In No Way Out, a 1987 thriller about a Washington conspiracy and cover-up, actor Kevin Costner jumps on an underground train to evade his pursuers and emerges in the atrium of the historic Old Post Office building, making his way past a food court and shops and up a staircase with brass rails.

Twenty years later, the same space contains the Benjamin (as in Franklin) Bar and Lounge at the Trump International Hotel, at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue. The bar, set against nine shelves of wine and spirits, crystal decanters and a giant champagne bottle, along with four TV screens showing Fox News and sport, has become the grand central station of Donald Trump’s Washington.

While establishment conservatives stick to more traditional, less flashy hotels and restaurants in the capital, the bar –where a cocktail of Belvedere rye, Chopin potato, Elyx winter wheat vodka, raw oysters and caviar costs $100 – unabashedly displays the new faces, new dress codes and new approach to politics. Bling, suntans and Florida and New York are in.

One afternoon last week, Harlan Hill, a Trump adviser, public relations consultant and Fox News pundit, had come to the bar for a meeting. Eschewing a traditional suit and tie for a preppy blue jacket, checked shirt and sunglasses, Hill remarked: “I just saw [former White House press secretary] Sean Spicer over at the Hay Adams [hotel]. He said the president is treating him well.”

Also at the bar were a couple of middle-aged tourists posing for photos, a well tanned white man with dark glasses, beard, slicked back hair and a distinctly 1970s style, and a black woman in a white lace dress. Then there was Wayne Rich, a retired marine reserve colonel and former justice department and state department official, now a member of Trump’s leadership council in West Virginia.

Donald Trump and his family inside the Trump International Hotel on opening day. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

“The hotel is fantastic,” he said. “I was in Washington from 1988 to 1993 with the justice department and it was run-down. The city government was considering tearing it down. Donald Trump said, ‘Not on my watch. I’ll turn it into something special.’ He’s done a good job on the hotel and is doing a good job as president.”

Rich, 75, added: “If you could get a list of his six-month achievements, which you never read about in the American press, I’d be very impressed.”

The former federal prosecutor said he had known the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for 30 years. “There’s not a more competent, professional individual with integrity than Jeff Sessions. If I had a brother, I’d want his name to be Jeff Sessions. I’m surprised [by Trump’s recent attacks on him]. I believe it’s because the president hasn’t fully been given the facts.”



Instead, diplomats, lobbyists and conservative groups pour in, finding it the next best thing to the White House

Rich made his way through the adjoining lounge, beneath steel arches, Swarovski chandeliers and a high glass ceiling, past luxurious sofas, gold-framed velvet chairs and a mix of tourists, families and besuited denizens of Trump world. Three middle-aged men sat at one table, two burly with beards, the other wearing shorts. A couple – the man wearing a blue suit and Trumpian red tie – sat at another table having a meal. The sound of a cocktail shaker behind the bar punctuated the insistent beat of muzak. A glass lift whooshed up towards the clock tower, which offers one of the best panoramic views of the city.

That morning, just-ousted communications director Anthony Scaramucci was spotted in the front lobby. In the afternoon, Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow, a fixture on conservative talk radio and now a familiar face on TV, met a small group of men and headed up to the BLT Prime restaurant for lunch.

J J Cafaro, 63, a shopping mall developer, was standing near the hotel front desk smoking a Davidoff cigar. “Donald Trump is fighting a lot of wars on a lot of fronts,” he said. “It’s a shame the good things he’s doing are not front page news. I come from Youngstown, Ohio, where they love him and are still behind him. What he’s done with jobs is phenomenal.”’

Protesters outside the Trump International Hotel. The president gained just 4% of the vote in the district. Photograph: Xinhua / Barcroft Images

Cafaro, who identifies himself as a Democrat, added: “It’s difficult to call the president a conservative or liberal. His policies are intended to be pro-American. Sometimes it falls to the left, sometimes to the right, sometimes in the middle, but he’s doing what a lot of the American people want to see done.”

The 263-room hotel – which includes “The Spa by Ivanka Trump” – has become an island of red surrounded by deep blue Washington, where the property billionaire won just 4% of the vote against Hillary Clinton’s 91%. Fans in red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps turn up like star-spotters at a Hollywood party, hoping to glimpse celebrities from the Trump universe: Kellyanne Conway, Rudy Giuliani, Corey Lewandowski, Omarosa Manigault, Steve Mnuchin (who reportedly stayed at the hotel for six months at his own expense). If they time it right on a Saturday night, they might see Trump himself at dinner.

But mainstream Republicans – the likes of Jeb Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney – are far less likely to darken its door. Instead diplomats, lobbyists and conservative groups pour in, finding it the next best thing to the White House, raising myriad conflict of interest concerns since the Trump family profits off it. Kuwait held its national day celebration here in February; the Turkey-US Business Council and American Turkish Council held a conference in May; the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, and his wife were spotting eating croissants in the lounge in June; and about 300 Republican donors attended a fundraiser, raising about $10m for Trump’s next election campaign, in July.