WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Last weekend, President Donald Trump greeted guests at a children’s charity gala inside his private Mar-a-Lago club. “Have a good time, everybody,” Trump told the crowd, clad in gowns and tuxedos. “We gotta go work.”
Then, beyond heavy, gold-plated doors and layers of security at the same estate, he watched “Operation Epic Fury” unfold from a separate space converted to a makeshift “situation room.” From there, the president, alongside his top aides and national security officials, observed B-2 bombers striking Iranian military targets and Israeli forces targeting senior Iranian leadership, ultimately killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The White House released photographs of the heavily curtained space, complete with rows of classified phone lines and monitors.
Then, early Saturday morning, Trump announced a “massive and ongoing” U.S. military operation in Iran from Mar-a-Lago’s presidential press room.
By the night’s end, Trump moved from war planning to a Republican fundraiser all without leaving the sprawling Palm Beach compound.
The Iran operation marks the sixth major military action Trump has directed from Mar-a-Lago during his second term, underscoring the resort’s evolution from social playground to presidential command center.
While previous presidents have reserved such moments for the White House’s Situation Room — which recently underwent a $50 million renovation — and Camp David, a country retreat 60 miles from D.C., Trump has repeatedly shown preference for his private club and primary residence, which he purchased from General Foods heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1985.
Instead of Trump, it was Vice President JD Vance in the White House Situation Room during the overnight Iran operation. Seated beneath a “Vice President of the United States” seal, Vance was pictured alongside Cabinet members Tulsi Gabbard and Scott Bessent.
Trump has spent the first seven of nine weekends this year at his so-called Winter White House. In January, while at his golf course in West Palm Beach, the president announced a new tariff on European countries opposing U.S. control of Greenland.
The weekend before, Trump watched from Mar-a-Lago as service members launched another round of strikes on targets in Syria belonging to the Islamic State. Earlier that same day, Trump attended a routine dentist appointment in the area.
On Jan. 3, a Saturday, Trump capped off a busy two-week holiday vacation at his Florida home by announcing an unprecedented operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. It was the first time the White House revealed photos of the president’s Palm Beach situation room, as he and top Cabinet officials watched the attack unfold.
That day, Trump welcomed reporters for a last-minute news conference where members of his administration detailed the undertaking. The president monitored Maduro’s transfer to a New York City prison in between rounds of golf and shopping for marble and onyx for his new White House ballroom.
The trend harkens back to Trump’s first term. Just after hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping over a lavish steak dinner at Mar-a-Lago in 2017, Trump, still at the compound, oversaw strikes in Syria in response to the government’s use of chemical weapons. He drew criticism that same year after sitting with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe out in the open among club diners as they discussed their response to a North Korean missile launch.
And during the tail end of his holiday vacation in 2020, Trump was at Mar-a-Lago when he gave the final order to launch drone strikes that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. He briefly addressed the nation from the same draped room in Mar-a-Lago, but gave more extensive remarks flanked by top military officials at the White House days later.
Trump is spending even more time at Mar-a-Lago this term. He has made 21 visits to the estate so far in his second term, seven more trips compared to the same point in his first term, NBC News research shows.
Democrats in Congress have previously raised security concerns about Trump’s use of Mar-a-Lago for sensitive work and meetings with foreign leaders, and ProPublica reported in May 2017 that its Wi-Fi networks were vulnerable. In 2019, a Chinese woman was arrested after attempting to enter the club with a thumb drive containing malicious software.
Security at Mar-a-Lago is managed by the U.S. Secret Service in coordination with local partners, a White House official told NBC News. “The U.S.S.S. and military partners ensure that the President can direct operations through a sophisticated and fully secure array of communication systems from anywhere in the world,” the official said.
Outside of security concerns, some are critical of the president’s unconventional use of his Palm Beach mansion.
“The president should be at the White House during any anticipated crisis, unless so doing might be irregular and provide a tipoff that something was about to happen,” said John Bolton, who was White House national security adviser for part of Trump’s first term. “As Jack Kennedy put it, ‘That is where the seat of government is.’ It’s just better to have critical meetings in person. In this case, the B-team was clearly in the Sit Room,” he added, referring to Vance.
