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, Maryland, 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.