Please take your seats.

It is that time of year again: our annual closing dinner, where we look back at the year that was, to toast and roast the year’s deal makers on Wall Street and in Washington and look ahead to what may come next.

And what a year it was.

This year, we decided to hold our dinner at the Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla., just down the road from the Mar-a-Lago resort, better known as the Winter White House. Given that President Trump has spent nearly a third of his presidency — that’s not a typo — at one of his properties, as The Wall Street Journal reported, we figured we would try to make it convenient for him. There were a surprising number of free openings at Mar-a-Lago given all the cancellations by foundations and charities, but ever since an artist projected “Pay Trump Bribes Here” on the Trump International Hotel in Washington, our conflicts committee suggested that hosting the dinner at Mar-a-Lago would be a bad idea.

We also figured holding the dinner in Florida would be convenient for so many of you moguls and machers already down here looking for real estate since the tax bill was signed into law. The other bonus of buying here, of course, is that your home is protected even if you file for bankruptcy.

Sitting at the dais are Mr. Trump along with the first lady. (Ivanka, Jared and the rest of the family were away on vacation.) Next to him are Rupert Murdoch and his new B.F.F., Robert Iger of the Walt Disney Company, who just gave up any hope of running for president in 2020, a condition of his deal to buy most of 21st Century Fox’s assets. To their right are the chief negotiators for the tax plan: Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin (and Ms. Mnuchin’s wife, Louise Linton, who I should mention — and I’ll be sure to hashtag this on Instagram — is wearing a beautiful scarf from Hermes and gown by Valentino).