For President Trump There’s No Place Like the Palm Beaches & Why Spirit Airlines is Dead Today – Top 3 Takeaways – May 4th, 2026
Takeaway #1: There’s no place like home
When you hear that expression, what comes to mind? It’s impossible not to think of Dorothy, right? But did you know that the Wizard of Oz is not the origin of where that saying/proverb is derived from? There’s a good chance that the saying dates back earlier than this...however the first documented use of the saying appeared in the British newspaper The Bath Chronicle in 1781. Btw, I recently made the mistake of watching the Wicked movie from a few years back with Ashley...ick. Anyway, a couple of quick notes as I wade into my takeaways to begin today and the first full week of May. 1) The only more entertaining standup act I’ve seen than President Trump’s performance at the Forum Club (who did an amazing job pulling the short-notice event together Friday night was Jerry Seinfeld)...and that’s only because Seinfeld tries to make you laugh the entire time (Jeff Foxworthy would slot into #3). I’m pretty sure that if Trump tried to do the same, he could potentially be the greatest standup act of all-time. Heck, even on matters where I’m pretty sure he was highly serious, such as what comes next for Cuba, he was rather hilarious in delivering the message...for example when he said that when we’re done with Iran and our fleet is returning home there will be a little stop by Cuba with the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln (our largest nuclear powered aircraft carrier), in which the legacy Castro regime will say “we give up”. I fully expect an incarnation of that to happen. The president was in rare form as he clearly was happy to be back home, recognized a lot of faces, and spoke directly to the attendees, like for example, PBC Sheriff Rick Bradshaw, which he called a “sort of” Democrat that he voted for. Anyone who knows the president is aware of how much he loves this area – but that came across as clearly as it ever has on Friday as did his appreciation for the renaming of Southern Blvd. and Palm Beach International Airport. From Mar-a-Lago, to the West Palm Beach Convention Center and others...He’s obviously addressed local audiences' numerous times over the past decade, however there was something different about his demeanor Friday night.
Takeaway #2: There was clearly sincere gratitude
And while the president didn’t speak to this dynamic, what I was left thinking was that while the president is a New Yorker through and through and the Palm Beaches are President Trump’s adopted home (like most of us in the area), this has now truly become his home and where he’s happiest. For all he’d done in New York over the decades only to be treated the way he and his family have been treated which includes weaponizing the criminal justice system to attempt to bankrupt him, his family’s business and to imprison them, the juxtaposition locally where he’s been embraced, and his legacy has been established probably can’t be understated. There’s no place like home, and this community is a particularly unique and wonderful community to call home. For over two decades I used to say that one day South Florida would save this country from itself. That narrative was built around the diversity of this community and specifically that legal immigrants who’d escaped Socialism would recognize it when they would see it – voting accordingly and educating others along the way. That’s happened. Little did I know way back when that PBC specifically would effectively become the epicenter of the free world but that’s happened too as the president has transitioned from being a snowbird to truly identifying the community as his home.
Takeaway #3: Blame Biden
We’re still paying the price for Dementia Joe having been made President of the United States in a lot of ways. There are a lot of things you can blame President Biden for... from ’Bidenflation being baked in anytime you buy anything, record illegal immigration, rampant related crime, evidently trying to create transsexual Easter bunnies or something with his Transgender Day proclamation on Easter (after previously needing to effectively be rescued by a gender indeterminant Easter bunny). The point is there are a great many things to blame Biden for that didn’t just go away as easily as his last thought did. But there’s something new to blame Biden for that I’d warned of before. What would become of South Florida-based Spirit Airlines if the Biden administration didn’t let the merger with JetBlue go through. As I reported over three years ago – in February of 2023: JetBlue has pledged to retain all South Florida based employees of Spirit Airlines should their takeover bid go through. New York based JetBlue had explored potentially relocating its corporate headquarters to Florida from New York in recent years and is a key reason as to why they’ve aggressively pursued the merger with Miramar based Spirit. Shareholders approved the $3.8 billion proposed takeover last fall. That merger would have protected the greater than 13,000 people who worked for Spirit at the time, including nearly 5,000 living and working in South Florida. It was the ultimate win-win but then Biden stepped in. His administration sued to block the merger, and his administration won. Biden had this to say at the time: Today’s ruling is a victory for consumers everywhere who want lower prices and more choices. My Administration will continue to fight to protect consumers and enforce our antitrust laws. Of course all his administration did was ensure that Spirit, which needed the JetBlue merger to remain competitive and survive, would be left to die – ensuring less choice and killing all those jobs. And it was over this past weekend that Spirit died and those jobs were destroyed. What’s more is that industry analysts are already saying that the net effect of this will be higher prices – given that Spirit was the lowest cost carrier and there’s likely to be less competition. When Joe Biden was president I used to say that every day he was president the world was less safe- which was true, and that our country was less safe too- which was true, but we continue to see in many ways the ongoing impact of his failed decisions too. How many people are reporting that the only reason Spirit Airlines is dead today is because Joe Biden was president of the United States? But that’s true.