The New Yorker Radio Hour - My Night at Mar-a-Lago

Episode Date: July 3, 2017

Taking the political temperature of Palm Beach at a swinging party at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s palace away from home.  New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

Hi, it's David Remnick, a quick bit of news. We're doing something a little different with the podcast. Instead of giving you the same hour-long program that we broadcast on the radio like we used to, we're presenting the podcast in two episodes. You'll get all the same good stuff, but we've rearranged it to make for the best podcast listening experience. Now, if you prefer the old way, you can hear the full hour exactly as we broadcast it at New Yorkeradio.org. You can play it right on the home page with the listen button, really easy. I'd love to know what you think of the new format, so email me and the radio team at New Yorker Radio at WNYC.org.

Here we go. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Palm Beach is on a long, skinny island, a barrier island, about 70 miles up the coast from Miami. It's one of the wealthiest places in the country, a billionaire's paradise with crystal water, pristine sand, and 70-degree temperatures right in the middle of January. And for much of this past winter and spring, Palm Beach was the home of President Donald Trump. A unique aspect of this presidency among many unique aspects is the fact that the president owns a private club called Mar-a-Lago, and he lives there much of the time, and he conducts presidential business while mingling with members and dinner guests.

And today, we're going in. A couple of months ago, the New Yorker's Lizzie Whittacom traveled to Palm Beach, along with Stephen Valentino from the radio hour. Here comes a Bentley with the driver and passenger filming on their iPhones as they go. They started on this tiny island in the Lake Worth Lagoon, a bird sanctuary that's about as close as the public can get to Mar-a-Lago. That island became a gathering point for protesters and supporters,

hoping that the president would just take a little notice of them. They're not stopping today. So has he stopped before? He has stopped before several times. And apparently I wasn't here, but the last time he stopped, he actually got out and called some supporters and brought him over to his home. They had Secret Service picked them up and bring them there. Amazing, totally amazing. So was part of you hoping for that today?

We were, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. But we understand. He's got another president with him. It's probably much too dangerous to stop. Wow, look at this. So we were down there while Trump was hosting the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. And here's the thing. Although some of the most powerful people in the world live for part of the year in Palm Beach,

they're not always thrilled about being the center of the universe every time the president is in town. Unless you're a member at Mar-a-Lago. Talk about bikers for Trump. These are the police bikers. Donald Trump bought the estate in 1985 and eventually turned it into a private club. and it has a unique position in Palm Beach culture. There have been lawsuits and letters to the editor over the club, but it's also been the site of a lot of social and charity functions,

and basically everyone in the island has been there at some point, and there seems to be a lot of tension about where exactly it fits in. We don't really think about class dynamics within the 1%, but Palm Beach is one of these places that preserves the distinction between Old Guard and New Money, and Maralago is definitely new money. But if you want to meet the old guard, the Palm Beach Flower Show is the place to be. Hey, Gaze, how are you? We met Mary Chapman Webster, the lady to know at the Palm Beach Flower Show,

and her husband, Joe, who owns a golf course. Anyway, every year for a flower show, we always do a centerpiece. And last time we did a Volkswagen covered in moss that was sort of regurgitating flowers, which is really quite fabulous. I'll send you a picture. When you get dressed up for an event in Palm Beach, one thing to keep in mind is you should not be afraid of color. There's a lot of pastel dresses, silk jackets,

and diamond-encrusted broaches. So it looks like a gazebo, and it's covered in beautiful, bright orange lilies. Now I understand why I'm seeing so much orange tonight. Okay. It's all making sense. Hey, here comes my husband. Come on in.

You know, the interview in the lady. interviewing the lady of the hour. Yeah. You know what he says? Every time I win anything, he goes, you know, she never thanks the little people. And every year at this time, she turns our apartment into a botanical Hiroshima. Not true. Wow. A lot of sacrifices have to be made for an event like this. Anyway, how would you describe Palm Beach in the age of Trump? Now it's kind of, now it's, people are talking about it a lot more, it's kind of become the center of the world. I mean, how would you,

is... I don't think for the people that live here, it changes, because there's really, you know, a lot of people that are very much under the radar that are here all the time that you're never going to see in the paper or anywhere. And then there are people that love to have their pictures taken and Trump works for them. But I don't think other than the... Kind of a two-edged sword, I would say, but the burden of him being here is tough on the airports because everybody has to shut down. Right. And how would you describe the people at this party?

Is it the Mar-a-Lago crowd? Not at all. How are they different? Well, I don't know. She said this is a little bit of a crowd. I said probably zero. You want me to be real blunt? Yeah, this is more, no, this is a very old Palm Beach crowd.

These are people who's either. They or their families have lived here probably for two generations. The Mar-Lago crowd is a much more recent to Palm Beach. They are more... At that point, she puts her hand over the microphone and says, it's newer money. Right. And so what about would you say politically?

Was this kind of a Trump train? The town would be 50-50. And how would you describe the... tenor of the support among the pro-Trump group? Are they passionate Trump train fans? No, it was a lot of very powerful, quiet money. How does quiet money feel about Trump? They backed him. And are they worshipful about his business skills? I mean, are they really impressed by him?

Worshipable about anything. Most of them are as successful as he is. So, you know, they just wanted the country on a different path. And Trump's a different path. Now, you can find a lot of quiet conservative money among the residents of Palm Beach, but you can also find liberal. Were you at the Garden Flower Show last night?

No, I didn't, I boycotted. Boycotted? No, I didn't boycott it. I just had lots of house guests, and I didn't need to go. We connected with Democratic activists Bruce McAllister and Polly Reed, Poolside. So can you describe, can you, Trump and Palm Beach have a long history.

Yes. And of course, many people in the world have, are just finding out about Palm Beach now. I mean, you know, it's well, well known to some people, but, but. It's a funny thing. Palm Beach's attitude towards Donald Trump was formed in many ways, many years ago, when he was first here and bought Mara Lago and erected a huge flagpole like the ones you see outside used car lots and on the grounds in violation of zoning code and defied the town council to do anything about it. Among many other things, he was in constant litigation with the town of Palm Beach.

This was one of them. One of them. One of them. And so they sued and they settled. Donald Trump moved the flagpole back and shortened it. And it just so happens. I wrote a letter to the shiny sheet, which they published. The shiny sheet is what they call the local paper, the Palm Beach Daily News. About, please don't eat the daisies. It's a book by... Right.

What's her name? Well, it was Walter Kerr's wife, wasn't it? Deborah Carr? No, it was Walter Kerr, the columnist wife, I think, or really... Deborah, I think. No, Deborah Carr is the movie store. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Dolores movie. Anyway, so it's the kind... The theme was, what do you do with... teenagers. You know, you can't think of every single thing to tell them not to do because they'll go out, who would think don't eat the daisies? I mean, who would think, but that's what they do. Oh, I got to get this. So I said, look, it's like you can't tell Donald Trump to abide by every single rule that he might break because he'll think of rules to break that you can't imagine. Just realize that we have a giant team. teenager in our midst and acclimate yourself to that. So his antics or actions as president are for you on a continuum with the flagpole and all that? Yes. I mean, he is a continuum. And erratic one, a volatile one, but a continuum.

Jean Kerr, and she was the wife of Walter Kerr, the theater critic for the Times or the Herald Tribune, maybe it was back then. Yeah, right. Can you kind of elaborate about who? Who was he as a character in the imagination of people in Palm Beach? Like, who? We sort of averted our eyes. But now you can't ignore him anymore. No, you can't ignore him because you can't, you know, the North Bridge has two lanes.

The middle bridge is crowded forever, and the South Bridge is about to be redone in Hasmaralago. So, I mean, you know, you have to choose. I never ever chose when I was leaving this place. Now I'm thinking, oh, my God, it's Thursday. He's coming tomorrow. I'm not going to be able to go to the vegetable store down on Dixie because I always go down to the Spanish vegetable store. I can't go down there until I better go down there early this morning because I will never get back.

That's probably the biggest impact, traffic. Pro-Trump or anti-Trump. Everyone in Palm Beach can agree on that. The traffic is a bummer. Traffic is safe to talk about. Traffic and weather. Yeah. I walked through the garden club thing the other day because I was working all day on the

set up. And they're arguing over, oh, you can't, well, whatever. They're talking about the putting burlap on the tables or something they couldn't find. And I'm thinking, I said, 7,000 Syrian children have just been wounded and were worried about this. And this person said, we just can't worry about all those Syrians. They just don't want it to come up. It just doesn't want it to come up. I mean, I keep thinking of the bigger picture in life. And the bigger picture in life is my little problems are just nothing compared to what. what is going on in the rest of the world. So Polly is going around town speaking truth.

Yeah, well, probably, and they don't want to hear it. No, we just say, then I'm just a nutcase, you know. I wanted to get into Mar-a-Lago, the center of the action. So I got us an invite to a charity event in the grand ballroom. And we were told that President Trump himself was going to show up. This is not an uncommon thing at Mar-a-Lago. Trump roams the halls and pops in on events. You may remember a few months ago when North Korea tested a missile and Trump dealt with a crisis on the club's dining terrace surrounded by guests.

So we'd heard a lot about the heightened security when Trump is in town, but getting into Mar-a-Lago wasn't really that difficult. After going through a metal detector and being checked out by the Secret Service to make sure we were on the list, we walked up a very long red carpet that had been laying across a plush-pudding. green. There's a pool and water features and oversized stone parrots, and of course the bulletproof presidential limos were on display. I'm okay for now. Thank you. I'm okay for right now. Thank you. Some well-dressed waiters were passing around Maralaga's beloved lollipop lamb chops with some very bright green jelly. The first guest we met was Hayden Hosford, a chic blonde in a flapper-style dress with metallic fringe, and her husband, Dr. Hurri's.

Herbert Gould with a plate full of lobster. Now, Herbert came down from New York. You were going to speak with you, Herbert. Okay, well, he is a doctor, and Herbert? So Herbert is a great, a pinstripe. Angaro. Angaro suit. Bought it for him.

She knows exactly what it is. And a very dapper pocket square. And he is very elegant kind of white. A horsey tie. A horsey tie. We're both horsemen. Hermes. Hermes.

Hermes. Horses. Horsesie tie. Horse tie. We're both fox hunters. We're here. Fox hunters? Well, we don't ride anymore because the bones aren't mending so quickly in our age.

Herbert is an ophthalmologist. Hayden is the heiress to a dynamite fortune. They've been coming to Donald Trump's private club for a long time. How was Marlago? What was the reputation of Mara Lago when it became a club versus as the other ones? Like, what was it? I thought it was so elegant and so beautiful.

I loved it. There were people, old Palm Beachers, that raised eyebrows. Old Palm Beachers. But you know that crowd, obviously. But I think it's fantastic. And Trump built this. This ballroom was not part of the original Marilago.

And I was here opening night. And the chandeliers were supposed to come down and go back up for effect, and they didn't want. work and the kitchen the food was all cold. This was opening night for the first ball here, which I think was leukemia. And we were all excited. And there were some glitches. I loved it anyway. So you were a believer. I knew that it would get straightened out very quickly because Mr. Trump is a perfectionist. So that I had, I mean, the old Palm Beachers who were initially kind of snooty about

when he bought Marlago and so forth, to him in Palm Beach. Some have come around and some are still raising the eyebrows. I don't care. I love it here. I think it's the most elegant place. And I've been to palaces all of. I've had dinner with Princess Anna Buckingham Palace. I've been in the palace in Monaco. I've been in a lot of palaces. And to me, this is my favorite palace. But it's the best. Now, we should point out that Marlago does in fact look like a palace.

This is full Louis XIVA repro opulence. Gold is everywhere, in the chairs, in the rococo ceiling, around the mirrors, in the drapes. And even though it's just one ballroom, there are enough crystal chandeliers for three ballrooms. And, of course, the marble floors are inlaid with the Trump crest. What do you, what can you say about Mar-a-Lago with Trump as president in the Trump presidential area? Well, it's a little more difficult to get here. There's a little more security. It's kind of like the center of the world, though, in some ways.

Nobody expected when he became president that he would consider this because it's a club. This would become the Winter White House. We assumed he would be going to Camp David, and Trump would have none of that. Too rustic for him. He wants his luxury and his gold leaf and his glitz. So do you know people who are trying to be here on nights when he's around so that they can rub shoulders with the president? I have thousands of pictures

that people have taken with me talking to him at events over the years. Wow. And since he's become president, I got the pictures and put them in frames. I told him a long time ago when he first announced he was going to run. I said to him,

you got my vote, and he said, I better. I'm sure you've been to all the other clubs. How does the atmosphere here compare to other places? It's so much better. It's so much better. He likes people that are smart and bright and interesting. Some of the old Palm Beach clubs are really obnoxious.

What would the atmosphere be when you walk in there? You feel like people are judging you? Not named the club, but my girlfriend married a Jewish boy, and they told her, don't worry, you can still come to the club. Just don't bring your husband. So a lot of that goes on in Palm Beach. This club, Trump is not interested in. what religion you are.

That doesn't matter. He wants you to love golf. He wants you to love luxury. He wants you to have class, intelligence, charm. It's a whole different vetting system. And be able to pay the fee. You have to have a little... That's the weird thing about Mar-a-Lago.

It's actually less exclusive and snooty than the other clubs. Trump is a man of the people, as long as the people can cough up $200,000 plus annual dues of $14,000. That gets you the use of the dining areas, pool, spa, beach club, tennis courts, croquet lawn. And these days, it also gets you a chance to rub shoulders with the president of the United States. But we were just at a party in the ballroom, so we hit the buffet table. So can you just describe what just happened? A chef in a white chef's hat just expertly pulled the lobster out of a pot and dismembered it

and took it all out of the shell. And we got a little pots of hot-drawn butter from a silver tank of some kind. This is clearly a secret service guy there. He's got the earpiece. Oh, my gosh. Look at these ladies. Holy crap.

Can you describe what they're wearing? I would say it's all kind of variations on Donatella Versace. Isn't that Donatella Versace? Is that actually Donatelle Versacei? That's either Donatella Versace or a very good impression of Donatella Versace. Wow. Yeah, you might be right. I'm going to ask her.

It wasn't Donatella Versace. So, it's a nice, fancy party. But somewhere in the building, the most powerful man in the free world was attending to affairs of state. Or maybe he's still in the sauna. We just didn't know. While we were hoping for him to show, a waiter came around with bottles of Trump wine. Do you mind if I heard you tasting the Trump Chardonnay?

Very good idea. Now, let me, first before I taste, I will give you my credentials. I am the founder of the Physicians' Wine Appreciation Society. I'm a grand officier of the Chevalier-Dutastévent, which is a Burgundian society. I am a commande of the Commandery de Bordeaux,

which is a Bordeaux society, and I have a wine cellar that I've been collecting ever since I got out of my residency in my plains, so I think I know a little bit about wine. Therefore, I am about to taste Trump's Chardonnay,

the great wine grape of Burgundy actually, The greatest white wines in the world, I think, are Burgundi and Chardonnese, and they're also the most expensive. Here we go. Are you waiting? Hold your breath. First, the bouquet. Very pleasant.

Very flowery. Most acceptable. And now we're going to look for the taste. And that's much more complicated. it. Here it goes. Remarkably well-balanced. Do you feel like this Chardonnay reflects the president? Well, let me taste it again. You put me on another course of discovery. So Dr. Herbert Gould reflected on how Trump wine is, like Trump the man. It's a well-made wine.

There's thought behind it. It doesn't have much depth, but it has a little excitement. It's very fresh. So it's somewhat superficial in its character, but absolutely delightful in the drinking. Will that do it? So will you be getting another glass?

If they give it to me, I'll gladly accept. I will not refuse a glass of Trump's Chardonnay. But I think with time it will improve. Like any good wine. And like any good man. So we're still waiting for Trump. At this point, we get pulled outside to talk to Paulette Cooper Noble, author of the weekly column Pet Set People.

Let me tell you about Johnson Palm Beach. First of all, I have a column called Pet Set People. What I do is I insert. the famous, the rich, the high society people in Palm Beach, if they have a dog or a cat. This is a town of little white, fluffy dogs and people who dress them, and people who say that their dog is an emotional support dog and take them every place in carriages, in carts. They walked them down

Worth Avenue. Are you a member at Maralago? But you've been quite a lot. Oh yes. This year I went to six balls. Oh, this I shouldn't. This is funny. Okay. Let us put it this way.

My husband and I are not fans of Donald Trump. I don't know if I should have that in public because it's dangerous. He is famously not an animal lover. And I think Louis Pope tried to change. Yes, he did, and Paul will give you a comment on that, but I'll just tell you that my favorite protest sign is somebody had a big sign that said, he doesn't even have a dog. And I thought that was wonderful. It's arranged for a wonderful, wonderful, what kind of a doodle is a labradoodle?

A beautiful dog named Patton for him, and he turned it down because he just thinks he's too busy and his household's too busy for it. So she kept the dog for herself and she's in love with this Labradoodle. His name is Patton and he is a glorious animal. Remember, honey, we interviewed, you heard about the trumpets? Yeah. All right. She had a dog named Trump because they're very close. And I did a story on her and I wrote about the head of the trumpets.

It was Tony Holt. And her dog was named Trump. So recently I realized that this would be really good for my calling. I get a photo of, you know, a dog named Trump and a whole, this is before Lois. Right. And it turned out that Trump had died, so. Trump has died. My story.

When did he die? I think she was a year or so ago. She didn't tell me. There was, that story was gone, gone. It would have been so cute. This was the best column ever. It would have been a dog named Trump, and I could have. But I try not to get controversial.

So Donald Trump never dropped by as he promised. the hostess that he would. But we learned later that he had been a little busy. So we've attacked Syria, you know. I'm sorry? We have attacked Syria. We have? Yes.

Just before dinner, he had his NSC meeting right here, and they attacked Syria. 50 Tomahawk missiles to take out the places where they are suspected chemical a minute We had an NSC meeting in this building? Right, while you're going on, while this is going on. And how does that, how do you feel about being? I'm stunned.

Wow. Holy crap. It's kind of, yeah. We were talking about the human cost of war. He was ordering 50 Tomahawk missiles to strike Syria. There you are. 942, right? Do you support them?

or how do you feel about it? I don't talk politics. And there you have it, folks. An evening at Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida. That was the New Yorker's Lizzie Whittick home along with the radio hour, Stephen Valentino, and that's it for today. Join us next week for James Taylor and Lucinda Williams. And until then, keep up with us on Twitter at New Yorker Radio.

And have a great week. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riannon, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Sarah Nix, Michael Rayfield, Mithelie Rowe, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Susan Morrison, Emma Allen, Jessica Henderson, and Eric Molinsky. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.