The Trump Family Turnover

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE

And notes from the Inauguration

Sunday, late afternoon, standing in a packed room in a DC hotel at a party in honor of incoming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, I found myself nose to nose with a charming man who told me was a banker.

A couple minutes more interrogation and then it emerged he wasn’t your average banker.

“My father was the dictator who ran …..[name of a well-known African country I won’t reveal to protect the source]. So, when he was kicked out I came here and became a banker…Now I might have to go back to XXX.”

Small talk at inauguration parties in DC is unlike small talk in New York – or London for that matter. Or Los Angeles.

I bring up LA, because inauguration weekend in DC reminded me eerily of the Oscars weekend, the only difference being the freezing temperature. There’s the same jostling for the best invites, the same energy, the same nightmarish traffic. (Actually the D.C. traffic gridlock was much worse.)

The only thing I found really baffling about the DC parties was the black tie dress code.

I get why you’d want to wear a long dress to the candlelight dinner on inauguration eve, for example. And there was a late night private dance party in a certain ambassador’s home that was by far the chicest event I’ve ever been to in DC and certainly merited getting dressed up for.

But most of the inaugural events, including the balls, don’t involve dancing by anyone other than the Trump family who are roped off, up on a stage. And there’s no sitting down.

So, why does one need to be in black tie to stand up, drink, eat and network? Most of the women put on their gowns at lunchtime so they don’t waste hours in horrible traffic changing. (But a wise piece of advice came from my host, who told me to wear my jeans or something comfortable to the weekend daytime events, because, he said, I’d stand out, which might be helpful, given my profession. I was skeptical but, of course, he was right.)

What I also hadn’t fully appreciated was just how difficult it is to get anywhere. The snow and the ice on Sunday night made it almost impossible. By the time I went to bed at 2 a.m. I felt like I deserved an Olympic gold medal for navigating the frigid streets of D.C. in three inch heels.

So when, on Monday, Trump mentioned that Melania’s feet were killing her, for once I was completely in sync with what the First Lady must be feeling.

My party experiences aside, two things stood out to me about the day itself:

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates