{"id":493102,"date":"2026-01-05T02:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T02:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/493102\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T02:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T02:27:17","slug":"mar-a-lago-is-a-familiar-place-for-trump-to-manage-high-stakes-military-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/493102\/","title":{"rendered":"Mar-a-Lago is a familiar place for Trump to manage high-stakes military operations"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Palm Beach, Florida
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Hours after declaring from underneath the tented ceiling of Mar-a-Lago\u2019s Tea Room that Venezuela\u2019s leader<\/a> was in American custody and the US was running the country on Saturday, President Donald Trump <\/a>emerged victorious onto his club\u2019s crowded patio as dinner-goers cheered the audacious mission he\u2019d ordered from a few yards away.\n <\/p>\n

\n By now, it\u2019s become a regular occurrence. Mar-a-Lago \u2014 the gilded Italianate pile in Palm Beach where Trump spent the last 15 days \u2014 has become a familiar crucible of high-stakes, top-secret activity that results in leaders deposed, generals assassinated and rebel groups battered with missiles.\n <\/p>\n

\n As Trump was preparing to deliver his monumental announcement on Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s capture, the scene around Mar-a-Lago was comparatively breezy. Guests in tennis whites arrived to the club as usual, driving BMWs and Tesla Cybertrucks through security. The yellow-and-white umbrellas of the beach club fluttered in the wind, the azure Atlantic glinting as a Coast Guard vessel floated past.\n <\/p>\n

\n Inside at least a few of the estate\u2019s 114 rooms, the mood was a little more serious. Black drapes had been erected to create a secure viewing area for the president to monitor as Army Delta Forces stormed into Maduro\u2019s home and dragged him into custody as he tried to get to his safe room.\n <\/p>\n

\n Secure internet lines, a sophisticated telephone system and several monitors, one showing a live feed of posts on X, ensured the president\u2019s access to real-time information.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe had a room \u2026 it and we watched every aspect of it. We were surrounded by lots of people, including generals. And they knew everything that was happening,\u201d Trump marveled afterward in a phone call to Fox News.\n <\/p>\n

\n The setup was constructed in a discreet of the club, away from guests, according to one person familiar with the matter.\n <\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

\n The potential intersection of paying club members with the nation\u2019s most sensitive national security secrets has long given intelligence officials agita. The Secret Service screens guests before they enter but doesn\u2019t determine who can access the club.\n <\/p>\n

\n That has occasionally made for some jarring scenes. Early in his first term, Trump huddled over iceberg wedge salads on the patio with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after a North Korean missile launch. Guests watched on, listening as the men discussed how to respond and posting photos of the episode on social media.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump and his aides have since enacted tighter rules for guests taking photographs. And the club\u2019s classified communication apparatus has been expanded and fortified, in part through repeated use.\n <\/p>\n

\n The list of highly classified operations green-lit from Mar-a-Lago is now a long one.\n <\/p>\n

\n It was in a windowless basement room that Trump met with top national security officials in 2020 to make a final decision on taking out Iran\u2019s top military commander, Qasem Soleimani.\n <\/p>\n

\"US<\/p>\n

\n It was from another secure room that Trump authorized strikes on Syria for the use of chemical weapons in 2017, before returning to dinner with China\u2019s leader to recount them over chocolate cake. \u201cHe was eating his cake,\u201d Trump would say later of his guest, President Xi Jinping. \u201cAnd he was silent.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In the last nine months alone, Trump was at Mar-a-Lago as the US began an air campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen, observing the first salvos on monitors fresh from the golf course; as American Tomahawk missiles were fired into alleged ISIS camps in Nigeria on Christmas Day; and as the audacious mission to capture Maduro played out in Caracas this weekend.\n <\/p>\n

\n In between near-daily rounds of golf and one excursion to shop for marble, Trump held discussions on the Venezuela operation from the secure facilities on the property, according to a US official, and extra precautions were taken to ensure the plans didn\u2019t make it to Maduro\u2019s regime.\n <\/p>\n

\n Vice President JD Vance visited Trump at his nearby golf course on Friday and didn\u2019t return to Ohio until after the operation was over.\n <\/p>\n

\"US<\/p>\n

\n Trump has been accused in the past of lax security measures at Mar-a-Lago, perhaps most notably in his handling of classified documents that formed the basis of a federal criminal case against him during his time out of office. Boxes of documents were found in a basement storage room and other places on the property during an FBI search.\n <\/p>\n

\n The club, which was built by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1920s, has certain natural protections. It is anchored to a coral reef by steel and concrete, making it hurricane resistant. Its walls are made from thick Dorian stone from Italy.\n <\/p>\n

\n Newer fortifications include snipers, bomb-sniffing dogs and boats patrolling the Intracoastal Waterway, along with miles of secure telephone and internet cables.\n <\/p>\n

\n For Trump, though, the club is still the place he goes to escape Washington and mingle with guests who now pay $1 million to join, even as he disappears periodically to order strikes or forced ousters.\n <\/p>\n

\n As he stepped onto the patio Saturday evening, he was joined by his wife Melania Trump and onetime government efficiency chief Elon Musk as dinner guests gave him a standing ovation.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThank you,\u201d he mouthed as he waded through the crowd.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Palm Beach, Florida \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Hours after declaring from underneath the tented ceiling of Mar-a-Lago\u2019s Tea Room that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":493103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-493102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115840132399041347","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}