Not even the so-called Southern White House can escape the economic sting of the coronavirus pandemic. Mar-a-Lago, the house that Grape Nuts built, now owned by Donald Trump and used as his Florida getaway (and also, somehow, is still open for business as a for-profit club?) has halted operations since March 27 as part of the nationwide social distancing measures needed to stem the spread of Covid-19. While a shuttered Mar-a-Lago might be good for keeping a lid on state secrets, it isn’t that great for the president’s personal bottom line.
As a result, 153 non-essential staffers at the Palm Beach club, as well 560 workers at Trump Doral in Miami, have been furloughed, according to a story in the Palm Beach Daily News.
The report comes just a day after Trump issued all caps tweets about “liberating” Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia, states where protests to “reopen” the economy have grown. The president, however, issued no tweets about leading by example, minimizing his own profits and offering his workers wage security during these increasingly worrying times.
Elsewhere in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis declared beaches back open for business on Friday, with images from up the coast in Jacksonville inspiring the crude hashtag #FloridaMorons. Friday also saw Florida’s steepest one-day rise in coronavirus cases, numbering 1,413 new infections.
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