Greetings, From Palm Beach

Notes on a MAGA makeover

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Greetings from a blindingly bright hotel room in Palm Beach, Florida. The curtains are parted, the sun is sharply shining, an enormous iguana is making its way across the patio below as I type, and the ocean breeze tastes like salt. 

Yesterday, we drowned cocktails poured into giant coconuts, napped briefly in the sun, then ventured over to Epstein’s old place (around the corner from Mar-a-Lago) to find the estate demolished and being rebuilt into a new mansion— same lot, same view, different face.

Even the pool is gone.

Last night, we spent the evening with the American Heroes Foundation honoring wounded veterans. We chatted with Mike Huckabee and danced with his wife, Janet. At least I think it was his wife . . .

Today, we have bunches and lunches, leading up to dinner with Donald.

In the meantime, my Mar-a-Lago knowledge was understandably revived on this trip. As a central setting in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, it put a “face” to repeated reference. She was a regular there. We spent lots of time in court hearing about it. I always wished someone would write a book about Ghislaine and Ivana’s friendship - examining a decade of heedless and morally askew extravagance:

• Running up credit cards at all the high-end department stores.

• Rollerblading in the morning.

• Scouring Palm Beach for pretty teenage girls in a Rolls-Royce in the afternoons. 

• Endless invitations to various openings and galas in the evening.

Do we not deserve the details of this controversial kinship that has largely remained under the radar all these years?

Don’t forget: The Maxwell + Trump connection started with Ghislaine’s first entrepreneurial endeavor, the customized gift boxing business: her first target was a young and financially thriving Donald J. Trump, already familiar as her father’s acquaintance.

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“Even though she was his favorite daughter, Robert Maxwell erupted. “Have you got your bum in your head?” he said. “Why the fuck would Donald Trump want to waste his time seeing you with your crappy gifts when he has a multimillion-dollar business to run

But her father was wrong. In the end, Trump spent plenty of time with Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein. In fact, he fit in quite well with them. Arrivistes all—be it Epstein’s Coney Island, Trump’s Queens, or Robert Maxwell’s Eastern European shtetl—they had all come from the wrong side of the tracks. And at some point in their lives, Robert Maxwell, Trump, and Epstein all had ties to foreign intelligence agencies, arms dealers, and the sex trade.

It was a world of unimaginable decadence. The epicenter of the operation was Epstein’s enormously opulent Upper East Side townhouse. As a dwelling, it was less a home than a deliberately, extravagantly staged showcase, a calculated spectacle that declared to the world that Epstein, a college dropout from a middle-class Brooklyn family, had been embraced securely in the bosom of the powers that be.

Epstein’s notorious “black book” of contacts, compiled largely by Ghislaine Maxwell, shows the rarefied circles in which he traveled—Nobel laureates, heads of states, British royals, Wall Street power brokers, and A-listers in every glamour profession. Trump had no fewer than 16 phone numbers beside his name in Epstein’s black book.

Trump later recalled Epstein in those days. “Terrific guy,” he famously told New York magazine. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

No one was more dazzled by the glamour of the Trump–Maxwell–Epstein axis than former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, who was so hypnotized by its lavishness that he professed not to see anything wrong with it. In fact, it was something you aspired to. “In those days, if you didn’t know Trump and you didn’t know Epstein, you were a nobody,” Dershowitz, who later served on Epstein’s defense team, told The New York Times.” -Vanity Fair

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MAGA Makeover . . .

On Instagram, when I debated what to wear and who to “be” in Palm Beach, many of you kindly suggested: “Be yourself.” That’s sweet you guys, but I’m myself all day every day. I wanted to be something different in Florida; MAGA-leaning, without apology. In this desire and dedication, I figured I’d try to inhabit at least a handful of conservative lady stereotypes. So, I committed half a day to an indoor mall with horrific lighting looking for a gown, which I declared as my decided version of hell until I read about a Taylor Swift-themed cruise hitting the market this summer and abruptly changed my mind. I bought a very red dress. I succumbed to my first spray tan (possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever experienced). I got my nails done (always an hour wasted because you can’t understand the gossip going on about you, or use your hands to text your friends to gossip about your own troubles, so you sit there paralyzed for an hour wondering (and worrying) what these ladies are laughing so hard about.) And stupidly I scheduled nails and pedicure appointment after my spray tan, so everyone was horrified when my leg scrub produced a basin full of brown dye. My streaked calves today offer glaring evidence of that mishap.

While I respect this dedication to head to toe beauty / invested self care, I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss the big hair & bare-footed acceptance intrinsic to progressive circles. The liberals might lack critical thinking skills and God, but they don’t blink at ragged chic, which is, unfortunately, where I tend to shine.

Anyway, we ended up shopping in a friend’s garage, plucking vintage dresses from her rack after a bonfire at the beach last Sunday.

Oh, and Youtube taught Arlo how to tie a tie properly (So he could tie Mikes) lol. Lord knows, we’re trying!

Garage gown shopping + Lessons in manhood, courtesy of Youtube

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1986 - Trump Buys ML

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Back this week with so many rambling recaps.

Xx