t began, as all good 2020 capers do, with a tweet from the president of the United States. It ended with his personal lawyer in the parking lot of a landscaping company, struggling to be heard over a man in his underpants shouting about George Soros.
They say a star burns brightest just before it dies, and this was the Trump presidency in all its flaming glory.
For five straight days, the world had waited for news, any news, from Pennsylvania, which for all of that time had been expected to imminently decide the winner of a bitter election. The president had spent much of the intervening period making grave and entirely unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, but even so he was unusually quiet.
“Lawyers Press Conference at Four Seasons, Philadelphia. 11:00 A.M,” he wrote to his 88 million followers on Saturday morning.
How Trump’s presidency came crashing down at Four Seasons Total Landscaping
Journalists from around the world who had gathered in Philadelphia, most of whom had spent the last four days transfixed by moving maps on CNN, were eager for stimulation, and perhaps as a side note to see evidence of massive election fraud the president and his lawyers had alleged.
I sprang into action immediately, gathered my things, and was heading out of the door towards the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Philadelphia when the next tweet came.
“Big press conference today in Philadelphia at Four Seasons Total Landscaping — 11:30am!”
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Some mistake, I thought. A presidential typo? We’d seen worse over the last four years. Remember Covfefe?
I did a quick Google search. There was indeed a place called Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, but it was a small business in a drab industrial area on the edge of town. I struggled to think of any reason why the president’s lawyers would hold their press conference here, at this establishment, with its 3.1 star rating on Google reviews.
I decided to call the Four Seasons Hotel, from whom I was sure I would get confirmation that this press conference was indeed being held on their premises — perhaps in a grand ballroom or conference room.
A woman answered — she was primed: I was obviously not the first person to call.
“Yes there has been some confusion about this,” she said politely. “The press conference is not taking place here, it is taking place at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.”
It’s hard to explain the confusion I experienced as I sped along the highway out of downtown Philadelphia towards Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Was this one last act of revenge by the president against the lying fake news media while he still had our enrapt attention? Was it a ruse to get all the journalists out of town for when the results were announced?
Truth be told, it didn’t matter. However this turned out, Four Seasons Total Landscaping was the story now.
I arrived to see a media scrum around a chain link fence that led into the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping. The building itself was one-storey, with a neat lawn and a row of hedges at the front. It was in that part of town that every town has, where businesses which have no right being grouped together nonetheless gather due to one reason or another — usually the cheap rent. Across the street from Four Seasons Total Landscaping was a crematorium. Next door to it was an adult book store with a bright yellow sign that displayed its offerings: DVDs and lotions, novelty gifts, viewing booths. It was called Fantasy Island. In retrospect, it was an omen of what was to come.
The Fantasy Island adult bookstore, next door to the place where the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, held a press conference to allege voter fraud.
(Richard Hall / The Independent)
The media was told to line up outside while the press conference was prepared. Journalists from Japan, Germany and Britain took their place as a crowd of Trump supporters gathered around them.
I approached by a man named Ron, who held a sign that read: “Biden Laptop Matters.” Since we were about to hear from the president’s lawyers about how this election was stolen, I wanted to hear what he thought about the process.
“What they did is they got ‘em fearful with corona, and once they got them in a fearful state, they suppressed them, they funelled all the ballots through mail-in, where they controlled that process, they can manipulate better,” he said.
As we waited outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping, we began to wonder what had led us to this point. Had a Trump campaign booked the wrong Four Seasons and diverted to the landscaping company as a quick fix? Was the owner of the business a witness to…
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