„ ■ Joe Biden plans a campaign trip to Broward County and Tampaon Thursday,
and President Donald Trump will pass through the state, although there are no current plans for a campaign appearance or fundraiser.
President Donald Trump won’t be on hand Thursday evening when Republicans gather for a fundraising dinner at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach.
Trump is expected to be in Florida part of the day Thursday, and some of his supporters hoped that meant he’d be with them during the first installment of an unusual, two-night version of the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner.
It’s been held for years at Mar-a-Lago’s main ballroom before Trump was a presidential candidate. (The formal name of the enormous gilded room that looks as if it’s something fromthe era of Henry Flagler and the robber barons is the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom .)
It’s being split into two nights this year so each night can be smaller during the coronavirus pandemic. A total of 700 people will be divided between the two nights. Tickets are sold out.
“Usually we would have heard something by now. But we haven’t,” Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said at midday Tuesday. “We don’t know. If he drops in, great. If not, we’re still going to have a great program.”
People who had hoped to attend the dinner in March, before it was postponed because of the pandemic, were asked for information for the Secret Service, and Barnett said that doesn’t guarantee a presidential appearance. “People come with the hope president will come butwe can never guarantee that he will be there.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, the Trump campaign took that off the table with the announcement that the president would be holding a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., starting at 6:30 p.m.
Trump has attended Lincoln Day dinners before. In 2013 he was mobbed by attendees wanting to take pictures. His assigned job that night, introducing keynote speaker Laura Ingraham, now a major Trump booster on her Fox cable show, was vintage Trump. During his eight and-half minutes, Trump said “I” or “I’m” at least 29 times.
Last year, he declared Mar-a-Lago as his residence — and registered to vote in Palm Beach County— when he got mad at his longtime home state of NewYork.
This year’s event, with a minimum ticket price of $425 and sponsorships going up to the $15,000 “gold” level and $25,000 “presidential” is always a big gala for Palm Beach County Republicans.
The county party has announced an array of high-profile party stars. The keynote speaker both nights is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
Noem is widely thought to harbor presidential ambitions, though a home state newspaper reported in July that she had no plans to run in 2024. News reports have said she and Trump have talked about how he could be added to Mount Rushmore in her home state.
The Lincoln Day emcee is listed as Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist. Like the president, Kirk is a skeptic about wearing masks to prevent coronavirus. “In fact some people, some doctors think that masks actually make you sicker and have you less likely to be able to get oxygen and more likely to infect yourself, and less likely to be able to fight the virus, and actually more likely to be able to die sooner,” said on one of his podcasts.