
Ivylise Simones
Until the election, we’re bringing you “The Trump Files,” a daily dose of telling episodes, strange but true stories, or curious scenes from the life of GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has often boasted of his commitment to hiring women and minorities. “I have many executives that are women,” he said on ABC’s This Week in August. Two months earlier, he had made a bolder claim, assuring the Associated Press that he had hired many African American senior executives and saying, “I am the least discriminatory person in the world.”
But as reports during this campaign have shown, Trump has exaggerated his commitment to diverse hiring. In fact, while constructing the Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach in the late 1990s, Trump got in trouble for failing to hire minority-owned firms for the project—after he’d promised to do so as part of a lawsuit settlement.
Here’s what happened: In 1995, Trump sued Palm Beach County over aircraft noise. Mar-a-Lago, his lavish Palm Beach estate, was situated just south of the flight path out of Palm Beach International Airport, and Trump had been complaining about the noise ever since he bought the property a decade earlier. In 1996, the case settled, and the county agreed to build a structure that would keep airplanes from getting close to Mar-a-Lago. In exchange, Trump promised to lease land from the county, for a hefty and rising fee, on which he was going to build the Trump International Golf Club. As part of the settlement, he also pledged to make “reasonable efforts” to give 30 percent of the contracting work during construction to minority-owned businesses, with 10 percent of the work going to black-owned firms and 20 percent to other minority- and women-owned businesses.
Construction on the $40 million golf course began in 1998. Six months in, county commission chairwoman Maude Ford Lee got a tip that Trump might be not be keeping his end of the deal. Lee had become the county’s first black commissioner in 1990, following a report that showed the county had a long history of excluding minority-owned businesses. She wrote Trump a strongly worded letter warning him to come into compliance.
“I am extremely disappointed with the lack of participation by minority and black vendors in this effort thus far,” Lee wrote. “I am requesting an immediate plan of action from you to help [to] rectify this grave disparity.”
Lee wrote the letter after an airport official had informed her that neither of the two general contractors on the golf course project had provided reports of hiring any minority subcontractors. An aide to Lee told the Sun Sentinel that Lee’s office knew of minority-owned businesses that were qualified to work on the project, but that it hadn’t heard from Trump.
“He’s violating the deal he made with Palm Beach County,” Lee told the New York Post.
As he often does in the middle of controversy, Trump denied the allegations. “Whatever charges were made, they are totally false,” his spokeswoman Rhona Graff told the Sun Sentinel. “We have great numbers of hired and to-be-hired minority workers on that project.”
Read the rest of “The Trump Files”:
- Trump Files #1: The Time Andrew Dice Clay Thanked Donald for the Hookers
- Trump Files #2: When Donald Tried to Stop Charlie Sheen’s Marriage to Brooke Mueller
- Trump Files #3: The Brief Life of the “Trump Chateau for the Indigent”
- Trump Files #4: Donald Thinks Asbestos Fears Are a Mob Conspiracy
- Trump Files #5: Donald’s Nuclear Negotiating Fantasy
- Trump Files #6: Donald Wants a Powerball for Spies
- Trump Files #7: Donald Gets An Allowance
- Trump Files #8: The Time He Went Bananas on a Water Cooler
- Trump Files #9: The Great Geico Boycott
- Trump Files #10: Donald Trump, Tax-Hike Crusader
- Trump Files #11: Watch Donald Trump Say He Would Have Done Better as a Black Man
- Trump Files #12: Donald Can’t Multiply 17 and 6
- Trump Files #13: Watch Donald Sing the “Green Acres” Theme Song in Overalls
- Trump Files #14: The Time Donald Trump Pulled Over His Limo to Stop a Beating
- Trump Files #15: When Donald Wanted to Help the Clintons Buy Their House
- Trump Files #16: He Once Forced a Small Business to Pay Him Royalties for Using the Word “Trump”
- Trump Files #17: He Dumped Wine on an “Unattractive Reporter”
- Trump Files #18: Behold the Hideous Statue He Wanted to Erect In Manhattan
- Trump Files #19: When Donald Was “Principal for a Day” and Confronted by a Fifth-Grader
- Trump Files #20: In 2012, Trump Begged GOP Presidential Candidates to Be Civil
- Trump Files #21: When Donald Couldn’t Tell the Difference Between Gorbachev and an Impersonator
- Trump Files #22: His Football Team Treated Its Cheerleaders “Like Hookers”
- Trump Files #23: Donald Tried to Shut Down a Bike Race Named “Rump”
- Trump Files #24: When Donald Called Out Pat Buchanan for Bigotry
- Trump Files #25: Donald’s Most Ridiculous Appearance on Howard Stern’s Show
- Trump Files #26: How Donald Tricked New York Into Giving Him His First Huge Deal
- Trump Files #27: Donald Told Congress the Reagan Tax Cuts Were Terrible
- Trump Files #28: When Donald Destroyed Historic Art to Build Trump Tower
- Trump Files #29: Donald Wanted to Build an Insane Castle on Madison Avenue
- Trump Files #30: Donald’s Near-Death Experience (That He Invented)
- Trump Files #31: When Donald Struck Oil on the Upper West Side
- Trump Files #32: When Donald Massacred Trees in the Trump Tower Lobby
- Trump Files #33: When Donald Demanded Other People Pay for His Overpriced Quarterback
- Trump Files #34: The Time Donald Sued Someone Who Made Fun of Him for $500 Million
- Trump Files #35: Donald Tried to Make His Ghostwriter Pay for His Book Party
- Trump Files #36: Watch Donald Shave a Man’s Head on Television
- Trump Files #37: How Donald Helped Make It Harder to Get Football Tickets
- Trump Files #38: Donald Was Curious About His Baby Daughter’s Breasts
- Trump Files #39: When Democrats Courted Donald
- Trump Files #40: Watch the Trump Vodka Ad Designed for a Russian Audience
- Trump Files #41: Donald’s Cologne Smelled of Jamba Juice and Strip Clubs
- Trump Files #42: Donald Sued Other People Named Trump for Using Their Own Name
- Trump Files #43: Donald Thinks Asbestos Would Have Saved the Twin Towers
- Trump Files #44: Why Donald Threw a Fit Over His “Trump Tree” in Central Park
- Trump Files #45: Watch Trump Endorse Slim Shady for President
- Trump Files #46: The Easiest 13 Cents He Ever Made
- Trump Files #47: The Time Donald Burned a Widow’s Mortgage
- Trump Files #48: Donald’s Recurring Sex Dreams
- Trump Files #49: Trump’s Epic Insult Fight With Ed Koch
- Trump Files #50: Donald Has Some Advice for Citizen Kane
- Trump Files #51: Donald Once Turned Down a Million-Dollar Bet on “Trump: The Game”
- Trump Files #52: When Donald Tried to Shake Down Mike Tyson for $2 Million
- Trump Files #53: Donald and Melania’s Creepy, Sex-Filled Interview With Howard Stern
- Trump Files #54: Donald’s Mega-Yacht Wasn’t Big Enough For Him
- Trump Files #55: When Donald Got in a Fight With Martha Stewart
- Trump Files #56: Donald Reenacts an Iconic Scene From Top Gun
- Trump Files #57: How Donald Tried to Hide His Legal Troubles to Get His Casino Approved
- Trump Files #58: Donald’s Wall Street Tower Is Filled With Crooks
- Trump Files #59: When Donald Took Revenge by Cutting Off Health Coverage for a Sick Infant
- Trump Files #60: Donald Couldn’t Name Any of His “Handpicked” Trump U Professors
- Trump Files #61: Watch a Clip of the Awful TV Show Trump Wanted to Make About Himself
- Trump Files #62: Donald Perfectly Explains Why He Doesn’t Have a Presidential Temperament
- Trump Files #63: Donald’s Petty Revenge on Connie Chung
- Trump Files #64: Why Donald Called His 4-Year-Old Son a “Loser”
- Trump Files #65: The Time Donald Called Some of His Golf Club Members “Spoiled Rich Jewish Guys”
- Trump Files #66: “Always Be Around Unsuccessful People,” Donald Recommends
- Trump Files #67: Donald Said His Life Was “Shit.” Here’s Why.
- Trump Files #68: Donald Filmed a Music Video. It Didn’t Go Well.
- Trump Files #69: Donald Claimed “More Indian Blood” Than the Native Americans Competing With His Casinos
- Trump Files #70: Donald Has Been Inflating His Net Worth for 40 Years
- Trump Files #71: Donald Weighs In on “Ghetto Supastar”
- Trump Files #72: The Deadly Powerboat Race Donald Hosted in Atlantic City
- Trump Files #73: When Donald Fat-Shamed Miss Universe
- Trump Files #74: Yet Another Time Donald Sued Over the Word “Trump”
- Trump Files #75: Donald Thinks Exercising Might Kill You
- Trump Files #76: Donald’s Big Book of Hitler Speeches
- Trump Files #77: When Donald Ran Afoul of Ancient Scottish Heraldry Law
- Trump Files #78: Donald Accuses a Whiskey Company of Election Fraud
- Trump Files #79: When Donald’s Anti-Japanese Comments Came Back to Haunt Him
- Trump Files #80: The Shady Way Fred Trump Tried to Save His Son’s Casino
- Trump Files #81: Donald’s Creepy Poolside Parties in Florida
- Trump Files #82: Donald Gives a Lesson in How Not to Ski With Your Kids
- Trump Files #83: Listen to Donald Brag About His Affairs—While Pretending to Be Someone Else
- Trump Files #84: How Donald Made a Fortune by Dumping His Debt on Other People
- Trump Files #85: The Saga of Donald’s Short-Lived Weight-Loss Program
- Trump Files #86: When Donald Bought a Nightclub From an Infamous Mobster
- Trump Files #87: Donald Sues Himself—And Wins!
- Trump Files #88: Donald’s War on His Scottish Neighbors
- Trump Files #89: When Donald Had to Prove He Was Not the Son of an Orangutan
- Trump Files #90: Donald Made Charity Pledges In His Dead Brother’s Name, Then Apparently Never Delivered
- Trump Files #91: There Once Was a Horse Named DJ Trump
- Trump Files #92: How Donald’s Lawyers Dealt With His Constant Lying
- Trump Files #93: Donald Flipped Out When an Analyst (Correctly) Predicted His Casino’s Failure
- Trump Files #94: Cosmo Once Asked Donald to Pose Nude for $50,000
- Trump Files #95: Donald Attacks a Reporter Who Questioned His Claim to Own the Empire State Building
- Trump Files #96: When He Had the Hots for Princess Diana and Then Denied It
- Trump Files #97: Famous Tic Tac Gobbler Donald Trump Had This Breath Advice for Larry King
- Trump Files #98: How Donald Drove Palm Beach Nuts With an American Flag
- Trump Files #99: Trump Finds the Silver Lining in an Ebola Outbreak
- Trump Files #100: How Donald Screwed Over New York City on His Tax Bill
- Trump Files #101: Donald’s Words to a Grieving Mother
- Trump Files #102: Trump’s Long History of Getting Sued by His Own Lawyers
- Trump Files #103: Watch Donald Get Booed Mercilessly at Wrigley Field
- Trump Files #104: Trump Wanted a TV Show of Him Ogling Women
- Trump Files #105: Guess Who Gave Donald His Big Awards
- Trump Files #106: When a Sleazy Hot-Tub Salesman Tried to Take Donald Trump’s Name