Each Christmas season since 2009, the Mercer family’s costume party on Long Island has been the subject of awed gossip in Republican circles. This Saturday’s ticket will be more coveted than ever.
Rebekah Mercer, a daughter of hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, has become one of the most influential players in Donald Trump’s administration-in-waiting after spending millions of dollars of her father’s money helping defeat Hillary Clinton.
The theme of this year’s party is “Villains and Heroes” -- appropriate, perhaps, for a year in which the Mercers described the presidential contest as offering an “apocalyptic choice” in which only a Trump victory could save the nation. An invitation seen by Bloomberg News features a sword-wielding centurion crouching in an ancient ruin, facing down a serpent-haired Medusa.
“It will be the hottest ticket in town,” said Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager and a longtime political adviser and friend of the Mercers. Although details of the preparations are kept secret from guests, Conway said, “I deign to guess that this year, it’s going to be a spectacular, super-sized, unprecedented celebration given what just happened in the election.”
Conway said she’s going as Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, whom she described as a villain to the media and hero to just about everyone else.
Secret Website
The party will be at Owl’s Nest, the estate of Robert Mercer and his wife, Diana, on Long Island’s North Shore, not far from where he works as co-chief executive officer at Renaissance Technologies. Past events have included hundreds of friends and associates of the extended family, drawn from their varied political, business and charitable endeavors. Attendees have ranged from celebrity zookeeper Jack Hanna to firebrand Texas Senator Ted Cruz to the man who trained the family’s million-dollar show horses.
Invitations direct guests to a secret website where they’re told to seek costume ideas from film, television, comic books or everyday life. The site features, among others, Mother Teresa, Superman and Captain Hook, according to a person who has seen it and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“I predict there will be an abundance of Hillary and Trump finery,” Conway said. “We can’t get enough of this victory.”
Her biggest hero isn’t likely to appear. Conway said Trump will be traveling on a nationwide “thank you” tour and that members of his family also aren’t expected to attend.