Donald Trump's new life in his Florida retreat

Defeated at the polls and tainted by the insurrection on Capitol Hill, Trump has barricaded himself in his Florida mansion and barely goes out. What is his life like there? Is he preparing his comeback? Does he live with Melania? And is it true that since leaving the White House he has multiplied his fundraising for a future campaign?

Donald Trump has had to declare that he is an employee of Mar-a-Lago to permanently settle there. This is a trap to circumvent the law. His wealthy neighbors (who wanted to avoid the hassle of having the tycoon around) argued to the local government that Mar-a-Lago is officially a resort and therefore cannot have permanent residents. However, if you're an employee of the resort, you can live there - which is how Trump has presented himself to the municipal authorities. Problem solved.

At Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump has settled in with Melania and their son Barron. They learned about his acquittal in the impeachment trial there. The couple is barely seen, as they do not leave their mansion. Vanity Fair reports that Melania spends most her days in the spa, only to join her husband (and her parents, who live with them) for meals.

Trump is building his entourage in Florida and an important part of his family is joining him. Three of Trump's children are moving to Florida. First of all, there's Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner. They are leaving New York and have  bought land on one of Miami's most exclusive islands.

In the picture you can see the land that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have acquired in Indian Creek. It's 7,000 square meters that they bought from Julio Iglesias on an island for the richest of the rich. It counts celebrities like Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, as well as Adriana Lima, among its residents.

Tiffany Trump has been living in the Setai Hotel in South Beach, Miami, while looking for a house to move into.

Donald Trump Jr is looking for a home to purchase in Jupiter, an area of Florida within walking distance of Mar-a-Lago.

Political analysts and Republican party members have suggested that Trump will return to the political battlefield for the next presidential elections. For the time being, although some donors and financial allies rejected him after the Capitol assault, Trump has raised a handsome sum of money since he ceased to be president.

The New York Times reported in December 2020 that Trump had raised as much as $170 million after losing the election and claiming it was a fraud. After the violence in the Capitol, some big Republican donors disowned him, but Trump relies very much on micro-donations from his massive base of supporters.

And then there is the personal budget he might still have for a future campaign. Trump's financial situation has reportedly remained good, even though his businesses are suffering from the pandemic and legal problems.

In the month after his departure from the White House, political commentators had suggested two possible roads for his return: Trump would either compete in a future Republican Party primary or he would found his own party.

At his first public speech since leaving office, on February 28 at the conservative CPAC conference, Trump did away with the second possibility. Any rumors of him founding a party were 'fake news,' he told the crowd of supporters. "Wouldn't that be brilliant? Let's start a new party so we can divide our vote and never win," he said sarcastically. And then, more seriously: "We have the Republican Party. It's going to unite and be stronger than ever before."

Right after his retirement, Trump seemed to have made some irreconcilable enemies. Mitch McConnell, the powerful leader of the Republicans in Congress, exonerated Trump by vote in the impeachment trial but not in rhetoric. After the proceedings, he declared that Trump was "morally responsible" for the events on Capitol Hill. Trump, for his part, has called McConnell a "dour, sullen, unsmiling political hack."

McConnell is representative for many old-school Republicans. They have been unwilling to condemn Trump for fear of the reaction of the Republican rank and file, but they still want to remove the tycoon from their party. Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, is another example of a Republican who says 'there is no future for Trump in the GOP.'

Meanwhile, Trump has also maintained the support of some Republican representatives. Its extremist faction, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (an advocate of conspiracy theories such as QAnon), remains loyal to the man they consider their commander-in-chief. If Trump were to leave the Republican Party, this radical group might follow him.

The most radical among the radicals have been disappointed by the former president, however. Since the Capitol riot, Jake Angeli (the QAnon Shaman with the bison horns) has rejected his leader, and so have the Proud Boys. They did not like the fact that Trump did not support them all-out during and after their insurrection attempt.

From his Florida mansion, Trump will surely continue his routine of watching hours and hours of television. All his biographers have highlighted the immense amount of time he spends on it. However, his Twitter account has been suspended, so now Trump has to react to the news through other channels.

There is already talk of an alternative social network: Parler. The social media platform has turned into a refuge for Trump followers who no longer can or want to use Facebook or Twitter, citing the excessive language policing and control of the networks by the Left. These followers expect to hear word of their leader on Parler at any moment.

According to his entourage, fleeing New York has been a necessity for Trump, since the city is Democrat and anti-Trump to the core. While he's always identified as a New Yorker, the magnate now feels he's hated there. But there is also another reason why he prefers Florida: taxes are much lower there than in the city of skyscrapers.

For the time being, Donald Trump can devote himself to playing golf at the nine-hole Mar-a-Lago course and enjoying the Florida sun. He keeps an unusual silence for someone like him. Only on February 17, he made an exception and called into Fox News to talk about the death of right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Trump grasped the opportunity to once again claim that the election was a fraud. "Rush thought we won," he said about his deceased political ally and golf buddy. "And so do I. We won substantially." Conceding just doesn't seem to exist in Trump's world, whether he is in New York, Washington or Florida.

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