I arrived at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., on an evening in late March, just as the cherry blossoms were shedding pink all over the city. The assignment was to hole up for five days and four nights within the president's most luxurious monument to himself. Since the election, the hotel has attracted protesters, a raft of foreign dignitaries, and a few lawsuits, including one that questions the legality of an elected official operating a moneymaking enterprise in a federally owned building. But those were the headlines. Inside, political tourists were spending $60 a steak to visit what has essentially become a themed resort devoted to a sitting president. I wondered who they were.

The first people I met were Marlene and Martin, who were sharing a steak at the bar. Marlene, a style blogger, was as friendly as a flight attendant, with long blonde hair and silver hoop earrings. Martin, who wore one of those perplexing Bluetooth neck headsets, owns a courier service in town that has advertised itself with the slogan “Make Your Company Great Again!”

Marlene and Martin had met earlier that night at a talk by Diane Rehm, the public radio host. When Rehm called for higher taxes, they found each other in a sea of applauding leftists and escaped to the hotel. Whether Trump meant to or not, it seems he has created a refuge for conservatives in the middle of one of the most progressive cities in the country.

They ordered their steak medium-well, but the bartender suggested medium. “But Donald likes his well-done,” said Martin. “With ketchup.”

“That's a myth,” said the bartender. He knew what he was talking about because the president had been in the previous weekend. “Did you serve him?” asked Marlene.

“No, but we're used to seeing the boss,” said the bartender. “It's no biggie.”

Marlene told me she'd twice participated in a “filmmaking boot camp” class organized by Steve Bannon, in 2011 and 2012. “If you need any contacts in D.C., let me know,” she said. “I'm real connected here.” Marlene said she's Facebook friends with Sam Kass, the former White House chef, and she once interviewed Jennifer Beals, the star of Flashdance, for her blog: “I don't like her politics, but she was so nice.” Marlene used to date a rock star. “Have you heard of the New Pornographers?” she asked. Marlene dated the one quietly conservative member. “Everyone else in the band is a crazy liberal. They all hate Trump,” she said. “But he liked me because I'm a Republican.”

I paid my bill and headed up to my room. In the lobby there was a group of Japanese businessmen clutching multiple orange Hermès purses. Two Hasidic guys waited to check in. One was talking on a flip phone. The other slapped the counter and said, “Okay, where's Trump?”

The front entrance to the hotel. Not pictured: police barricades to keep protesters out. AaronP/Bauer-Griffin

When the hotel opened last fall, there were reports that it was losing money, with rooms sitting empty and its front doors vandalized with Black Lives Matter graffiti. Lately, though, business has been good. “Now that the president is in office, it's pretty much busy all the time,” one of the bartenders told me.

Trump drops in regularly with Ivanka and Jared Kushner. So do his cabinet members, including Mike Pence, Rex Tillerson, and Jeff Sessions. Steve Mnuchin, the secretary of the Treasury, lives in the hotel. During the inauguration, suites were renting for as much as $18,000 a night, and the hotel filled up with diplomats and Trump's business partners from places like Dubai and Malaysia. That same weekend, according to one forthcoming waiter, Fox News host Sean Hannity ran up a $42,000 tab in the restaurant, which included the cost of flying in an eight-pound 70-year-old lobster from Maine. (Fox News denied the story on Hannity's behalf.)

The main gathering space, the Benjamin Bar & Lounge, has come to resemble an Old West saloon, with people arriving from all over looking for gold. Not just actual gold, which is plentiful—on the furniture in the guest rooms, on the lobby sculptures, on the antique mailboxes that were apparently Ivanka's personal project—but also some piece of the new presidency, be it a souvenir, a sighting, or the ear of the new administration. “You can see people making bad decisions in real time: shady business deals being struck, wedding vows being broken,” one veteran lobbyist who has visited the hotel said. “It's an accident waiting to happen. There's going to be a scandal.”

At a rate of approximately 20 per hour, tourists wander through the lobby and take photos. Wearing backpacks, visors, and an endless rainbow of Crocs, they form a kind of phone-wielding conga line, drifting through the atrium, determined to capture every inch of the place before filing out the back doors. There are also a lot of regular Trump supporters who, like Marlene, seem to be escaping the cosmopolitan city that surrounds them. Four 72-inch TVs display competing broadcasts of Fox News, Forensic Files, and sports. And though the menu has showboat items like a $100 vodka cocktail, it's mostly designed for someone who prefers upscale versions of uncomplicated classics—shrimp cocktail, Caesar salad, burger—with nothing too experimental or weird.

“He would call us in the morning and say, ‘What’d you have for breakfast?’ He’s just that kind of guy."

On my second day at the hotel, I came down to the bar just before the lunch rush and found the Hasids slumped over their coffees, shirts untucked and yarmulkes askew. I took a seat next to a pair of restaurant lobbyists from Michigan. “We've got a conference we're done with early, so we thought why not go to the Trump hotel and have a cocktail,” said Jim, whose facial hair was shaped into a conspicuous goatee. His colleague, Dave, had that ruddy, wholesome complexion that feels exotic outside the Midwest. Though their agenda was largely conservative, they disagreed with the president about immigration. “A lot of immigrants work in restaurants,” Dave said. “You start deporting these people and we don't have any labor to draw from.”

A man from New Orleans named Rick, who manufactures fabric shelters (“You know, like tents,” he explained), was staying at the Embassy Suites nearby for his daughter's dance recital but popped into the bar for a $19 glass of Trump sparkling wine. A schoolteacher from Texas named Zach walked in and told us Trump was his “squad.” Insulted by the price of Budweiser ($8), he ordered water with ice. “But you're paying for the atmosphere!” said Rick. He bought Zach a beer.

“Feel free to keep the pens,” said a waitress, handing a bill to two ladies in tracksuits drinking champagne. “We opened just before the election and there wasn't time to open a gift shop, so there's nothing really with Mr. Trump's name that you can purchase. And we want you to have something to remember your experience.”

At dinner, a waitress poured a glass of Trump-branded Meritage for a couple. “Would you like to take a picture with the bottle?” she asked. “Oh, no thanks,” said the guy. “I did that last time I was here.” Nearby, a group celebrating a birthday summoned a suited steward to saber-open a bottle of champagne—as in with an actual sword—a ceremony supposedly inspired by Napoleon. The cork catapulted through the air and the whole lobby cheered. When the birthday party gathered for a photo, the photographer shouted, “Say ‘Trump!’ ”