Trump takeover of Washington begins as he holds court from Palm Beach

By Alayna Treene, Kristen Holmes and Steve Contorno, CNN

(CNN) — The epicenter of Donald Trump’s transition is gradually shifting from south Florida to Washington, DC, to prepare for the president-elect’s return to the country’s seat of power, even as he prefers to bask in the afterglow of his electoral triumph from Mar-a-Lago.

Key allies are shepherding Trump’s Cabinet picks through a gauntlet of Capitol Hill meetings, working to assuage lawmakers’ unease amid a tangle of controversies surrounding some of them. Other advisers have decamped to the nation’s capital to set the stage for Trump’s first actions in the Oval Office. And some incoming officials have finally engaged with their outgoing counterparts — a traditionally uneventful handoff delayed this time for weeks until Trump transition leaders signed mandatory agreements with the Biden administration.

People who work on Trump’s advance team have also moved operations to DC, where planning on his second inauguration is well underway. Working out of their new digs in the General Services Administration building, they are working with Secret Service and touring venues for inaugural balls and other ancillary events in anticipation of January 20 as they piece together the lead up to Trump’s White House arrival, sources involved in the planning told CNN.

Trump-aligned groups are also acquiring office space inside the Beltway, looking to capitalize on his win as DC lobbyists are seeking ways to gain access to the incoming administration, people familiar with the conversations told CNN.

The northern migration also includes some of Trump’s longtime staff who stayed by his side after he left office or joined his political operation after he announced his plans to run again. Many of them moved to West Palm Beach as he plotted his political comeback from his nearby estate.

Now, a Florida takeover of Washington is forthcoming and the DC real estate market is flush with these loyalists looking for new homes and to build out their staffs.

“Part of the reason we’re all descending on DC so early is because the nominees were landed quicker, the sub-Cabinet is starting to form, policy teams are in place, and so what’s left is figuring out where the hell we’re going to live and staffing up,” one Trump adviser said. “Everything is oriented to being as ready as humanly possible.”

All the while, Trump remains largely out of sight at Mar-a-Lago — except by those with access to his exclusive Palm Beach club. His scaled-back public schedule has included a quick trip to Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral, and on Thursday he will appear at the New York Stock Exchange. But he has otherwise kept mostly to his palatial estate. Social media posts have captured Trump popping into evening soirees, including at least one wedding and star-studded galas hosted at his venue. At one such event, the conservative group Moms for America named Trump “Man of the Century.” On Tuesday, Trump was slated to attend another gala for America’s Future PAC, led by his former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, where Trump was expected to present allies Kid Rock and Tucker Carlson with awards, according to an invited guest.

Much of the final work of the transition remains based out of the West Palm Beach offices, where a vast operation is underway to help staff the incoming administration with loyalists expected to faithfully carry out Trump’s agenda. A large portion of the process is being overseen by America First Policy Institute, a deeply conservative Trump-aligned think tank staffed largely by former and future administration officials.

Successful conservative influencers, Silicon Valley moguls, lawmakers and business leaders have descended on West Palm Beach to lend their expertise to the transition on building out companies and large-scale operations. Those seeking to join the administration are put through a series of interviews — some one-on-one, others in a group setting — where questions range from the contender’s background, to policy questions to whether or not they believe the 2020 election was stolen, a source briefed on the process told CNN.

The finalists are then presented to Trump, who has preferred to remain at Mar-a-Lago as much as possible for the time being after so much travel on the campaign trail, the source added. He has turned down the majority of requests to attend public events, preferring to wheel and deal on the patio of his resort in between meals surrounded by friends and rounds of golf.

“He’s been very active, but he gets to do it from base camp. He’s happy laying low right now,” the Trump adviser said.

As it is, the West Palm Beach airport is still busy with people flying in to gain an audience with the president-elect.

Trump has so far hosted several foreign leaders, including Argentinian President Javier Milei, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Trump recently dined with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, at his golf club.

Conservative groups have also rushed to use Mar-a-Lago as the backdrop for their events, giving them an opportunity to rub shoulders with the MAGA elite.

Last month, Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and a string of incoming administration officials spoke at the America First Policy Institute Gala. Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, Matt Gaetz, Brooke Rollins and Sylvester Stallone, among others, were all in attendance.

Turning Point Action, an organization that played a key role for Trump during the campaign, held a Winter Gala at Mar-a-Lago last weekend, where Trump allies and incoming administration officials heaped praise on the president-elect. The group’s founder, Charlie Kirk, and Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller were among those who spoke. Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel; his recently announced White House counselor Alina Habba, who carried a clutch bedazzled with the letters “FJB,” an acronym for “F**k Joe Biden”; and conservative commentator Benny Johnson were among those in attendance. Trump himself was not there, as he was flying back from Paris after the reopening of Notre Dame.

CNN previously reported that Trump hosted the chief executives of Pfizer and Eli Lilly for dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week. Kennedy, Trump’s pick to lead the Health and Human Services Department, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, his pick for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, also attended.

One of the senators key to the confirmation hopes of Trump’s picks — Iowa Republican Joni Ernst — was also at Mar-a-Lago last month. She and the president-elect dined on the patio alongside Musk and Howard Lutnick, the billionaire Wall Street executive Trump tapped for secretary of Commerce, and discussed her involvement in helping the nascent Department of Government Efficiency from the Senate.

Lately, Trump has also welcomed to his Florida home an ever-expanding array of political outsiders as he turns away from traditional Washington and Republican power brokers for counsel. That includes an increasingly influential sect of venture capitalists and right-leaning Silicon Valley executives close to Musk, newly named cryptocurrency czar David Sacks and other billionaire tech entrepreneurs now fully ensconced in his orbit. Longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon, recently released from prison for refusing to cooperate with the congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, was recently spotted alongside the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago as well.

Since the election, Trump has departed Florida on only a handful of occasions. Last month, he traveled to New York City for a UFC fight, and also accompanied Musk to a SpaceX launch in Texas.

He traveled back to New York City earlier this month to accept Fox News’ “Patriot of the Year” award and tape an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He then flew directly to Paris.

After his Thursday visit to the New York Stock Exchange, he’ll return to Mar-a-Lago before attending the Army-Navy game in Landover, Maryland, on Saturday.

And while his team is spending more time in Washington, Trump has been there just once since his victory to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House and pow wow with House Republicans near Capitol Hill.

Instead, Trump has largely previewed his plans through social media posts. On Tuesday, for example, he said on Truth Social that under his administration the US government will offer expedited approval to companies planning to invest $1 billion in domestic production.

“GET READY TO ROCK!!!” Trump concluded his post.

CNN’s Kayla Tausche and Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.