Trials & Tributes: that time I met Donald Trump.

A story unlike any other on WAADL.com

Drawn on November 2, 2024 | Published from Miami

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Trials & Tributes

March 19, 2023,

Given that I was invited as a +1 by the president of a prominent right-wing news corporation, for dinner at a famous golf club in West Palm Beach, we set out for a members-only spot just off I-95. On the way, we took a detour through the island, admiring sights like the Breakers, White Hall, Mar-a-Lago, and other stunning, century-old buildings that stipple the length of A1A along the Atlantic coast. There were fewer MAGA flag-wavers than I had once seen before.

With our amended itinerary nearly complete, we looped back toward the club. The route is a straight line between the “Summer White House” and the executive airport — a prestigious, kerosene-rich backyard to the illustrious golf course. It must be a luxurious privilege to share the same latitude as Runway 10L, though I imagine the Shepard-tone roar of private jets over your multimillion-dollar mansion, without direct beach access, might lose its charm over time.

As we approached the golden gates on Summit Boulevard, the distinct livery of a fuselage and tail came into view from beyond the overpass — indicating that the man-of-the-hour would be making an appearance. Bearing right, we were smoothly ushered through the gates of this International Golf Club. The parking lot was an anorexic exhibition of Mercedes, Bentleys, and Rolls-Royces, making my red-roofed JCW Mini stand out. We lingered for a moment, gathering the courage to head uphill.

The lawn was immaculate, and a freshly tarred driveway led up to an ostentatious porte-cochère. Few trees, apart from the odd Cuban royal palm, blocked the view of the tasteless, uninspired classical architecture we were apprehensive to shuffle into. The columns were particularly offensive: a cluster of squat pipe-like Corinthians with visible vertical seams running up each shaft, supporting wide, segmented arches that spilled over the capitals. No entasis. It was, frankly, awful.

Once inside, I did my best to avoid pointing out the unholy composition. The lobby design wasn’t any better; a “Space Force” seal nailed to the wall on the right greeted us. With tunnel vision, we made our way through, dodging plush yellow couches toward the dining ballroom. A woman with an Eastern European accent took our names and indicated our party was at the bar. Table for eight, early-bird special, 6:30 sharp.

At first glance, the hall looked like a typical four-star hotel event room, with white-cloth collapsible round tables and faux-bamboo wedding chairs sandwiched between an unimaginative arabesque carpet and a flat eggshell ceiling with low-cost decorative details. Upon second glance, it looked just the same as it did the first, but this time the rug’s pattern hurt the eyes more. Looked cheap.

There was a long dark-wood cocktail bar with small built-in televisions to the left and a view of an extremely sterile golf course to the right.

Christopher Wren is cited to have once said that “Nature is the best architect because no tree is straight, no branch is crooked.” Tadao Ando would later expand on this aphorism, saying “no plant is misplanted.” I guess he had never seen this brand of golf course before.

PVC air-conditioning vents dotted the walls, frequently interrupting a chocolate-brown cornice. A dropped ceiling with lick-and-stick wood panels hovered over the bar.  A tiny stage with disco lights buffered the dancefloor from three awkwardly proportioned French-doors – successfully stripping away any last-ditch attempt at emulating the elegance of the Titanic and, instead, fully embracing the booze-cruise ambiance of this analphabetic mess of Tuscan/Jacobean architecture. The room’s simple shape seemed to host several stubborn liminal spaces; raising questions regarding the true design qualifications of the real-estate magnate who owned the property.

For a moment I considered the irony: Despite residing across the bay, in perhaps the most exquisite examples of Belle-Epoque homes known to history, the fact that so many of these uncontrollably wealthy people congregated in such a pathetic imitation of classical architecture betrayed their mass-blindness, or indifference, to the snake-oil salesmanship of the Gilded-Age grifter they paid tribute to.

This was a small committee event, with no more than a hundred and thirty people. We met up with our group at the bar. “Gin tonic, please.”

With hunger setting in, we found our seats. The China and cutlery were stained, faded, and chipped. The buffet was arranged on the terrace outside, shielded from a misty drizzle by a plastic refugee-style canopy — the kind you’d see in Western Hispaniola after a hurricane. The selection included meats, prawns, oysters, General Tso’s chicken, and, in one corner, a 7ft-tall tin commode filled with lobsters — like a crab morgue. Fancy way to say that I saw at least 200 lobsters racked-up in a recycled industrial dish-warmer. Irony had a sneaky habit of rearing its head here because a Haitian server remained ready to expertly slice and dice as many of the tasty, boiled critters as the heart desired. He chopped the aquatic arthropods with such speed and precision, however, that it was impossible for him not to have deliberately created a juicy splash zone for all the crustacean-meat-thirsty billionaires who dared to stand in line. No amount of Coco Mademoiselle could cover the fishy aroma stuck to a Chanel blouse. The food was pretty good.

Twenty minutes of eating and conversation ticked by until, with a sudden dimming of lights and a YMCA-style fanfare — flanked by a flock of 2 buddies, a lawyer, a kid, and 3 secret service agents — the unmistakable strut of the 45th president stirred everyone into a frenzy. Donald Trump was in the house. Standing ovation… “Bravo, sir, bravo!” For what, though? Just hours earlier, he’d casually mentioned he was on the verge of getting indicted by the State of New York for campaign finance fraud.

The man was paler than I imagined, not as tall either, having lost weight, but with hands indeed on the smaller side. His suit did fit a little large though, so sizing up the hands may have simply been skewed by an optical illusion.

No time wasted; he walked right over to us, waving hello with a thumbs-up and signaling a few table-mates to come stand around him at the bar. Our host called me over to join the small jedi council that had amassed around him, strictly advising me to go in for a fist-bump because “that’s the way Donald does things.” A horseshoe of four split open. I leaned in, looked him straight in the eyes, and as I started to form a fist, President Trump extended a karate-chop palm. In an instant, we were firmly shaking hands. Soft skin, good grip. “Pleased to meet you Cooper.” With attention focused my way, his immediate entourage only looked at me like vipers after that; I was told.

“So, Cooper, I hear you’re French.” He raised his chin as if Mussolini — eyes now pointed at my forehead — and started monologuing about French/American politics, perhaps in hopes of getting an insider’s scoop on Emmanuel Macron’s retirement-age protests that were going on at the time. He also tossed my way a blanc de blancs lie about his tariff policy on French wine imports. “My moves saved your Champagne guys at least Five Hundred Mil-yion dollars a month.” The wonderstruck few next to me bobbed their heads — enchanted by his apocryphal account.

Overall, Trump seemed amicable, drawing in people with the occasional “this guy knows what I’m talking about!” Yet, despite this disarming charm, he was evidently incapable of camouflaging the obvious narcissism fuming from his cloudy hair.  Soon after our conversation, he was on to bigger and better things: pink steak and a bottled miniature diet-coke. I did the same.

As I squatted to sit, my driver’s license flicked out of my pocket and Alina Habba, the infamously rowdy attorney, coldly revealed herself to me through a tap on my shoulder to return my plastic ID. “Thank you very much. Can’t leave without this!”

Donald picked the spot right behind me and, unfortunately for him, had to keep looking over my head, toward the stage, to be part of the whole shindig. This was the 23rd annual club members’ award give-away, after all. Throughout the night, he occasionally turned around to chit chat with me. He seemed bored, munching his food as if each bite was a struggle for survival; somehow managing to make his crocodilian chomps look mundane.

Then came the inevitable speech. As he waxed on about golf from behind the microphone, the Simpsons were playing on the TVs at the bar. I wasn’t paying particular attention to his quips on handicaps; Marge was scolding Homer and I was determined to find out why. Then, pointing at a frail old man in the room, Mr. Trump proclaimed “Oh this guy, he’s got an unbelievable drive! You know we call him the BMW? Because he’s the Ultimate Driving Machine!” Good one boss.

As he clambered down to his seat, I overheard him making remarks about the appearance of a woman in the room. She was “hot.” I also caught a glimpse of him drafting what seemed to be his next rage-tweet, with phrases like “200 million people, Communists, and Marxists,” in size 72 font, at moments turning to Alina for editing advice.

The evening went on. I blanked out a discussion about Ukraine, across from me, in favor of finishing my buttered lobster. Our host remarked that I looked like Trotsky, so I told them to drop their forks and demanded we go around the table, asking each person which famous communist icon they most resembled. Not many Maos.

After dessert — a respectable key lime pie and lukewarm drip coffee — the room was nearly empty, and we took it as our cue to leave. With Trump on a phone call, he nodded goodbye as his lawyer shot me a glare of daggers.

The drive back to Miami was quick.

Reflecting on the evening, it struck me just how accessible Trump seemed. With just a few compliments, he appeared more than willing to share secrets without a second thought. If he liked the cut of your jib, and sensed you were smart, he would not withhold from name-dropping to impress. He was severely afflicted by a verbally crippling addiction to money — every single exhalation recoiled with a stochastic dollar amount in its wake. It was clear to me that his political cabinet had been chosen from among his golf buddies, the wealthiest members of this weird cult. The love and fear oozing from his admirers was virtually indistinguishable from that felt for a god.

This entire ordeal revealed a surreal echo chamber — a cycle where he'd toss out a line, his fans would parrot it back, and he'd return it with added enthusiasm. This is how the sausage is made; this is how rumor becomes gospel. Critically, not only did I experience Donald Trump’s idiosyncrasies, but also his accomplices’, each of them American oligarchs on the hunt for their own Putin; having found a man who would like nothing more than to be remembered as America's first dictator.