You may think that Hamilton tickets are pricey, but if so, you’re obviously not hip to the hottest tragicomedy now playing. For a mere $200,000 a seat, you can have a spot in the Situation Room.
[Richard] DeAgazio — a retired investor who joined Mar-a-Lago three months ago — got a text from a friend. North Korea had just test-fired a ballistic missile, which it claimed could carry a nuclear warhead. DeAgazio looked over at the president’s table. … as Trump and Abe turned their dinner table into an open-air situation room. Aides and translators surrounded the two leaders as other diners chatted and gawked around them, with staffers using the flashlights on their cellphones to illuminate documents on the darkened outdoor terrace.
The concerns about the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff being excluded from the National Security Council were obviously overblown. It’s just that Trump, Bannon, Tillerson, Mnuchin, and the whole Goldman Sachs clan can clearly pass the Mar-a-Lago security test by writing out a $200,000 check. For Gen. Joseph Dunford, that’s more than a year’s salary. And honestly, how can you give security clearance to someone who is not rich?
But wait, there’s more! For a mere $100,000 extra, you can get an unpresidented appearance by Donald Trump and a special guest.
In the video, Trump can be heard wishing the couple well and saying “I saw them” — referring to Lindner and Falk — “out on the lawn today and I said to the prime minister of Japan, I said, ‘Come on, Shinzo, lets go over and say hello.’” CNN’s report said that Trump also said of the newlyweds: “ ‘They’ve been members of this club for a long time. They’ve paid me a fortune.’” …
Federal Election Commission records reveal that Lindner’s father contributed $100,000 to two Trump super-PACs.
And that’s still not the best part ...
Here’s the best part.
The two leaders could have discussed classified documents within earshot of waiters and club patrons. Those cellphones-turned-flashlights might also have been a problem: If one of them had been hacked by a foreign power, the phone’s camera could have provided a view of what the documents said.
But DeAgazio, for one, said he was impressed that Trump had not gotten up from the table immediately, to seek a more private (and better-lit) place for his discussion with Abe.
“He chooses to be out on the terrace, with the members. It just shows that he’s a man of the people,” DeAgazio said.
Yes. He’s a man of the people. Of the minimum $200,000-per seat people. Who got to sit in on a presidential briefing and watch world events unfold, then got some personal time with Trump and the Prime Minister of Japan.
Donald Trump has figured out a way not just to sell people access to the government, but a means of selling tickets to history. Why did Mar-a-Lago membership prices double after November? This is why. If you want to be there when Trump commits his next unpredictable act of authoritarian mayhem, you can be! For a price.
But of course Trump also went out to visit regular people who aren’t rolling in cash when he stopped at … nope. Just kidding.
It’s not clear what Trump would charge for you to hold that football. But there’s bound to be a price.