Donald Trump is reportedly making Mar-A-Lago his permanent home, ditching his eponymous tower in New York City for the Palm Beach resort.
As OK Magazine reported, Donald and Melania Trump changed their state of residency from New York to Florida earlier this year, as the media widely detailed at the time. However, newly-uncovered documents indicate that the three-floor penthouse in Trump Tower is missing from the form where the couple listed their residences.
At the time, some people thought perhaps the Trumps were changing their state of residence for political motives. For instance, there were rumors that the president wanted to replace Mike Pence with his daughter Ivanka. But in order to do that, one of them would have to change their place of residency, since the law stipulates that the vice president can’t come from the same state as the commander-in-chief.
But now, it appears that perhaps they made the official change so that they could move to Florida full-time after they leave the White House.
On the form where they were asked to list “the place or places where I maintain another or other place or places of abode,” they put the White House, Mar-A-Lago, and their home in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to the outlet. They left off their residence in Westchester, New York, two in Sterling, Virginia, and a home in the West Indies, along with two other properties in Palm Beach. Also missing was the Trump Tower in Manhattan.
It’s possible that the decision is driven by financial considerations. Trump might be looking to sell off some of his holdings, given that he allegedly owes hundreds of millions of dollars in debt — much of it to Deutsche Bank, as The Inquisitr reported. Selling the seven properties that aren’t listed as his residency would earn him about $125 million.
There’s also the possibility that the couple is leaving Manhattan after reports that the people in the city didn’t want the Trumps to return due to the president’s frequent disparaging comments about the city. Recently, activists painted a massive “Black Lives Matter” logo on the street in front of the building.
As The New York Times revealed a week ago, Trump said that the city had “gone to hell.”
“Look at what’s happened to New York, it’s a ghost town. It’s a ghost town,” he recently said. “For so many years I loved it, it was vibrant. It’s dying, everyone is leaving New York.”
He also called the city an “anarchist jurisdiction” and threatened to halt federal funding.