West Palm Beach, Florida
—
Champagne and caviar? Anyone can do it.
An enormous portrait of Jesus Christ painted quickly onstage whereas the president of the United States watches on reverently earlier than auctioning it off to a lady in a prime hat for $2,750,000?
That is New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago.
“I want to just do something very special,” President Donald Trump stated because the presentation started. “This is very different.”
The scene Wednesday evening contained in the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom didn’t start fairly so unconventionally. The party appeared, at first look, like the standard year-end festivities on the president’s Palm Beach resort.
Rudy Giuliani was there, slouched over in a white dinner jacket. White pillar candles flickered on tables. Guests mingled across the pool earlier than submitting into the ballroom, which Trump is replicating on the White House.
A chilly snap (in South Florida this implies temperatures within the mid-fifties) made for a parade of fur coats. Musicians perched atop black cubes performed “the Star Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America” on repeat.
Before he stepped onto a black carpet emblazoned with “HAPPY NEW YEAR MAR-A-LAGO,” Trump greeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his spouse Sara, who returned to the membership after the president invited them to the party on Monday.
Trump has been ringing within the new yr at Mar-a-Lago for north of twenty years. Ticket costs spiked throughout his first time period, hit the $1,000 mark a couple of years in the past and now go for $1,450. That buys a prix-fixe meal and the prospect of watching essentially the most highly effective man on this planet consuming it from behind a velvet rope.
In the previous, the party has attracted high-profile company like Martha Stewart, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods and Rod Stewart. This yr, Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani, Hollywood producer Brett Ratner, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, House Republican Whip Tom Emmer, and former tv host turned United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro had been among the many company.
Trump was uncharacteristically quiet as he walked previous a financial institution of cameras and into the ballroom alongside the primary girl, carrying a metallic silver robe. His decision? “Peace on earth.”
Earlier within the day, Trump had gone on a social media tear in opposition to“scumbag” governors (Colorado’s Jared Polis), “mediocre” film stars (George Clooney) and dishonest Democrats (all). He used a part of his speech Wednesday evening to bemoan the brewing scandal over alleged fraud at taxpayer-funded baby care facilities in Minnesota’s Somali neighborhood.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of all of it. It was a giant scam,” he stated. “Other than that, we’re going to have a great new year.”
But by the point he acquired to the principle occasion, nevertheless, his cup of kindness appeared replenished.
“There’s a young lady named Vanessa who’s one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world,” he stated, because the curious crowd grew quiet. “To me, she’s one of the greatest. In fact, she did something last night that was incredible. She can paint, slowly, a beautiful portrait for the White House, or she can paint the most incredible painting in literally 10 minutes.”
“She’s a speed painter, and she’s a great painter, but I think she’s one of the great living artists,” he went on. “And I said, ‘Do you think you’d be able to stay and interrupt the music for a couple of minutes and show them something special? Draw something really special. I don’t know what it is, but draw something really special.’”
The artist, Vanessa Horabuena, approached the big black canvas, her paintbrush aloft. She started quickly spreading paint round because the band launched into a really sluggish rendition of “Hallelujah.”
Trump watched on intently as worship music performed. Ten minutes later, Jesus’s face was staring out on the ballroom.
“I don’t know how you do that,” he stated, earlier than getting his public sale underway at $100,000. “These people are loaded with cash, just so you know,” he defined to Horabuena.
Half the cash would go to St. Jude’s, Trump stated, and the remainder would go to the native sheriff’s division.
The bids began coming: $200,000, $500,000.
“Hussain?” the president requested his billionaire visitor, who bid $550,000.
The bids stored coming, lastly touchdown at a bit of underneath $3 million. The president invited the profitable couple on stage.
“We’ll have a good time tonight,” he advised the winners, earlier than pointing to the husband. “Get this guy’s number!”