The Trump 2020 campaign offer said “two great Americans” who give as little as $3 will be entered in the contest for the Jan. 20 meal. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo Trump campaign hawks Palm Beach dinner contest to mark inauguration anniversary

President Donald Trump is taking another page out of Barack Obama’s playbook by hawking a private South Florida dinner later this month at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his inauguration.

The Trump 2020 campaign offer blasted out Wednesday via text message said “two great Americans” who give as little as $3 will be entered in the contest for the Jan. 20 meal — “Flight and Hotel included” — in Palm Beach, Florida.


Though the text message and a separate entry form on gop.com do not specify where the contest winners will receive their award, Trump campaign executive director Michael Glassner told POLITICO the event will be held at the president’s private Mar-a-Lago retreat.

The campaign text message does mistakenly say in one place that the dinner will happen in "Palm Springs", rather than Palm Beach.

Obama’s campaigns made frequent use of contest dinners with the president to trigger small-dollar donations, and Trump on several occasions has adopted the format since taking office last year. His campaign held similar contests last June in Washington and again in October in New York. The Republican National Committee also held a contest for dinner with Trump last fall in Dallas.

Mar-a-Lago is also hosting a separate, sold-out Jan. 18 event to mark the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, with Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro as the keynote speaker and a performance from Frank Sinatra cover singer Robert Davi.

