Trump takeover of Washington begins as he holds court from Palm Beach

The epicenter of Donald Trump’s transition is gradually shifting from south Florida to Washington, DC, to prepare for the president-elect’s return to the country’s seat of power, even as he prefers to bask in the afterglow of his electoral triumph from Mar-a-Lago.

The epicenter of Donald Trump’s transition is gradually shifting from south Florida to Washington, DC, to prepare for the president-elect’s return to the country’s seat of power, even as he prefers to bask in the afterglow of his electoral triumph from Mar-a-Lago. Key allies are shepherding Trump’s Cabinet picks through a gauntlet of Capitol Hill meetings, working to assuage lawmakers’ unease amid a tangle of controversies surrounding some of them. Other advisers have decamped to the nation’s capital to set the stage for Trump’s first actions in the Oval Office. And some incoming officials have finally engaged with their outgoing counterparts — a traditionally uneventful handoff delayed this time for weeks until Trump transition leaders signed mandatory agreements with the Biden administration. People who work on Trump’s advance team have also moved operations to DC, where planning on his second inauguration is well underway. Working out of their new digs in the General Services Administration building, they are working with Secret Service and touring venues for inaugural balls and other ancillary events in anticipation of January 20 as they piece together the lead up to Trump’s White House arrival, sources involved in the planning told CNN. Trump-aligned groups are also acquiring office space inside the Beltway, looking to capitalize on his win as DC lobbyists are seeking ways to gain access to the incoming administration, people familiar with the conversations told CNN. The northern migration also includes some of Trump’s longtime staff who stayed by his side after he left office or joined his political operation after he announced his plans to run again. Many of them moved to West Palm Beach as he plotted his political comeback from his nearby estate. Now, a Florida takeover of Washington is forthcoming and the DC real estate market is flush with these loyalists looking for new homes and to build out their staffs.