Trumpettes serve up 'mega MAGA' menu at gala featuring Trump World stars

PALM BEACH — The Donald Trump fan club Trumpettes' promised "mega MAGA" gala lived up to its billing Saturday night at Mar-a-Lago.

Actor Robert Davi improvised a version of Frank Sinatra's "My Way" in which he crooned "Trump did it his way." U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia decried "communist Democrats" she warned are "coming after your money." And a rough-hewn, hardline immigration proponent said to be on Trump's list for a Cabinet-level post vowed "we're going to fix this (expletive)" at the southern border.

But the main event was Trump, who attended the ball upon returning from an afternoon rally in South Carolina. The former president spoke at the gold-themed black-tie and designer dress gala after tumultuous weeks of pivots and twists that have given him steamroll-like momentum for his White House comeback campaign while leaving President Joe Biden's re-election bid reeling in damage control.

"We had a tremendous day," an ebullient Trump said. "We've had quite a month, frankly."

Trump, 'Make America Great Again' nation elated by recent events

The "wild" stretch from mid-January to this weekend, as Trump termed it, included dominant GOP caucus and primary wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

This week, it added a U.S. Supreme Court session in which justices were vocally skeptical of challenges to Trump's 2024 candidacy based on 14th Amendment disqualification over his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. On Saturday, Trump heralded an important truce with the well-heeled Club for Growth.

During his remarks, Trump pointed at Club for Growth leader David McIntosh, saying, "We're partners now, that's good."

There's also been a slew of opinion polls showing him opening up significant leads over Biden nationally and in potentially election-deciding battleground states. Trump spoke for nearly 20 minutes, and restated aspects of his far-right political agenda that, voter surveys also suggest, give independents and more moderate segments of the electorate pause and hesitancy about supporting him.

He embraced the baseless assertions of massive 2020 election fraud that galvanize his supporters but that voters in swing states have found distracting and counterproductive. On Saturday, Trump's neo-isolationist views received pushback after he reportedly suggested in his Conway, S.C., speech he would not invoke NATO protection for countries attacked by Moscow if they are "delinquent" on their dues.

But at Mar-a-Lago, Trump elicited cheers when he asked the crowd if they had seen the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson's interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump touted 2017 tax cut, has reaped political windfall by special counsel report on Biden

Trump also extolled other policies that proved popular with his base during his Oval Office term, including a 2017 tax cut, slashed federal regulations, and the assassinations of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani and the Iraqi militant known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

While Trump is surging, Biden had a disastrous week, capped by an extensive report by special counsel Robert Hur, a Gen X'er, that concluded no criminal charges were merited against the president for his possession of government documents but slammed the late-stage Baby Boomer as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

An angry Biden disputed the allegation in a hastily called press conference at the White House Thursday evening. The president insisted his memory was "fine" but then misspoke in stating he had worked with Mexico, rather than Egypt, to open the border between the Middle East border and the Gaza Strip.

Trump also showed up Biden after the president again declined a Super Bowl Sunday interview on CBS, with the former president posting on his social media platforms that he'd be happy to step in.

"He's got a triple. He's got the worst president, the most incompetent president and the most dishonest president," Trump taunted Biden at the gala. "Other than that, he's doing a great job."

Trump has also had recent gaffes, but the country appears less worried about his age, 77, than Biden at 81. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday showed 86% of those asked believe Biden is too old to serve another term, while 62% said the same about Trump.

Campaign 2024: Trump calls on charges to be dropped. Biden spars with reporters, mixes up countries

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Second Mayorkas impeachment vote will come Tuesday, warns 2017 tax cuts to expire

The event was attended by Vivek Ramaswamy, who also sought the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, as well as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and actors Lee Majors of the 1970s "Six Million Dollar Man" show and Kevin Sorbo of the 1990s "Hercules" series.

Conventional wisdom and electoral math say national Democrats must defeat Cruz and Florida U.S. Senate Rick Scott in order to keep control of the chamber.

Cruz said he was confident. "We're going to campaign hard and I think we're going to win," he said at a pre-gala reception. "And we're going to win the Senate."

Ahead of Trump's arrival, Thomas Homan, who was acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2017 to 2018, vowed he would implement border control in 90 days and run the "biggest deportation" mission the United States "has ever seen" if a second Trump administration gives him a chance.

"He's back. I'm back, and we fix this (expletive)," said Homan, a former police officer in New York who has been speculated as a potential Trump Department of Homeland Security chief. During his tenure at ICE, the Trump administration implemented a harsh and widely criticized border policy to separate parents from their children.

Greene stoked the crowd by pledging to seek another vote in the U.S. House to impeach the current Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. Ultra-conservatives want to oust Mayorkas from his post over sharp differences in how the immigration crisis at the southern border should be dealt with.

A vote to impeach Mayorkas, a Cuban-American, failed last week. Taylor Greene said she was disgusted that three Republicans voted with the Democrat minority to defeat the impeachment.

She then warned those in the audience — who paid between $2,400 and $850 for a ticket — who "have money," a business or an inheritance to pass down to children or grandchildren, that Trump's tax cut from seven years ago is about expire.

"You know what they say, 'We don't have a spending problem in Washington, they think it's a revenue problem,'" she said of congressional Democrats. "That means they're coming after your money."

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Trumpettes 'mega MAGA' gala features Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene