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Back in May 1989, Trump invited Brad Blakeman, who was in charge of advance work for President George H. W. Bush’s trips to New York, to join him for a cruise around Manhattan on his yacht the Trump Princess.
Borrowed by Hollywood for the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again, the 282-foot boat was originally named the Nabila by its owner, Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, after his daughter. Time-Life books called it “the most opulent modern yacht afloat.” When Khashoggi ran into financial problems, he sold the yacht to the Sultan of Brunei, who later sold it to Trump.
With chamois-leather ceilings and walls, the yacht is estimated to be worth $250 million. It has the requisite swimming pool, surrounded by lounges that rise into the air, allowing for better tanning, plus a discotheque, a sauna, a fully equipped operating room, a movie theater, and a helipad. It requires a forty-member crew and has eleven cabins for twenty-two passengers.
As they boarded the yacht at the Water Club dock on the East River, Trump greeted Blakeman and the twenty other guests. While drinks and hors d’oeuvres were being served, an aide told Blakeman that Trump wanted to talk to him.
“I know all about you,” Trump said to Blakeman as he stood next to the captain on the bridge. “You handle all President Bush’s trips to New York. I need a favor, and I was told that you can do it.”
“What do you need?” Blakeman asked.
“I just bought the Plaza Hotel, and I would like that to be the official hotel of the president in New York. No more Waldorf,” Trump said. “We’ll roll out the red carpet. Anything the president needs, you’ll get. We’ll do a much better job than the Waldorf. The Plaza is a much finer hotel. Will you do that for me?”
“I’m sorry. That’s not going to be possible,” Blakeman said.
“Why? You’re the guy in New York. You handle all his trips,” Trump said.
Blakeman explained that when Bush was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, he stayed in the Waldorf’s apartment for the American ambassador to the U.N. It was his second home. He knew the shoeshine man, he knew the telephone operators. He was not going to want to stay at another hotel.
However, Blakeman said he would let Bush know of the invitation. He also requested that the Secret Service and White House Communications Agency do a site survey of the Plaza Hotel. After that, the president’s political staff agreed to hold a fund-raiser at Trump’s hotel. When Blakeman let Trump’s office know, an aide said Trump would be chairman of the fund-raiser.
“Mr. Trump was cochair of the event, inviting his friends and contacts, and it was tremendously successful,” Blakeman says.
“I’m very appreciative of your help in making the hotel a presidential headquarters,” Trump wrote to him afterward. “I’m sure that the Plaza Hotel with its outstanding staff will more than meet the expectations of the advance team.”
Trump no longer owns the Princess, having decided that boats are too slow for his taste. He sold it to Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. But as president, he uses the gems of his kingdom—his crown jewel Mar-a-Lago, as well as the White House, Air Force One, and his golf courses—as no previous president has done to forge relationships and woo to his side congressional, business, and world leaders.
In June 2006, I asked Trump what would be the first thing he would do if he were president.
“As president, I would invite to my first state dinner all of the people who are our friends and many of the people who are enemies to see if we can work things out,” he said.
Once in the White House, Trump put his game plan into action. By inviting Chinese president Xi Jinping to Mar-a-Lago in April 2017 for a two-day summit in an informal resort setting, Trump was able to establish a mutually beneficial relationship that eventually led in part to China’s taking the unprecedented step of voting in the United Nations to impose sanctions on North Korea and to cut off banking ties with the rogue state. After meeting with the Chinese leader subsequently during his Asia trip, Trump and Xi Jinping announced more than $250 billion in deals between the two countries across industries such as energy, technology, and aviation.
Trump later said that it was at Mar-a-Lago, over the “most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen,” that he informed the Chinese leader about the fifty-nine cruise missile strikes he had just authorized against Syria.
Two months earlier, Trump had entertained Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe at the estate and played twenty-seven holes of golf with him at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, a ten-minute drive from Mar-a-Lago, and at Trump National Golf Club in nearby Jupiter.
The press stirred a minor controversy by claiming that because the two leaders were seen peering at a laptop screen after dinner on the Mar-a-Lago terrace, they were discussing classified information about the missile North Korea had just launched toward Japan.
In an article headlined “Trump Turns Mar-a-Lago Club Terrace into Open-Air Situation Room,” the Washington Post said, “Trump became president, in part, because of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s neglect of information security.”
But White House aides told me Trump had been briefed on the missile launch at a secure location, and the two leaders were discussing a joint statement they were about to issue. No classified material was being discussed.
As he did with other world leaders, Trump played cat and mouse with the Chinese leader, sometimes threatening to impose tariffs on Chinese imports or denouncing China’s lack of cooperation in pressuring North Korea, sometimes praising the Chinese leader for progress in taking on North Korea.
Whether because of ignorance or bias, few in the media seemed to get the fact that Trump was a deal maker who candidly described his approach in his many books. In How to Get Rich, Trump said, “The best negotiators are chameleons. Their attitude, demeanor, approach, and posture in a negotiation will depend on the person on the other side of the table. A good tactic for negotiation is to distract the other side.”
“The guy is fairer than hell,” says Gary J. Giulietti, a longtime Trump friend who is a consultant to Trump on insurance issues as a partner of Lockton Cos., the world’s largest privately held insurance brokerage company. “He wants the best for his properties, he wants a competitive price. But he treats everyone with respect. Whenever he has to honor anything, he does. Even if he disagrees, he will compromise. If you don’t like him, he wants you to like him. Because of his bravado, I think people assume the worst.”
When negotiating, Giulietti says, “He’ll fight you like a dog, but when you make a deal, he’ll find a way to make you his friend to work with you.”
Even if he decides he cannot do a deal, “If he thinks you’ve done something for him and improved his lot, he’ll find a fair way to show his appreciation for the work and effort you put in to making a proposal, either giving you business in the future or by some alternative means.”
As with Mar-a-Lago, an invitation to the 132-room White House from Trump is a powerful tool. Being invited to a White House reception or hearing an assistant announce that “the White House is calling” has such a profound effect on people that presidents and White House aides must constantly remind themselves that they are mortal.
For the first family, servants are on call to take care of the slightest whim. Laundry, cleaning, and shopping, done. From three kitchens, White House chefs prepare meals that are top quality and exquisitely presented.
If members of the first family want breakfast in bed every day—as Lyndon Johnson did—done. A pastry chef makes everything from Christmas cookies to chocolate éclairs. If the first family wants, it can entertain every night.
Invitations—hand-lettered by five calligraphers—are rarely turned down. In choosing what chinaware to eat from, the first family has its pick of place settings created for other first families. Fresh flowers decorate every room. Lovely plantings—including the Rose Garden and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden—grace the landscape.
Over the years, the White House has been sacked and burned, gutted, extended, modified, improved, renovated, and redecorated. In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt officially changed the name of the president’s home to the White House. That same year, the West Wing was added to house presidential offices. In 1909, the Oval Office—the president’s office—was added at the southwest corner of the West Wing.
As if to purposely confuse, no one ever refers to the front or back entrance of the White House. Instead, they refer to a portico—an entrance with a roof supported by columns that protects it from the rain like a porch. In 1824, the South Portico was added to the rear of the house, and in 1829, the North Portico was added to the front. Then in 1942, the East Wing was built for the offices of the first lady as well as the White House military office.
When Margaret Truman’s piano began to break through the second floor, the District of Columbia’s commissioner of public buildings said the floor was “staying up there purely from habit.” A renovation, finished in 1952, included gutting the inside of the house and installing a steel frame to support the floors. A balcony on the second-floor level of the South Portico was also built.
Other changes have reflected technological progress. When John Adams, the second president, and his wife, Abigail Adams, first moved into the White House in 1800 with their eight servants, they had an outdoor privy. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson replaced the privy with two custom-made water closets. In 1834, indoor plumbing was installed. In 1845, the White House got its first refrigerator. Gas lighting came in 1848.
Four years later, a telephone was installed—the number was one—but it got little use because few people had the luxury of a telephone. In 1880, the White House got its first typewriter. To cool the fever of James Garfield as he lay dying from an assassin’s bullet, a primitive air-conditioning system was invented for the White House in 1881. Ten years later, the White House got electric lights.
Today the White House is a five-star hotel complete with priceless paintings. In Nancy Reagan’s memoir, My Turn, she detailed the perquisites that made the White House feel like a palace. “If we needed a plumber, we’d call the usher’s office, and he’d be there in five minutes,” she wrote. “There were people to wrap packages and wind clocks. And just as soon as the president took a suit off, it would be whisked away for pressing, cleaning, or brushing. The sheets are changed after every use, even a catnap.”
Obama rarely invited members of Congress—Republicans or Democrats—to the White House or to ride with him on Air Force One. Trump makes it a regular practice to invite them, along with labor leaders, factory owners, police officers, farmers, and veterans.
Trump has had “more one-on-one meetings with congressmen and senators, and more dinners, and more lunches, in a short period of time than any president in history,” Priebus says. “Plus he calls them.” After several months, “He had had all these meetings with all these people, and he’s gotten to know people pretty well,” Priebus says. “He made all these phone calls to almost every House member, and that matters. He had had multiple meetings with every senator and lunches and dinners with many of them. He got to know these members like no one could ever possibly get to know them in the first four months of being the president.”
Indeed, no president has shown such a willingness to participate in the process and get to know members of Congress, Priebus says. “He doesn’t get tired of it,” Priebus says. “The craziest thing about him is that he’ll keep calling, picking up the phone and calling, picking up the phone. Access to a president and to Trump is at an all-time high.”
Rather than being haphazard, Trump’s bravado, exaggeration, and controversial comments are a means to an end.
“Through press statements and tweets, he’s negotiating, whether it’s with that moron in North Korea or the leader of Iran,” Giulietti says.
As he learned at Goldman Sachs, “You can only get a deal if you take a hard line,” Bannon says. “No, we’re not prepared to sell the company under any circumstances. And then you figure out where your deal is. You need to open up a space in the middle for people to be able to negotiate, but you only do that after adamantly taking a stand for one hard position.”
While the press likes to portray Trump as impetuous and impatient with details, when it comes to important decisions, he usually weighs options carefully. When Trump tweeted that he was reversing an Obama-era policy allowing transgender soldiers to serve in the military and have their sex-reassignment surgeries paid for by the government, it appeared to be a spur-of-the-moment decision. In fact, the White House had carefully developed options that Trump could choose from to change the Obama policy. After a succession of meetings, aides presented Trump with four options. They ranged from option one, which posed the least risk for legal challenges, to option four, which posed the greatest risk of litigation.
While tweeting a presidential decision was novel, the options had been vetted by the staff secretary and the Principals Committee, the National Security Council’s Cabinet-level senior interagency forum that considers national security policy issues. Trump considered each option and made his decision.
Meanwhile, Trump rescinded an Obama administration policy that said students in public schools who are transgender had to be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice. The Obama measure created confusion and the potential for attacks on female students by men posing as transgender people using girls’ bathrooms.
“Eighty percent of the time he followed the process, but twenty percent of the time he woke up in the morning and made a decision and tweeted it,” a White House aide says. “That’s what he does.”