Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump's Presidential Palace

by Laurence Leamer

Overview

Where Trump Learned to Rule

To know Donald J. Trump it is best to start in his natural habitat: Palm Beach, Florida. It is here he learned the techniques that took him all the way to the White House. Painstakingly, over decades, he has created a world in this exclusive tropical enclave and favorite haunt of billionaires where he is not just president but a king. The vehicle for his triumph is Mar-A-Lago, one of the greatest mansions ever built in the United States. The inside story of how he became King of Palm Beach—and how Palm Beach continues to be his spiritual home even as president—is rollicking, troubling, and told with unrivaled access and understanding by Laurence Leamer.

In Mar-A-Lago, the reader will learn:

* How Donald Trump bought a property now valued by some at as much as $500,000,000 for less than three thousand dollars of his own money.

* Why Trump was blackballed by the WASP grandees of the island and how he got his revenge.

* How Trump joined forces with the National Enquirer, which was headquartered nearby, and engineered his own divorce.

* How by turning Mar-A-Lago into a private club, Trump was the unlikely man to integrate Palm Beach’s restricted country club scene, and what his real motives were.

* What transpires behind the gates of today’s Mar-A-Lago during “the season,” when President Trump and assorted D.C. power players fly down each weekend.

In addition to copious interviews and reporting from inside Mar-A-Lago, Laurence Leamer brings an acute and unparalleled understanding of the society of Palm Beach, where he has lived for twenty-five years. He has written an essential book for understanding Donald Trump’s inner character.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250177520
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	297
Sales rank:	421,139
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Laurence Leamer has taught in a mountain school in Nepal in the Peace Corps, as well as worked in a factory in France and a coal mine in West Virginia. He has also written more than a dozen books, including several New York Times bestsellers and an off-Broadway play. The award-winning author’s books include The Kennedy Women, The Price of Justice, and the Edgar-nominated The Lynching. He lives in Palm Beach, Florida, and Washington, D.C, with his wife, Vesna.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

1 Trump's Palm Beach 1

2 Fantasy Island 8

3 Estate Sale 25

4 Tabloid Prince 45

5 "Is That All There Is?" 61

6 The Forbidden City 82

7 "A T-Bone in a Kennel" 100

8 The Promises of Life 112

9 The Contest 127

10 A Proper President 143

11 The Apprentice 153

12 Trumped Again 171

13 The Candidate 190

14 The Sun King 207

15 Games of Chaos 221

16 "The President!!! The Great President!!!" 238

Acknowledgments 253

Notes 255

Bibliography 279

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

shines a light on the craven culture he [Trump] exploited, where the media, the business community and the local government all went giddy and stupid at the thought of fame…The message from Leamer’s book is this: Sure, Trump may be selfish, rude and a liar. But this horrible human was not grown in a test tube.” - Washington Post

“Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace is a Palm Beacher’s sophisticated take on Trump in paradise…Leamer shows how Trump tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Leamer is an independent sort who refuses to become part of Trump’s world and needn’t make excuses.” - New York Daily News

“Back in the mid-90s, Trump was a nearly bankrupt grifter who fell in love – with a beachfront resort. In order to save Mar-a-Lago, he took on Palm Beach, went to war with the National Enquirer, and race-baited. It was the fight of his life, according to the author of Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace, and it may have informed everything that came after.” - Vanity Fair

From the Publisher