By Byron York
On March 15, the Republican Party of Palm Beach County held its Lincoln Day Gala at Mar-a-Lago, where its special guest was also its host, Mar-a-Lago owner and former President Donald Trump. Around 8:30 p.m., Trump interrupted his private dinner on the outdoor terrace (a dinner with one aide and me, for a mostly on-the-record conversation), to make a brief speech to the Republican group gathered in another building in the complex.
Trump walked to the podium to his usual entrance music, Lee Greenwood‘s “God Bless the U.S.A.” To say the reception was wildly enthusiastic would be an understatement. The hometown Mar-a-Lago crowd’s reaction to Trump was more than just political enthusiasm: more intense, more personal, more devoted.
Trump had a sheet of prepared notes — whom to recognize, whom to thank — but spoke mostly off the cuff. At the end of his remarks, Trump walked along a rope line on his way out of the room. He shook hand after hand, but rather than a simple handshake, some excited admirers would grasp his hand so heartily, and squeeze so hard, that Trump had to pull back to move on to the next person. Near the end of the line, one woman seized Trump’s hand so vigorously that a Secret Service agent had to deliver a sort of mini karate chop — nothing violent, just a firm tap — to break up the one-sided embrace.
As we walked back to the terrace to resume dinner, I asked Trump, “Weren’t you once famously a germaphobe?”
“In this business, you just have to get over it,” he said. He held out his right hand and showed that the back was covered by a large, greenish bruise. There were also marks left by female admirers with carefully manicured nails. It happened all the time, he said.
As we walked, Trump marveled at the emotional connection people in the crowd felt with him. He feels it, too, and knows it is unusual, not the sort of thing one sees every day in politics or in life. He also knows it is the foundation of his comeback, from a presidency that ended in disaster in 2021 to the 2024 nomination of the Republican Party. “It’s a great honor,” Trump said, which is something he says often to tell the listener he appreciates the importance of something, even handshakes that leave him bruised.
Before we went to the Republican event, I asked Trump about the comeback. On Jan. 20, 2021, he returned to Mar-a-Lago an ex-president, still awaiting an impeachment trial in the Senate (his second), with his own party, and all of Washington, reeling from the events of Jan. 6. How could a politician ever recover from that? At that moment in 2021, did Trump think he was finished politically.
“No, I never really felt that,” Trump said. “Because I feel a love from the people. I feel the crowd, and I feel a love. I never felt that — just never felt it.”
“Did you think you could run for president again?”
“I thought so,” Trump said, “because I thought I was very popular. I knew I won the election.”
Trump’s son Eric and his wife, Lara Trump, newly installed as co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, were sitting at a table near the former president’s. At one point, the conversation included them, and Lara Trump said she remembered a family dinner at Mar-a-Lago the night after Trump came back from Washington, his presidential term over. As Lara Trump recalled, her father-in-law said, “I know I can do this again.” A comeback was clearly on his mind, even in his earliest post-presidential hours. Trump laughed at the memory and said Lara had told the story more clearly in one sentence than he had in several minutes of conversation.
The recollection spurred Trump to think more about his feelings in early 2021. “I felt that — I know that I won the election, by a lot,” Trump said. “If I felt I lost the election, I would not have done this. You understand that? I hope that makes sense. If I felt I had lost the election, I would not have done this. But I knew I won the election by a lot. I have no doubt. And by the way, neither does 78% of the people, when you take a look. And you can’t have that, where a large majority of people in a country think that the elections are rigged and stolen. And you can’t have open borders, either. You can’t have certain things.”
Trump had almost changed the subject on himself, but he moved back on track. “I would say that I started in my mind campaigning the day after I lost the election,” he said. “That didn’t mean I’m out there campaigning per se. But we had tremendous love, tremendous spirit from the day — that was not interrupted by Jan. 6. Jan. 6 was a protest against a rigged election. That’s what Jan. 6 was. It was nothing else. It was a protest against a rigged election. And the ones that they should go after are the people that rigged the election, not the people that were protesting.”
It was an extraordinary statement. In the first portion of Trump’s thought, he said repeatedly that he won the election. And in the second, he said that he lost the election. What does that mean? I can’t read Trump’s mind, but I have listened to him carefully for several years, and my view is that 1) he really believes that he won the 2020 election only to have scheming Democrats steal it from him, and 2) he knows that he is not now president of the United States. He’s not the commander in chief. He doesn’t sign bills into law. So in the sense of whether or not the election was fair, Trump maintains he won. And in the sense of who is now the president, Trump obviously is not.
As Trump talked, he was alternately recommending items on the menu, operating the iPad on which he personally picks the music on the terrace’s sound system, and telling the stories of some of the business and sports figures present for dinner that night. At various tables, the crowd included hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and billionaires Ike Perlmutter and Nelson Peltz, who are involved in a high-stakes showdown with the Walt Disney Company over its management and strategy. (Trump offered a quick synopsis of the fight: “They don’t like woke.”)
Passersby, members of Mar-a-Lago, also stopped at Trump’s table, which was roped off from the rest but still very accessible. All professed admiration for Trump. One man expressed a common sentiment when he told Trump he was “the best president we’ve ever had.”
When the man left, Trump said he always had fans, but something has changed in recent years. “Everyone’s in love with me now,” he said. “You know why? Because he’s so bad. He’s so bad.” It required no explanation to know that “he” referred to President Joe Biden. “He’s such a bad president,” Trump continued. “They hate the lawfare that’s being done. I don’t ever like to say, because it’s never happened before, but I think it’s raised me 25%.”
The lawfare Trump referred to, of course, includes two federal indictments from the special counsel picked by Biden’s Justice Department, an indictment from an elected Democratic prosecutor in Georgia, another indictment from an elected Democratic prosecutor in Manhattan, plus a terribly damaging financial lawsuit filed by the elected Democratic attorney general of New York.
I mentioned that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), until February Trump’s opponent in the Republican primaries, said Trump’s indictments “sucked out all the oxygen” from the GOP race. Did Trump have any idea that being indicted, not one, not two, not three, but four times, would raise his standing in the race and lower his opponents?
“Who would have thought that, right?” Trump said.
“Did you think?”
“Well, usually when that happens, you announce you’re leaving, you’ll fight for your name, and you’re going back to your family, right? I would say usually — 100% of the time.”
“Why didn’t you do that?”
“One thing — the public knows me really well, and I’m able to explain how phony all this stuff is,” Trump said. He doesn’t attribute all of his increased poll ratings to what many Republicans now call the “weaponization” of the justice system. But he knows it played an important role.
“It’s been very strong from the beginning, but it’s grown nevertheless,” Trump said of his support. “And part of the reason, not the biggest part of the reason but part of the reason, has been the weaponization of the Justice Department. It’s been a big part of it. And we’re doing just fine on that stuff because it’s all bulls***. It’s been a total weaponization. They raided this house.” Trump’s voice made clear he is still astonished by that, a reference to the Aug. 8, 2022, FBI search warrant raid on Mar-a-Lago.
Peaceful and Orderly no Antifa/BLM Bolshevik’s to try and storm the stage and scream through their Bullhorns
The choice is more than clear. Trump offers success and prosperity and Robin Ware/Robert L. Peters/JRB Ware/Pedo Peter/idiot Biden offers more division, more disaster, more failure, more violence, more poverty. The entire campaign of the Democrats consists of seeing the flaws and failures of Robin Ware/Robert L. Peters/JRB Ware/Pedo Peter/idiot Biden and then accusing Trump of bearing them. It’s all one, big, pathetic joke.