The man himself appeared at 10:14 p.m., strolling into the ballroom from somewhere in the private depths of the club.
For a strange moment he stood there, alone and mostly unnoticed in the doorway, a ghost at his own party, before the music kicked in and he made his way to the stage.
He began with some thank-yous and superlatives, some reminiscences about his presidency and denunciations of the one that followed.
“We’re going to win this election, because we have no choice,” Donald J. Trump told us.
“If we lose this election, we’re not going to have a country left.” He said it in a tone he might have used to complain about the rain that had doused Palm Beach that weekend.
Persons:
“ We’re, ” Donald J, Trump, we’re, ”