Hours before millions of Americans were set to lose federal food benefits amid the ongoing government shutdown, President Donald Trump hosted a glittering party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
The official theme of the Halloween night bash was “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody,” according to a pool report. The line is a title of a song featured on the soundtrack for the 2013 movie version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, “The Great Gatsby.”
Reporters at the event described a “smoky party scene” and noted guests were “dressed up in flapper costumes” and “seated at well decked-out tables while a band played.”
“The Great Gatsby,” published in 1925, takes place during the Roaring ’20s and famously explores the emptiness of material wealth and moral decay of the rich, among other themes.
The day after the party, Nov. 1, is the date that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are set to go on pause. The Trump administration says there’s no way to pay out SNAP benefits while the government is shut down, although it did manage to do that during a previous shutdown in 2019.
Before the event kicked off, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was trying to find ways to “legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”