Difference between revisions of "Public Appearances"

Revision as of 15:39, 29 September 2019

None of the information on this page is expected to be of interest for anything beyond noting publicly reported facts about Donald Trump's attendance at public functions. That said, sometimes it becomes newsworthy to know where Trump was on a given day or who he had been associating with, especially given his penchant for lying.

Sporting Events

Baseball Games

• March 26, 1988: Donald Trump was a guest in George Steinbrenner's box at a spring training exhibition game between the Yankees and the Expos held at the West Palm Beach Municipal Stadium. "“This year, Rhoden is healthy, and if the rotation holds up, he should have the Opening Day starting assignment April 5 at Yankee Stadium against the Minnesota Twins. […] Saturday at West Palm Beach Municipal Stadium, Rhoden was perfect through four innings and had a one-hitter after six. But then came the Expos' four-run seventh. […] George Steinbrenner's boxseat guest was developer Donald Trump.” (Miami Herald, March 27, 1988)
  • Steinbrenner and Trump were reportedly more engaged in conversation with one another than observation of the game. "Rhoden retired the first 12 batters he faced Saturday, but the Expos scored four times in the seventh inning to come back from a 2-0 deficit. […] The Yanks' only runs came on a two-run single by Ward in the sixth. Steinbrenner watched the game from seats next to the Yankee dugout, but he spent most of the day conversing with his guest, Donald Trump." (New York Times, March 27, 1988)

Basketball Games

• May 6, 2001: Donald Trump attended a basketball match in Philadelphia between the 76ers and the Raptors. “Philadelphia certainly doesn't need celebrity sightings to legitimize its standing as a basketball showcase - especially celebs from that dreadful town up the turnpike to make a special trip to the First Union Center to bask in our limelight. That's what Donald Trump did yesterday in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the 76ers and the Toronto Raptors. There he was, The Donald, having made his own art of the deal for tickets with Sixers president Pat Croce, taking in the Allen Iverson-Vince Carter duel from south-end courtside seats.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, May 7, 2001)

Private Clubs and Restaurants

• 1980: Donald Trump was a famous member of Le Club, an elitist New York institution that charged an annual membership fee of $1,000. “It doesn't matter what they say. Not every member of Le Club is rich, rich, rich. So says Larry Fisher, the senior partner of Fisher Brothers, the real estate moguls. […] The truth is that Le Club is one of the city's most successful and enduring private membership clubs, that anyone who can't pronounce it correctly (Club as it is usually pronounced) is certainly not a member, and that although there are a lot of nice people in it, there are not a heck of a lot of good, nice, solid citizens from Staten Island and Queens rubbing elbows with them. […] Some are only powerful or famous or royalty from here and there. Some are named Jacqueline Onassis (who held Caroline and John's birthday party there in 1978), George Steinbrenner, John De Lorean, Al Pacino, Fran Tarkenton, Vitas Gerulaitis, Roone Arledge, Donald Trump, Jerry Cummins, Dmitri Guerrini-Maraldi, Felix Mirando, Prince Anton Windisch-Graetz and Princess Ala Auersperg. […] The oasis is 2,500 square feet of subdued lighting, candles, a fireplace and a 17th-century Belgian tapestry and hunting trophies and musical instruments on walls of terra-cotta pink, and rubbing elbows with one's own kind now costs $965 more than the original $35 initiation fee.” (New York Times, November 26, 1980)
• December 9, 1987: Donald Trump attended a black-tie event celebrating the restoration of New York's Rainbow Room. "Near the top of the RCA Building, the celebrities of business, politics, academia, communications and entertainment, along with a good chunk of the upper crust of society, gathered last night for a party marking the restoration and reopening of the Rainbow Room. The event in the dazzling space on the 65th floor, five floors below the roof, was the first half of a two-night black-tie celebration. The party-givers are David Rockefeller, whose father, John D. Jr., created Rockefeller Center, and Richard Voell, chief executive of the center. The invited, according to Mr. Rockefeller, were ‘people we thought are important in New York today.’ One of them was Donald J. Trump, who swept in with his wife, Ivana, studied the decor and said: ‘Nice job. Understated.’" (New York Times, December 10, 1987)
• April 17, 1989: Donald Trump attended the opening of a restaurant owned by Jackie Mason. "Jackie Mason's new restaurant, Jackie Mason's, opened in the heart of the theater district Monday night to rave reviews. The world was there -- Rudolph Giuliani, Gov. Thomas Kean of New Jersey, New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, Donald Trump, Malcolm Forbes and his motorcycle, lawyers Alan Grubman and Raoul Lionel Felder, all in their power suits." (Miami Herald, April 21, 1989)
• 1998: Trump was spotted at a restaurant called "251 Sunrise." “Too bad Yanni didn't sit in Wednesday with Clarence Clemons and his band at 251 Sunrise. But he liked it so much he returned Saturday for dinner. That's right, dinner. To show town fathers they're serious about food, too, 251's owners brought in Francis Casciato as chef. Most recently at ZaZu City Grille, he also opened Prezzo in Boca Raton in 1989 and Max's Grille in '91. Also at 251 Saturday was Donald Trump and party, including growing son Donny, now sporting a moustache and goatee, and a model, identified as Melanie Knauss, who spent the weekend at the Mar-a-Lago Club.” (Palm Beach Post, December 1, 1998)
• Trump was reportedly a regular at "Joe's Pub," a nightclub adjacent to a theater. “Welcome to Joe's Pub, open seven nights a week. You enter through the side door of the Joseph Papp Public Theater. Farther south on Lafayette Street, revolving doors admit patrons to the Public's various theatrical spaces, but here, on the outskirts, an iron-fenced portal offers entree to the theater's new nightclub. […] Insinuating cutting-edge culture into mainstream theater and cabaret fare is a revolutionary act of sorts. And perhaps Mr. Wolfe is right: young audiences who may never have bought a theater ticket will be enticed into doing so by what they see at Joe's Pub. Who could imagine Comden and Green and Funk Master Flex, show-music fans and supermodels, Audra McDonald and Donald Trump occupying common ground? Yet on many nights, from the opening at 5 P.M. to the closing around 4 A.M., you can watch it happen.” (New York Times, April 18, 1999)
• Trump was reportedly a celebrity regular at a club in Los Angeles called "LAX." “When you're hot, you're hot. Case in point: LAX nightclub, a new spot on a sizzling stretch of Las Palmas Avenue, smack in the heart of Hollywood. The place has flow, flair and even a bit of vision. Most important, it has that ever-so-necessary nightclub staple, celebrity cachet. […] Fridays also pack a wallop, as promoter Michael Sutton hosts a weekly dinner party with the likes of Donald Trump, Eva Longoria and DiCaprio, all sampling from LAX's fun airport-style menu (think small, fast and simple). The only downside to the club is that to rest your rear, you have to buy a bottle. Translation: To actually sit at a table or a booth, you and/or your guests have to cough up the dough for bottle service, which is usually $300 and up.” (Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2005)
• Trump reportedly attended a Los Angeles club called "Les Deux," which notably charged $3,000 for table service featuring fettucine alfredo with broccoli. “It's long been the case in the hottest clubs that in order to reserve a table you had to order a bottle of liquor for an exorbitant price -- $200 to $500 or even more. (This has always been a goldmine for club owners: Consider that Grey Goose vodka retails for less than 30 bucks.) But lately, the practice has reached new extremes -- with $3,000 dinner packages, your own mixologist for the night and two- or even three-bottle minimums. […] That $3,000 dinner? At Les Deux, it's, er, minimalist: just pasta -- maybe fettuccine alfredo with broccoli (what, you were expecting lobster?) -- some chocolate-covered strawberries and a several-hundred-dollar bottle of name-your-poison for a posse of six to 12. […] Les Deux: […] Who's been lately: Donald Trump, Rod Stewart, Robbie Williams” (Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2007)
• Trump and his friend Carl Icahn were both long-time members of the Friars Club. “The Friars Club is trolling for corporate dollars too. The haunt of comedians like Jerry Seinfeld recently made it cheaper for business folks to sign up. A new corporate membership plan, approved by the board last month, allows four executives from the same company to join at a group rate-$15,000 covers two, making it basically half-price. […] Carl Icahn and Donald Trump are longtime members from the business community. But Al Smith, great-grandson of the former New York governor and head of the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation, just took advantage of the new deal, Mr. Roman says. The club counts 1,340 members-900 from New York and the rest from around the world.” (Crain’s New York Business, April 5, 2010)
• Trump was reportedly once a regular at a club called the Southampton Tavern. “Erik van Broock has joined Kensington Vanguard as vice president of business development. […] He purchased The Southampton Tavern club in 1994, turning it into a nightspot frequented by such celebrities as Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Deniro, Donald Trump and Jay-Z.” (Real Estate Weekly, July 3, 2013)
• 2016: Trump was spotted dining at a Florida restaurant named Komodo. “Donald Trump in Brickell? Why, yes. We got a tip that the GOP front-runner dined at Komodo Thursday night with the requisite black SUVs parked outside, and a couple of police motorcycles thrown in for good measure.” (Miami Herald , March 18, 2016)

Media Parties

• 2005: Donald Trump was listed as one of many celebrities that attended a party in Hollywood’s Club LAX that was hosted by the celebrity gossip magazine “Us Weekly.” “Christina Aguilera wouldn't pull over. Nevermind that a crowd of scene makers and boldfaced names including Donald Trump, Hilary Duff and Jeremy Piven had already crammed into Hollywood's club LAX as guests of Us Weekly's ‘Young Hollywood Hot 20’ party. And nevermind that Ken Baker, the magazine's West Coast executive editor, who was overseeing VIP arrivals on that evening, makes it his business to fill Us Weekly's pages with salacious details and candid pictures of many of these celebrities' guarded lives. Aguilera's main worry at that moment was of being upstaged. Her limo circled the block for nearly half an hour as her publicist furiously text-messaged Baker in an attempt to seize the limelight -- in other words, to time Aguilera's arrival after Paris Hilton's. ‘You don't go to journalism school to become a traffic cop for famous people,’ Baker said, just as Hilton roared into view in her Ferrari Spider, prompting a paparazzi stampede one evening last month. ‘The glitzy events and celeb wrangling is about 1% of my job.’” (Los Angeles Times, October 12, 2005)

Private Parties

• November,2012: Trump attended a bar mitzvah held at Mar-a-Lago. "Yes, that was Jamaican-American rap star Shawn Kingston making himself at home in the gilded halls of The Mar-a-Lago Club last week. Kingston was the featured entertainer at Club CK, the pop-up club created to celebrate the bar mitzvah of Cole Kessler, 13-year-old grandson of Palm Beach residents Howard and Michele Kessler. […] There to dance and celebrate with Cole were Donald and Melania Trump, Cole's sister Emma, Alison Schwartz, Gabriel Wetzler, Zachary Silfen, Eli Lenner, Isabella Musa and Grace Luciano." (Palm Beach Daily News, November 21, 2012)

Charity Benefits

• December 4, 1989: Donald Trump attended the Costume Institute gala at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Despite all the talk about the no-frills '90s, the Empire, Napoleon-style, appeared to strike back here Monday night. Dresses were sumptuous, bosoms were bared, jewels were glittery and furs were out in force as Manhattan's social set turned out for the Costume Institute gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. […] Asked if he had ever had to negotiate with someone with a Napoleon complex, financial giant Donald Trump diplomatically avoided mention of his diminutive business nemesis Merv Griffin, but allowed that ‘one of these days that could happen.’” (Chicago Tribune, December 5, 1989)

Business Events

• 1982: Donald Trump appeared on a panel of real estate developers at a trade function for architects. “It is an odd thing to hear a real estate developer describe buildings as ‘obscenities,’ but that is what happened not long ago at a symposium sponsored by the Architectural League of New York. The event, co-sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art, was entitled ‘New York's Hidden Designers: The Developers,’ and it was just what it sounds like - five prominent developers appeared before an audience of architects in a program designed to focus attention on the impact of certain powerful non-architects on the physical environment of the city. […] On the panel were Charles Shaw, co-developer of the Museum of Modern Art tower; George Klein, who has built numerous office buildings by well-known architects; Donald Trump, builder of Trump Tower; Harry Macklowe, builder of River Tower; and Mr. Kaufman, who has built several office buildings with unusual public space. Suzanne Stephens, editor of the magazine Skyline, served as moderator.” (New York Times, July 18, 1982)
  • Trump was reportedly upstaged at the event by another developer who proclaimed that every building is an "obscenity" that must apologize for its existence over a raw state of nature. “‘Every building is an obscenity,’ Mr. Kaufman said. ‘It is an obscenity put where trees, grass, wildlife once were. I think every building carries with it an obligation that from the moment you begin to the day you die you must apologize.’ […] After Mr. Kaufman threw down that gauntlet, even Donald Trump - these days surely the New York developer best known as a public personality - seemed a bit upstaged. Mr. Trump presented his thinking mostly in terms of marketing concerns. For him, the building's shape, size, location and general style were questions of marketing and salesmanship.” (New York Times, July 18, 1982)