The Secret Service has declared the skies over Mar-a-Lago a permanent no-fly zone. What was once a temporary ban on fly-overs while Trump was in residence is now a complete redirection of Palm Beach Airport air traffic over Trump’s northern neighbors. They are not happy. Their irritation is understandable. However, most of the latest victims of Trump’s caprice deserve no sympathy.
Trump garnered 68 percent of the vote from the nearly 8,000 Palm Beach residents who cast a ballot in 2024. Local billionaires such as investor Nelson Peltz and casino developer Steve Wynn held fundraisers for Trump. Forgive my schadenfreude. They voted for a man devoid of concern for others. Now they know they are not an exception.
Local residents acknowledge that America’s President is an assassin’s target. They understand he will be protected. As such, they accepted that airplanes would be diverted when Trump was in town. However, the Secret Service has expanded the ban to apply regardless of whether Trump is there. Seemingly pointlessly, the new status quo will last until at least October 2026, even though Mar-a-Lago closes for the season in May.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Gregg Weiss voiced what many were feeling: “We want to do everything to make sure we protect our president, and we understand that when he’s there, this is what needs to happen. But when he’s not there, why? What’s the concern at that point?”
Weiss is making the mistake that many do when analysing the actions of the Trump administration. They are looking for logic in the irrational. This gang that can’t shoot straight is tackling crime by arresting fewer criminals and cutting prices by adding consumer taxes. All while lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize by renaming the Pentagon “The War Department” and invading American cities.
Why the Secret Service has permanently curtailed flights over Mar-a-Lago is better understood when considered in the light of Trump’s pre-presidential history of trying to get flights over his resort redirected, rather than in the context of presidential protection.
The Washington Post explains:
Trump filed three lawsuits against the county and airport over airplane noise since he bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985, all of them before he became president.
The first was in 1995; it was dropped a year later when the county agreed to widen the flight path so fewer jets flew over his estate and to lease him 200 acres of vacant land south of the airport, where he built the Trump International Golf Club.
A second lawsuit in 2010 was dismissed. Trump sued the airport a third time, in 2015.
I am saving one of the great houses of this country and one of its greatest landmarks,” he said then, “and it’s being badly damaged by the airplanes.”
Trump has odd beliefs about the physical harm caused by noise. He has long claimed that the sound from wind turbines causes cancer. And it seems he also thinks that jet engine roar badly damages buildings.
Regardless, planes still have to fly somewhere. And Mar-a-Lago is not the only house in the area with historical importance. A Trump neighbor, Margie Yansura, said this:
“Donald Trump says that his house is on the National Register of Historic Places. Well, my house is on the National Register of Historic Places. We’ve lived here for 45 years, and we’ve fought hard to save this historic neighborhood. I’m retired. I would like to sleep in, but I can’t past 6 a.m., and it goes on until 11 at night.”
Yansura should not expect her logic to have any impact (see above). Trump is guided by what’s good for Trump. He doesn’t have the mental bandwidth to consider the cost of his demands and actions on others. And if he did, based on his long history of wishing harm to others, it is equally likely he would enjoy hurting Weiss as much as he would be indifferent to her pain.
The nature of the flight ban evidences Trump’s lack of concern for others. It was foisted on the unsuspecting neighbors with little warning. Local officials said they were blindsided when the U.S. Secret Service issued the new flight restrictions just two days before they took effect on Oct. 20.
Nancy Pullum, chair of the Citizens’ Committee on Airport Noise, explained: “There was no lead-up to this. It just happened. Literally nobody knew. The flight traffic controllers didn’t know. The airport, they didn’t know. Palm Beach County didn’t know.”
In addition, residents seeking a rapprochement found no joy. Martin Klein, a lawyer who lives just north of Mar-a-Lago, said, “What I hear from my own house is my wife complaining that the planes are flying over the house at 5:30 in the morning, and I’m hearing the same thing from far too many residents.”
He wrote a letter to Trump, hoping that “some accommodation can be reached regarding airplane flight paths over Mar-a-Lago when you are not in residence.” Klein may have thought that having once represented Trump, he might be accorded some respect. No dice. He has yet to receive a reply.
