What you need to know
Mar-a-Lago celebrations have raised eyebrows before, but one recent event at President Donald Trump’s private Florida club left the internet perplexed.
The Humane Society of the United States’ 15th Annual Hero Dog Awards Gala was held at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, Jan. 9, and the event quickly became a hit thanks to the unconventional costumes worn by performers at the party. Footage from the Palm Beach event shows attendees wearing 18th-century formal attire and dog masks on their heads.
The look was compared to a fur costume online, including by California Governor Gavin Newsom, a frequent critic of the president, who reposted images of the event on X and wrote, “Why is Donald Trump hosting a furry party??”
President Trump, 79, reportedly attended Friday’s event, with Meidas Touch posting on TikTok, “Mr. Trump attended the event and spoke,” and Palm Beach Florida Weekly senior editor Kelly Henry apparently shared a video of the president speaking at the gala on Instagram.
The Humane Society of the United States did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
President Trump appears to have attended a soiree honoring “dogs of courage,” but he is one of the few presidents who has not owned a pet of his own while living in the White House. He, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson were the only people living there without any pets.
“What do I look like walking my dog on the White House lawn? Is that right?” Trump, who did not grow up with pets, asked the audience at a 2019 campaign rally in Texas. “I don’t know. It feels a little phony, phony to me. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, you should get a dog,’ and ‘Why?'” “It’s good politically,” I said, “Look, that’s not my relationship with my people.”
According to GQ, Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana Trump, wrote in her memoir “Raising Trump” that Trump “wasn’t a dog person” and that they had a strained relationship with his poodle, Chappie, who was “territorial and barked.”
Mar-a-Lago, where the president spends much of his time when he is not in Washington, D.C., is a private club, and non-members can host their own events there only with the sponsorship of a current member. Three of his children have been married at Mar-a-Lago, and the president himself hosted his wedding reception with his third wife, First Lady Melania Trump, at the club in 2005.
Months before Mar-a-Lago’s Humane Society gala baffled the internet, President Trump held a Great Gatsby-themed party at the club as millions of Americans braced for the possible expiration of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits during a historically long government shutdown.
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The Halloween party was inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 classic, and there were plenty of feathers and flapper dresses in the crowd. The event’s official theme was “The Great Gatsby,” the Roaring Twenties, and “the little party never killed anyone,” AFP and NewsNation White House correspondents Danny Kemp and Kelly Meyer reported at the time.
The incident comes as the government shutdown continues and millions of Americans prepare to lose their SNAP benefits the next day, November 1, 2025. Two federal judges ruled that the Trump administration must provide benefits despite the shutdown, and the Trump administration agreed to make partial payments. A week later, another federal judge ordered the administration to pay all November benefits.
