Trump’s Beloved Mar-a-Lago Faces a Major Threat
Is Donald Trump aware what the city of Palm Beach is considering doing to Mar-a-Lago?
![Donald Trump looks grim walking with papers in his hand at Mar-a-Lago.](http://images.newrepublic.com/3948a17dd5625e7b03f9faa820fc52e97ca46873.jpeg?auto=format&fit=crop&crop=faces&q=65&w=768&h=undefined&ar=3%3A2&ixlib=react-9.0.2&w=768)
Donald Trump may be too much for Palm Beach, Florida, to deal with.
The town is reviewing legal options, including closing his Mar-a-Lago country club, to help residents feel safe following the assassination attempt against Trump last month. Since then, the Secret Service has closed the main road to the club, South Ocean Boulevard, with security around the property increased. Local police say it won’t be opened again before Election Day in November.
Despite the road’s closure and increased checkpoints, Mar-a-Lago has remained open, with hundreds of people attending different events, including ones hosted by the president. That has touched a nerve with the town’s leadership.
“In my mind, if the road is closed, the Mar-a-Lago Club is closed,” Mayor Danielle Moore said in a council meeting Tuesday. “There’s no way in God’s green earth that they can bring 350 people into that club. It’s completely illogical that you’ve got a road closed and then you’re going to let 350 strangers into your club.”
“However, you can’t have it both ways, boys and girls,” Moore added. “Either the club’s open or not.”
The mayor, the town council, and the residents all said at the meeting that they didn’t want anything to happen to Trump, and that politics didn’t play a role in their discussion, which was prompted by concerns that the town won’t receive a reply to a July 22 letter it sent to the Secret Service asking for “the legal authority authorizing it to implement the road closure for the specified duration and even when protectee(s) are not in residence in the Town.”
Trump may not take the town’s concerns kindly. The events the club hosts rake in money, and Trump enjoys getting feted by the right and far right who come to sing his praises, sometimes literally. And he certainly doesn’t have a history of recognizing how much his presence costs the residents of the places he visits.