TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP BUSINESS: “President Donald Trump returns to his private Palm Beach club Tuesday [11-21-17] for the first time since April, and several of his dues-paying members said they plan on making a beeline there in hopes of catching a glimpse of the president or even chatting him up over the holiday weekend, including an extravagant Thanksgiving buffet.
Friends say the president relishes rubbing shoulders with club members at his ‘Winter White House’ — even though his chief of staff, John Kelly, a new addition since the president’s last visit this spring, has reportedly been looking for ways to keep the president out of Mar-a-Lago’s common dining area…
That includes Secret Service checkpoints, which were to be set up Tuesday morning ahead of Trump’s arrival…
Mar-a-Lago managers responded to last season’s problems in real time, imposing rules prohibiting pictures in the dining area when the president was on the property. That was in response to social media accounts that were flooded with pictures of everything from the military officer carrying the nuclear football to Trump and the visiting Japanese prime minister reacting to a real live North Korea crisis at their dinner table. Those restrictions remain in place, and now members face new limits at all times on the number of guests they can bring in and how many dinner reservations they can make in advance…
Trump’s motorcade during trips to and from the airport and to his nearby private golf club in West Palm Beach are the cause of frequent traffic backups. The local county police force is also still waiting for a $3.5 million reimbursement from the federal government to cover the overtime costs of securing roads and other checkpoints during Trump’s last round of post-inauguration visits, while each additional day with Trump in town costs another $70,000.”
-Darren Samuelsohn, “Trump’s return to Mar-a-Lago: No pepper spray, pocket knives or laser pointers,” Politico, Nov. 21, 2017 05:12am