Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Since former President Donald
Speaker 1: Trump became President elect Donald Trump, he's hosted a parade
Speaker 1: of visitors at his Palm Beach resort mar A Lago,
Speaker 1: everyone from CEOs to world leaders and administration hopefuls. CEO
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg was grateful for the mar Al Lago dinner
Speaker 1: invitation and the chance to meet with members of the
Speaker 1: incoming administration. President elect Donald Trump having an unannounced dinner
Speaker 1: at his mar A Lago club with Canadian Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau this weekend. Trudeau and Trump had a three
Speaker 1: hour long dinner there, discussing issues like trade and border policy.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk danced to Ymca at Trump's Thanksgiving dinner last week.
Speaker 1: As Trump has noted, he's a frequent mar A Lago visitor.
Speaker 1: You know, he likes this place. I can't get him
Speaker 1: out of here. He just likes this place. And you
Speaker 1: know what, I like having him here too.
Speaker 2: He's good.
Speaker 1: Last month, just about a week after the election, Trump
Speaker 1: spoke at a black tie event held at the resort.
Speaker 1: That gala was for a Trump aligned think tank called
Speaker 1: the America First Policy Institute.
Speaker 2: One person described it as the met ball of mar
Speaker 2: A Lago.
Speaker 1: Amanda Gordon is a reporter on the Wealth team at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg and over the years she's kept tabs on South
Speaker 1: Florida Society and now Amanda says there are more and
Speaker 1: more events like that gala for that right wing think tank.
Speaker 2: We can get just a sense of what it's like
Speaker 2: by reading the menu for the gala. The first course
Speaker 2: was Trump's Iceberg Wedge, the second course was beef tender
Speaker 2: loin and short rab and the dessert was Trump chocolate cake.
Speaker 2: So you're literally served Trump on a plate in the
Speaker 2: names of the dishes when you get to be at
Speaker 2: mar A Lago.
Speaker 1: As power dynamic shift from Washington, d C. To this
Speaker 1: moneyed barrier island. How is Trump drawing from the area
Speaker 1: to shape his administration and will he transform the region
Speaker 1: in the process. I'm David Gura and this is the
Speaker 1: Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News Today. On the show
Speaker 1: inside mar A Lago not just a presidential retreat, but
Speaker 1: the staging ground for Trump's campaign and now the spot
Speaker 1: where he's planning his second presidency. Bloomberg's Amanda Gordon has
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time reporting on mar A Lago
Speaker 1: a club Donald Trump has owned for almost forty years.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Well, these days there are a lot of rules about
Speaker 1: who's allowed inside, and the membership fee has gotten more
Speaker 1: and more expensive. So I asked Amanda to describe what
Speaker 1: mar A Lago looks like when you arrive.
Speaker 2: So, when you drive into mar A Lago these days,
Speaker 2: past secret service detail that checks your ID and that
Speaker 2: makes sure you're in the right place. You go to
Speaker 2: a port cocher, which which is an overhang right next
Speaker 2: to the mansion, and when you step out, there's someone
Speaker 2: to greet you. You walk through a foyer with desks
Speaker 2: for the people running the club. There's a brochure there
Speaker 2: with events for club members. There's bridge, there's croquet, there
Speaker 2: are spa services. So you get the idea. It feels
Speaker 2: like a place for pleasure, relaxation, for resort, as Palm
Speaker 2: Beach is known.
Speaker 1: Mar A Lago was built in the nineteen twenties by
Speaker 1: Marjorie Merriweather post Air to the Post serial Fortune. She
Speaker 1: used the mansion for entertaining. It has fifty eight bedrooms
Speaker 1: and thirty three bathrooms. Today, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index values
Speaker 1: mar A Lago at two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 1: It's designated a National Historic Landmark.
Speaker 2: It is like going to a historic home in Europe
Speaker 2: or in New England, where the decor is a feast
Speaker 2: for the census, its tapestries or Nate tiles. Marjorie Merriweather Post,
Speaker 2: her architect, worked as a set designer for the met
Speaker 2: Opera and the Zigfeld Follies, so I think that the
Speaker 2: theatricality of it appealed to Trump. It feels very much
Speaker 2: as if you're walking into how it might have been
Speaker 2: used in the nineteen twenties before the Great Depression.
Speaker 1: Having a home away from the White House is not
Speaker 1: unusual for US presidents. John F. Kennedy also spent time
Speaker 1: in Palm Beach, and George W. Bush went to Crawford, Texas.
Speaker 1: Presidents also have access to Camp David, which has been
Speaker 1: a venue for negotiations.
Speaker 2: A place that's not the official office, that has more
Speaker 2: of a resort feel, is always a place where you
Speaker 2: can build relationships, build rapport. We have seen Trump use
Speaker 2: mar Alago for this very purpose, bringing heads of state.
Speaker 2: Victor Or Bond was there, Bibi Netanyahu was there this summer,
Speaker 2: and Palm Beach is a small town and the houses
Speaker 2: are fairly close together. It's actually quite different from a
Speaker 2: resort that a lot of New Yorkers know, like the Hamptons,
Speaker 2: which is more spread out. Palm Beach actually functions a
Speaker 2: little bit like New York and the bustle of the
Speaker 2: sidewalk where you might well be able to walk down
Speaker 2: the main shopping drag and run into people.
Speaker 1: And inside mar Alago you might just bump into Trump himself.
Speaker 2: One of the things that he's known for is to
Speaker 2: come out and hit the iPad that controls the music
Speaker 2: that is played in the dining rooms, and he puts
Speaker 2: on his own music. And at one point a woman
Speaker 2: who made a point of, you know, trying to spend
Speaker 2: time there, she told me that Elon Musk's song was
Speaker 2: Space Oddity, that that's what he played for Elon. So
Speaker 2: I've heard of him sometimes just serving as a major
Speaker 2: d He'll stand at the desk and get people to
Speaker 2: their table. He revels in it in this sort of
Speaker 2: what is really a social space, what potential cabinet member
Speaker 2: might they get a glimpse of right now?
Speaker 1: There's this public private aspect to mar A Lago that
Speaker 1: makes it different from the properties other presidents have retreated to.
Speaker 1: As Amanda said, there is security. You can't just wander
Speaker 1: in off the street, but it's not totally inaccessible either.
Speaker 2: There's the fact that Trump is operating mar A Lago
Speaker 2: as a club, and it means that you have people
Speaker 2: coming in and out in close proximity to Trump, and
Speaker 2: that element is different. Everyone's looking at not just Trump,
Speaker 2: but who was going in and out of any particular door.
Speaker 2: And I think it's also uncommon for this resort to
Speaker 2: be actually very close to a place where office towers
Speaker 2: and apartment towers are rising, where the population has been
Speaker 2: growing at a very fast clip. For example, you didn't
Speaker 2: hear about people racing to buy homes in Crawford, Texas,
Speaker 2: even though it is the place where George W. Bush
Speaker 2: went to when he left the White House, when he
Speaker 2: left his office, and it's where he lives.
Speaker 1: Mar A Lago is situated on a thin barrier island
Speaker 1: separated from West Palm Beach by the Lake Worth Lagoon.
Speaker 1: The name mar A Lago means sea to lake. One
Speaker 1: side of the resort faces that lake and the other
Speaker 1: side faces the Atlantic Ocean. And it's not the only
Speaker 1: notable property in the area.
Speaker 2: So you have the north end where Kennedy's winter white
Speaker 2: House was, and then you have a stretch south of
Speaker 2: mar A Lago which is known as Billionaire's Row, where
Speaker 2: Steve Schwartzman, for example, has a home.
Speaker 1: The CEO of Blackstone. Other homeowners on Billionaire's Row include
Speaker 1: Steve Wynn, the founder of Win Resorts, investor John Paulson,
Speaker 1: and Interactive Broker's chair Thomas Petterphy. And many of Trump's
Speaker 1: well healed neighbors backed his campaign for president.
Speaker 2: Trump actually found many of his donors almost outside of
Speaker 2: his doorstep from the first term and in the second
Speaker 2: term who had homes or who had made their residence
Speaker 2: in Palm Beach or the elite environs around it.
Speaker 1: Despite Trump's growing influence in South Florida, it hasn't been
Speaker 1: a Republican stronghold. But Palm Beach County is undergoing some
Speaker 1: of the political changes we are seeing across the country.
Speaker 2: In Palm Beach County, it is a county that has
Speaker 2: most often voted for the Democrat and got on towards
Speaker 2: the Democrat in the presidential election. Interesting, however, what people
Speaker 2: in Florida are realizing and what we've all realized with
Speaker 2: the results of this election is that there is more
Speaker 2: support for Republicans than has been. There has been a shift,
Speaker 2: and Harris actually won the county by a margin of
Speaker 2: some fifty five hundred votes. Margins in the past have
Speaker 2: been ninety five thousand votes.
Speaker 1: Amanda says Palm Beach has been changing over the past decade,
Speaker 1: and that's not just because of its most famous resident.
Speaker 1: During the COVID nineteen pandemic, many wealthy Americans started to
Speaker 1: spend more time there trying to turn it into what
Speaker 1: some people call the Wall Street of the South, a.
Speaker 2: Dream that has long been the hope of the Florida
Speaker 2: business development folks. And the builder who's probably most responsible
Speaker 2: for that is Steve Ross, who has now moved from
Speaker 2: New York where he built Hudson Yards and is living
Speaker 2: full time in Palm Beach. One of the interesting developments
Speaker 2: that's taking place is that he's helping bring a new
Speaker 2: campus for Vanderbilt to West Palm, n Yu langone, Mount Sinai,
Speaker 2: the Hospital for Special Surgery. They have all opened outposts.
Speaker 2: So there is this New York influx of quality healthcare.
Speaker 2: There's a boon to education and that sort of intellectual
Speaker 2: capital that will come out of that. And this is
Speaker 2: really distinct from Trump's evolution, But the goal has been
Speaker 2: to turn this place of resort into a serious, year round,
Speaker 2: thriving community, diverse in its economics so that it does
Speaker 2: not rely on tourism.
Speaker 1: Got a big boost when Trump pulled up stakes, left
Speaker 1: New York City and made Palm Beach his new home
Speaker 1: and political center. After the break, the President elect is
Speaker 1: increasingly looking to South Florida to staff his administration. Towards
Speaker 1: the end of his first term. In twenty nineteen, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump left New York City, where he was born and
Speaker 1: raised and made his fortune. He officially became a Floridian,
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg's Amanda Gordon says, now that mar A Lago
Speaker 1: is his primary residence, it means something different to him
Speaker 1: now in twenty twenty four than it used to.
Speaker 2: I think what's different this time around is that he's
Speaker 2: been living there as his primary residence for the past
Speaker 2: four years. And the campaign that he ran really was
Speaker 2: run out of Palm Beach, out of mar A Lago
Speaker 2: and out of offices in West Palm Beach. So there's
Speaker 2: already a lot of staff and Susie Wiles is from Florida,
Speaker 2: so you know there's a sort of a Florida flavor
Speaker 2: to the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Wiles will be Donald Trump's chief of staff in his
Speaker 1: second term, and she was his campaign manager in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. His new attorney general pick, Pam Bondi, is
Speaker 1: also a Floridian. She's the state's former attorney general. Dave
Speaker 1: Weldon his CDC nominee of former Florida congressman and John Falan,
Speaker 1: who Trump wants to be the next Secretary of the Navy,
Speaker 1: is an investor based in Palm Beach. In this transition
Speaker 1: period before Trump's inauguration in January, his nominees have been
Speaker 1: mar A Lago regulars.
Speaker 2: It's basically become a workplace for interviews, for cabinet positions,
Speaker 2: and for policy ideas and strategizing. It's an interesting place
Speaker 2: to be right now because there is this one person
Speaker 2: called it joyful atmosphere, but it's also very intense because
Speaker 2: you know that these major appointments and sort of trying
Speaker 2: to set the direction of what his next four years
Speaker 2: will be like as president, they are taking place behind
Speaker 2: these closed doors. A few people have used the analogy
Speaker 2: of hunger games, And yes, there are members there for
Speaker 2: their lunches, for their spa appointments, for their tennis games,
Speaker 2: and there are also people there who are hoping to
Speaker 2: catch a glimpse of the next president. Some have opportunity,
Speaker 2: business opportunity, social opportunity in mind, to get a face
Speaker 2: to face, a political opportunity in mind. So there are
Speaker 2: lobbyists who are looking to rent office space and also
Speaker 2: buy homes because that proximity means something.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, Florida's political significance is undeniable. Policies Florida
Speaker 1: pioneered are already spreading to other states. Like we saw
Speaker 1: during COVID, the state's governor opposed lockdowns and put restrictions
Speaker 1: on what can be taught in schools. Florida has become
Speaker 1: something of a policy incubator.
Speaker 2: What DeSantis has been doing with education. Not everybody as
Speaker 2: a fan, but his commitment to school choice, for example,
Speaker 2: has a lot of fans outside of the state. And
Speaker 2: we can all go back to the year two thousand
Speaker 2: when Florida really did play a big dramatic role in
Speaker 2: determining the outcome of the election. There are tailwinds for
Speaker 2: Florida being taken seriously among all the red states that
Speaker 2: have been developing economically and seeing an increase in population
Speaker 2: gains in House seats because of those increases in population.
Speaker 1: It's an open question how much time Trump will spend
Speaker 1: in Florida once takes office in January, but it's clear
Speaker 1: many political operators think Trump will be in Palm Beach
Speaker 1: more than he was during his first term. You mentioned
Speaker 1: lobbyists relocating their building offices there, considering getting homes there.
Speaker 1: Are we seeing a real shift in the center of
Speaker 1: political power to South Florida?
Speaker 2: Do you think there are some dynamics in Florida politics
Speaker 2: that have yet to play out, so we still have
Speaker 2: to see what happens. Trump can be unpredictable, but in
Speaker 2: any case, Florida really is on the map as a
Speaker 2: center of power and wealth and a place that matters
Speaker 2: in the national political conversation.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: I'm David Gura. This episode was produced by Julia Press.
Speaker 1: It was mixed by Alex Sagura and fact checked by
Speaker 1: Adriana Tapia. It was edited by Aaron Edwards, Tracy Samuel,
Speaker 1: and Wendy Benjaminson. Who also provides editorial direction with Elizabeth Ponso.
Speaker 1: Naomi Shaven is our senior producer, Nicole Beemster Borr is
Speaker 1: our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
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