order follow Trump to Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Protests over vetting order follow Trump to Florida<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Protests over vetting order follow Trump to Florida:-<\/strong> President Donald Trump arrived Friday evening at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, for his first working vacation as president \u2014 but he may not find much peace once he gets there.<\/span><\/p>\n

As many as 2,000 protesters are expected to march Saturday in opposition to Trump’s executive order on immigrant vetting, just as Trump heads to the annual International Red Cross Ball at Mar-a-Lago. The organization is scrambling to help refugees that the president has temporarily banned from entering the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

The protesters will be in West Palm Beach, across the water from Palm Beach, but they’ll serve as tangible example of how life is changing for Trump as the controversies and limitations of occupying the White House.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before he became president, Trump would vacation at Mar-a-Lago to clear his mind, play golf on the 17-acre grounds and enjoy the oceanfront view. At dinner, he would shoot the breeze with members and guests and act as backslapper in chief, often recommending his favorite item on the menu: \u201cDonald Trump Meatloaf.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe talks to everyone and has the chitty-chatty talk. He just works the room, he walks around and talks to everyone,\u201d said Bo Dietl, a longtime club member. \u201cBut this is before he was running for president \u2026 I don’t think he’ll be as accessible as he was.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, Secret Service needs access to the president limited. When Trump is in, members and guests enter through a side parking lot. They\u2019re questioned and screened for weapons by magnetometers. Cars are checked for bombs. Coast Guard Defender boats with mounted machine guns patrol the waters. Nearby airports are closed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before Trump landed at Palm Beach International Airport on Friday, Democrats demanded that Trump release a list of Mar-a-Lago\u2019s membership, and questioned whether the members-only club constitutes a conflict of interest for Trump. In an open letter to Trump, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) noted that club dues were reportedly doubled to about $200,000 a year soon after Trump was elected.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPresumably demand for memberships has increased dramatically since you were elected president with the expectation that a membership at your club will offer special access to you when you are there,\u201d they wrote. \u201cIndeed, as of today, the \u2018Private Membership\u2019 page on the Mar-a-Lago Club website still refers to it \u2018Donald J. Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago Club,\u2019 and you are renowned as being a gracious, and present, host for all Club guests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But, while some members note that more people are coming to Mar-a-Lago, they point out that membership to island clubs are capped by Town of Palm Beach ordinance, that few open memberships were available this year, and the $200,000 membership is lower than other more exclusive Palm Beach clubs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, members say, Mar-a-Lago is a bad place to lobby Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as contact with Trump there, you can get your photo and you can talk to him. You’re never really getting into any deep conversations. You’re never really bending his ear as president,\u201d said one member who did not want to be identified as someone who talks to the press.<\/span><\/p>\n

Said another: \u201cIt\u2019s a mistake for anyone to think that they\u2019re going to be able to make a deal with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Everyone knows that he doesn\u2019t talk business there. He\u2019s there to relax.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump doesn\u2019t relax the way most people would. He rarely stops moving. He doesn’t sit by the pool or stand by the tennis courts. He either stays in his private quarters where he likes to watch TV, golfs and chats up people about politics and even his Cabinet picks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some members said they\u2019ve grown increasingly concerned about talking to reporters because they don\u2019t want to raise suspicions with Trump\u2019s political team. Aside from being a gracious host, they fear Trump\u2019s vindictive streak. During the GOP presidential primary, for instance, Jeb Bush\u2019s campaign found that members of Mar-a-Lago were scared to back the former governor publicly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to lose our seats,\u201d one longtime Bush supporter told a Bush campaign hand. \u201cHe could give us a bad table or stick us in the kitchen with the help.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mar-a-Lago is more than just a real-estate holding for Trump. He claimed he polished up his inaugural address at the Winter White House, the second president to do so on Palm Beach after John F. Kennedy. It stands as a tribute to his moxie as a dealmaker and it was a necessary acquisition for Trump to be a full-fledged member of New York high society, whose captains of industry and heirs to great fortunes winter on Palm Beach. Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago battles are a key to understanding his style.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his Art of the Deal best-seller, Trump bragged about how he acquired the historic property \u2014 completed in 1927 by Post cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post \u2014 for less than he initially offered. In all, he paid about $7 million for the property in 1985 and about $3 million more for the furniture. Trump then got in a tussle with the Palm Beach County tax assessor over the taxable value of the land and he squabbled with the town of Palm Beach as he turned the mansion into a club that accepted any paying member \u2014 a shock to the segregated island where Jews for years were confined to just one club and even President Kennedy\u2019s family caused a stir years ago at another because they were Catholics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPalm Beach is very WASP and back then it was even worse,\u201d said one former Republican official from the area who has been a frequent guest of Trump\u2019s in the past. \u201cThe problem with Donald in their eyes is he\u2019s a boor, nouveau riche. He\u2019s Vegas, Jersey, Outer-Borough. But they\u2019ve come to accept him. He\u2019s part of Palm Beach. And he is Mar-a-Lago. He\u2019s a big draw and has been for years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump restored the mansion in painstaking and classy fashion. He took officials on tours of its grounds, and told them the provenance of the furniture and described the meaning or patterns of the drapes and wallpaper.<\/span><\/p>\n

And just as Trump did in New York Society earlier and later in the Republican Party during his presidential bid, Trump prevailed in Palm Beach. By winning the presidency, he\u2019s the man in full on an island of billionaires where two sometimes-feuding Koch brothers live.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese are rich people. They respect power. And Donald Trump is the most-powerful man in the world as president of the United States now,\u201d said another Republican involved with politics on the island.<\/span><\/p>\n

Longtime Trump friend and club member Chris Ruddy, founder of the conservative NewsMax media enterprise, said Trump had another motive in mind in running for president.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe joke is that he wanted to become president so he could stop the airplanes flying over Mar-a-Lago from PBIA,\u201d Ruddy said, referring to Trump\u2019s longtime battle with Palm Beach International Airport, whose flight path is directly over the estate.<\/span><\/p>\n

In between the airport and the estate, on the eastern edge of West Palm Beach where it borders the Intracoastal Waterway along Flagler Drive, protesters plan to march to the bridge leading to Palm Beach from Trump Plaza condominiums, which are so named for a long-ago failed real estate deal for the former developer. Some residents want the name of the plaza changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The original protest organizer only expected to have a few hundred demonstrators for his \u201cMarch to Mar-a-Lago for Humanity\u201d where the demonstrators would end up in front of the Palm Beach estate. But the town\u2019s demonstration-permit applications nearly prohibit large noisy crowds on the island. And, when Facebook RSVP\u2019s exceeded 2,000, the organizer quit and handed the reins to two experienced organizers who decided not to march people across the bridge, which would be a safety hazard owing to the size of the crowd.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alex Newell Taylor, a march organizer, acknowledged that Trump might not hear or see the protests first hand. But he\u2019ll see it on television and their voices will be heard.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to let Trump relax at Mar-a-Lago,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are huge groups of people who don\u2019t get to relax because of his executive orders, people fighting for their lives and their rights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She said they\u2019re not intentionally targeting the Red Cross for having its gala at Mar-a-Lago, but noted the irony of the organization having to fight Trump\u2019s refugee ban while raising money at his estate. The event is the biggest gala of the year on Palm Beach, an invitation-only affair of billionaires in white ties and tiaras, ambassadors and foreign dignitaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s longtime but occasional adviser, Roger Stone, said he\u2019s not sure whether the protests will bother Trump or not. A Richard Nixon-era operative and author of \u201cThe Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution,\u201d Stone said Trump could use the demonstrations to his advantage if they get out of hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stone, however, wondered if the unpleasant trappings of the presidency will wear on Trump at Mar-a-Lago and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDonald used to come and go as he pleases, and now he can\u2019t and he has protesters on top of that. He\u2019s a man who does not like to be contained,\u201d Stone said. \u201cMar-a-Lago is like an oasis for him. But if feels he can\u2019t go there to unwind, I wonder if it will make him go crazy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2017\/02\/trump-florida-protests-mar-lago-234627<\/span><\/div>\n

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