At the Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve gala a speed painter completes a portrait of Jesus during a slow rendition of 'Hallelujah'; the painting is auctioned for under three million dollars.

OK. New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago. I am going to walk you through this very carefully because this one is the high-water mark of the year.

Tickets. $1,450 a head. Per. Buying you a prix-fixe meal and the opportunity to watch the President eat his prix-fixe meal from behind a velvet rope. I am not embellishing. Behind a velvet rope. The CNN reporting specifies. You can see him eating. You cannot speak to him eating. The velvet rope is between you and the eating.

The guest list. The Prime Minister of Israel. Fresh from Monday’s Mar-a-Lago meeting. Did not go home. Stayed for the party. Brought his wife. Fine. Other guests: an Emirati billionaire whose name is on the buildings in Dubai. A Hollywood producer who has been the subject of several civil suits I will not get into here. The Secretary of Homeland Security. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who used to host a Saturday-night opinion show on cable news. The House majority whip. Various other club members. Approximately seven hundred.

The President’s speech. The President began. The President said his New Year’s resolution was peace on earth. Fine. That is a good resolution. I will take that resolution. The President then said the second resolution was getting to the bottom of an alleged fraud case in Minneapolis involving taxpayer-funded child-care centers in the Somali community. Buddy. I do not have the predicate to evaluate the underlying child-care fraud allegation. If there is fraud, prosecute the fraud. What I will say is that the place to lay out the second resolution of the New Year is not a $1,450-a-plate gala on Palm Beach. The place is a podium at the Department of Justice on a Tuesday morning with the prosecutors who would bring the case. Not the velvet rope on the 31st.

The speed painter. Now. Sit down. During the dinner, Vanessa Horabuena, a speed painter, came onstage. The band played a slow rendition of Hallelujah. The Leonard Cohen song. Hallelujah. On a slow tempo. Vanessa Horabuena, with blue, white, and gold paint, painted, on a large black canvas, a portrait of Jesus Christ. In ten minutes. When she was done, the lights came up, and the Jesus Christ portrait was, on the record, in the Mar-a-Lago grand ballroom, on the easel, in front of seven hundred ticket-holders in cocktail attire who had just finished their prix-fixe.

The painting was auctioned. On the spot. By the band leader. The opening bid was $50,000. The closing bid, just under three million dollars, was, by the reporting, paid by an unnamed buyer. The painting was taken somewhere after the auction. I have not, as of this writing, located the painting.

Buddy. I do not know what the theological term is for paying $3 million for a portrait of Jesus Christ that was speed-painted in ten minutes during a slow rendition of Hallelujah at a $1,450-a-plate gala at the President’s resort while the President eats prix-fixe behind a velvet rope. I do know what the commercial term is. The commercial term is Mar-a-Lago.

I am arguing with the television. The television is in Palm Beach. Palm Beach is, on the screen, closing the year as it has opened every other year. With the gavel and the Hallelujah.

Happy New Year. Buckle up.