Members Are Quitting Mar-a-Lago Because It Has Become a 'Sad' and 'Dispirited' Place Since Trump Moved In

By Joshua Zitser, Business Insider

25 January 21

ormer President Donald Trump's return to his glitzy Mar-a-Lago resort is said to have been met with little fanfare by the club's wealthy members.

In fact, the author of a book on the Florida resort says that the mood is "dispirited" and that people are canceling their memberships.

"I've talked to a bunch of people the last couple of days," the author Laurence Leamer told MSNBC. "A lot of people have quit Mar-a-Lago."

Leamer, who wrote "Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump's Presidential Palace," then remarked that members were leaving over concerns they might be featured in newspaper articles.

Leamer said Trump's declining popularity had turned off members.

"They don't want anything to do with Donald Trump," he said. "Many of the members, they're not going there very often because it's a very dispirited place."

He continued: "It's a sad place for Trump to be hanging out. It's not what it was."

Leamer later added: "They're walking away from him. Even here, people don't like him."

Members, who pay $200,000 to join the club, have voiced their concern about Trump's return to Mar-a-Lago.

Some of his neighbors last year began taking legal action to try to prevent the move from becoming permanent, according to The Washington Post.

The neighbors wrote a secret letter to Palm Beach authorities and the US Secret Service arguing that Trump had no legal right to live at Mar-a-Lago full-time, The Post reported.