“He should no longer make fun of the silly things—Little Marco and Lying Ted—just don’t do that,” said Hinda Snyder. A fiery Palm Beach resident with blonde, pulled-back hair, Snyder is a full-time executive at a real estate firm, and part-time matchmaker for her daughter. “This is bullshit what’s going on. I think it’s awful. Rise above it. That’s the only thing he needs to do. It’s not going to change anyone’s mind.”
But the quibbles were minor. Mostly, the club members were amazed, along with much of the rest of the country, at how the man with gold-plated seat belts on his private 757, who hires foreign workers at his resorts while blaming a broken immigration system for costing Americans their jobs, and who tried to have a woman's house condemned to expand his Atlantic City property, has become a populist hero.
“I’ll just give you an example, just my daily life,” Robin Bernstein, a real estate agent and Palm Beach political gadfly, said in an attempt to explain the Trump phenomenon.
“I had two Spanish guys laying tile for me—they were cleaning my tile. I thought they’d be for Cruz or Rubio,” she said, referring to the two presidential candidates with Cuban parents. “And they saw my pictures—I have a picture with Donald—and they said is that Mr. Trump? And I said yeah.
“And they said, we’re supporting Mr. Trump. And I said really?” she continued, making a point to exaggerate her disbelief. “And they said, ‘It’s because I think he’ll do better for people like us.’”
Just then, Kaplan scurried past, desperate for updated results from the Kentucky caucuses, and a Diet Coke.
The open bar had been closed for about an hour, and the people were getting thirsty.
“Rosie,” Kaplan barked to the woman handing out “Trump” water to guests. “I want a Diet Coke. Give me a Diet Coke, c’mon.”
“Don’t you raise your voice to my Rosie,” his wife shot back to him.
“No, I love Rosie. Rosie, give me a Diet Coke,” he said, then, to no one in particular. “Why won’t they let me have soda? What, the Secret Service won’t allow it?”
A common theme among the club members was Trump's excellence as a manager, about which they were more than happy to supply testimonials. “We’ve been members of his clubs for 15 years. He’s probably one of the best managers I’ve ever seen,” John Snyder, who oversees corporate operations for Simon Companies, a Boston-based real estate firm, said.
“He attends to detail. No detail is too small for him,” Snyder continued. “You watch him do this, and you see he really believes it. He doesn’t have to do this. He’s doing it because he believes in what he’s doing, and believes it’s for a bigger purpose, and believes it’s right for America."
Snyder said that Trump “cares about every aspect of whatever he does, whether it be the carpet that is selected or his staff.”
“Despite what people think about his perspective and positions on non-Americans, his staff loves him,” Snyder said.
“He has not only caddies, but lower-level people,” said his wife, Hinda. “And they’re from a mix,” she said. “One of his employees here was hit by a bus. He visited her. She’s a minority. He doesn’t discriminate.”
On Tuesday, the press event was held at the Trump National Golf Club Jupiter, a 285-acre gated community selling “a true luxury lifestyle” with a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus and certified by the National Audubon Society as an environmentally sound habitat.
Kaplan, who also belongs to the Jupiter club, told me that Trump continues to be involved the club’s operations despite running a presidential campaign, and recalls this story from last month.
“I’m on the board. We wanted to re-do the grass. In between everything, Donald comes in, walks the place, says you know what, $450,000? Do it,” Kaplan