Trump Turns Mar-a-Lago Dinners Into Pricey Pay to Play Scheme

People are paying millions to wine and dine President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, Wired reported Tuesday.  

Trump’s team clearly saw an opportunity for a cash grab in the frenzy of business moguls scrambling to court the president and get on his good side. For $5 million, business leaders can meet one-on-one with Trump at his estate, a “hot ticket” opportunity in the business world, sources told Wired. 

For those looking for a classier affair, they can pay $1 million to dine with the president in a candlelit group setting. Invitations to a March 1 candlelit dinner were sent out by MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC that contributed over $400 million last year to help get him elected. 

“You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest President Donald J. Trump. Additional details provided upon RSVP,” the invitation read. “RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis. Space is very limited. $1,000,000 per person.” 

“Donald J. Trump is appearing at this event only as a featured speaker, and is not asking for funds or donations,” the invitation continues. 

The dinner was formally titled “MAGA INC. Candlelight Finance Dinner,” and was included on the president’s official schedule, yet more evidence of the blurry lines between Trump and the private business world.

The Washington Post reported that Trump hosted two similar candlelit dinners at Mar-a-Lago before he took office, one on December 19, 2024, and one on January 19, the eve of his inauguration.

Amid the turmoil over his crazy decision to slap tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, President Trump saw fit to post a bizarre lie about banks in Canada—forcing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to correct him publicly.

“Canada doesn’t allow American Banks to do business in Canada, but their banks flood the American Market. Oh, that seems fair to me, doesn’t it?” Trump posted Tuesday morning. But this isn’t true, and Trudeau made sure Trump knew it.

Hours later, while speaking to the press, Trudeau called out the president for “not really being able to see what it is that he wants.”

“I heard he talked about banking again this morning in a tweet, which doesn’t make any sense because 16 American banks [are] currently active in Canada, holding about $113 billion worth of assets in this country, so American banks are alive and well and prospering in Canada,” Trudeau said.

“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” Trudeau added, alluding to Trump’s threats to annex Canada as the “fifty-first state.”

In a move usually made by U.S. presidents toward people living under autocratic rule, Trudeau made a direct plea to the American public, telling them Canada was forced to enact retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.

“We don’t want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally. And we don’t want to see you hurt, either, but your government has chosen to do this to you,” Trudeau said.

“Your government has chosen to put American jobs at risk at the thousands of workplaces that succeed because of materials from Canada, or because of consumers in Canada, or both,” Trudeau added.

Trump is not going to take kindly to Trudeau correcting him, and he’ll never admit that he was wrong. He may even be lying on purpose to stir up the MAGA base. But he’ll have to come up with a better way to spin the economic fallout from his plan, which promises to hike prices on all kinds of goods in the U.S. and cause untold damage to the economy.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s embrace of vitamin A as a course of treatment amid a deadly measles outbreak has sparked concern among health experts, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

In an op-ed published by Fox News Sunday, Kennedy touted the recent update to CDC guidance on “therapeutic medications.” Last week, a new section outlining the benefits of using vitamin A was added to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s online resources about measles treatment. While the section mentioned the risk of inappropriate dosing, it failed to mention that vitamin A can lead to liver failure and death.

“Studies have found that vitamin A can dramatically reduce measles mortality,” Kennedy wrote in his op-ed, but he also made no mention of the health risks of vitamin A.

Meanwhile, he described the decision to vaccinate as a “personal” one.

But health experts have taken issue with Kennedy’s push for vitamin A, which can be used to treat patients who are already sick but does nothing to prevent the spread of measles.

“In fact, relying on vitamin A instead of the vaccine is not only dangerous and ineffective, but it puts children at serious risk,” Dr. Sue Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the Post Monday. “Taking too much vitamin A can cause serious health problems, including liver damage.”

Summer Davies, a pediatric hospitalist in Lubbock, Texas, told the Post that there wasn’t enough data to support the government’s decision to push vitamin A as a treatment for measles. “There’s not enough information there to say, ‘Yeah, this is great, this will cure you.’ And it’s not a wonder drug and miracle drug,” Davies said.

Much of the data supporting claims of vitamin A’s effectiveness is based on malnourished children, Davies explained.

“So it’s not going to make measles go away. And it may prevent some complications, but we’re not giving it to every child in the hospital because the evidence just isn’t there,” Davies said.

Peter Hotez, the co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, was concerned that the Health and Human Services Department’s lean on vitamin A to ensure public health would present as an alternative to vaccination.

“It could lead to the impression of a false equivalency: To make the best decision for your children, you can either vaccinate or give vitamin A,” Hotez told the Post. “And that would be highly misleading.”

Last week, Kennedy said during a Cabinet meeting that measles outbreaks were not unusual, despite the fact that measles had been declared eliminated in 2000, according to the CDC. The same week, an unvaccinated child in west Texas died of measles. This week, Kennedy’s leading spokesperson resigned over disagreements about his response to the deadly outbreak.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directly addressed the American people in a pleading appeal on Tuesday after Donald Trump followed through on his promise to implement 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada.

“I want to speak first directly to the American people. We don’t want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally. And we don’t want to see you hurt either, but your government has chosen to do this to you,” Trudeau said in a press conference from Ottawa.

The normally cheery Trudeau was stone-faced and somber as he warned Americans about the economic consequences of taxing Canadian products.

“Your government has chosen to put American jobs at risk at the thousands of workplaces that succeed because of materials from Canada, or because of consumers in Canada, or both,” Trudeau said, further warning of rising prices on groceries, gas, cars, and homes.

“What do the American people think? How do Americans feel about jettisoning one’s friends and allies in favor of a country that has never wished Americans well and continues to act in ways that harm the global economy and specifically the American economy and American values and principles?” Trudeau asked, referring to Trump’s recent overtures to Russia on Ukraine.

Last month, Trump paused his plans to implement 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico—the top U.S. trading partners—amid international backlash and the threat of retaliatory actions from both countries.

On Monday, however, the president announced the tariffs would begin on Tuesday, a backstabbing blow to America’s northern ally that Trump wants to annex and make the fifty-first state. The president claims the tariffs will protect U.S. manufacturing and prevent illegal immigration, but they will ultimately just drastically raise costs for both American and international consumers.

Canada has already responded with 25 percent tariffs on $30 billion worth of U.S. imports, effective immediately, Trudeau announced Tuesday.

Anti-American sentiment has skyrocketed in Canada since Trump took office, and support for the wildly unpopular Trudeau and his Liberal Party has grown for the first time in years amid a wave of country-wide nationalist sentiment.

Trudeau’s speech makes it clear that he’s given up all hopes of rational communication with the Trump administration and that America’s betrayal is a dire warning to the rest of the world.

“Every country is very aware that if the American government is willing to do this to their own closest ally, neighbor, and friend, everyone is vulnerable to a trade war.”

Donald Trump’s tariff plan is already spurring tremendous pain in American markets.

The president’s controversial tariffs went into effect first thing Tuesday, imposing 25 percent levies on Canada and Mexico as well as a 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods. In return, Canada announced a retaliatory tariff of 25 percent on nearly $100 billion of U.S. imports, while China announced tariffs of 10 to 15 percent on a range of U.S. products. Mexico also said it would retaliate, with details to come on Sunday.

That will raise electronics prices by roughly 10 percent and clothing prices by 8 percent for American consumers, according to Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab and former White House chief economist.

Meanwhile, Americans are still grappling with the rising prices of groceries—specifically eggs, which saw the cost of a dozen jump to $8.42 in the Chicago exchange.

But that’s just the beginning of a very long road, according to Trump’s own administration. The Agriculture Department announced last week that the current cost of eggs could rise by more than 40 percent before the end of the year. To alleviate the crisis, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled a $1 billion investment by the federal government to tighten up biosecurity measures on American farms amid an outbreak of avian flu. Rollins also proposed stripping regulations from the egg industry to further dampen the rising price tag and on Tuesday pitched that Americans should just buy chickens to supply their own eggs.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Americans would share the brunt of the tariff costs. “Americans will lose jobs. Americans will be paying more for groceries, for gas, for cars, for homes—because we have always done best when we work together,” he said during a press conference Tuesday. “Now that [Trump has] moved forward with tariffs, we’re going to see the real impact of a trade war between our countries. And that impact will be to hurt American families.”

Trump’s previous tariff proposals are predicted to affect just about every product under the sun, from ground beef and bananas to liquor and gas. An executive order signed by Trump in February reinstated his 2018 tariff on steel and aluminum, raising tariffs for both to 25 percent. That regulation is slated to take effect March 12. Once it does, production costs for America’s automakers are likely to jump, as will costs for the country’s construction industry, which is already struggling to meet the demands of a historic nationwide housing crisis.

Trump has leaned into tariffs as a key component of affording an extension to his 2017 tax plan, which overwhelmingly benefits corporations and is projected to add as much as $15 trillion to the national deficit. But experts believe that a trade war would be to the overwhelming detriment of American consumers and its allies abroad—and that the self-inflicted pain could only serve to benefit U.S. adversaries around the globe.

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas warned last month that if the U.S. and the European Union were to enter into a trade war, then “the one laughing on the side is China.”