Trump and Melania abruptly decided to ditch the Mar-a-Lago New Year's party that many of his supporters bought tickets for

• President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are leaving his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida before a lavish New Year's Eve party.
• The couple decided at short notice to leave early. They'll instead ring in the new year from Washington, DC.
• CNN reported that some people had already arrived for the event, typically attended by hundreds. Tickets for past events have cost about $1,000.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump decided at short notice to abandon his Mar-a-Lago club before a lavish New Year's Eve party.

They're scheduled to leave Florida at 11 a.m. and set to spend Thursday night at the White House. They had previously planned to leave Mar-a-Lago on New Year's Day, The Associated Press reported.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Kevin Liptak reported, citing three people familiar with the matter, that guests had already started gathering at the resort and had been told that Trump would be attending.

The Huffington Post reported in 2018 that tickets to the party had cost about $1,000.

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The event is a tradition for the Trump family, and CNN noted that Trump usually enjoys posing on the red carpet there.

A Mar-a-Lago member told CNN on Tuesday that they heard that at least 500 reservations had been made. Some 800 people attended the party in 2017, according to The Palm Beach Post.

Jennifer Jacobs, a Bloomberg News senior reporter, tweeted late Wednesday that Trump was leaving the resort a day earlier than planned and would miss the party "that hundreds bought tickets for."

—Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 31, 2020

The party was organized despite surging coronavirus cases in the US. CNN said it wasn't clear what coronavirus measures were planned for the event.

Neither Trump nor the White House gave a reason for Trump's early departure from the resort.

The AP reported that since arriving at Mar-a-Lago on December 23, the president has spent most of his time repeating his grievances about the result of the election, which he lost to Joe Biden.

He will return to Washington, DC, as some congressional Republicans plan to object to formally affirming Biden's win at a joint session on January 6. Trump has baselessly claimed that he won the election and has tried unsuccessfully to overturn the result.