Yes, I have. Several years ago, I was invited to be a tag-along at a dinner with The Donald by some very influential friends in the Boca Raton area. I wouldn’t say I was particularly excited, but hey, who doesn’t love a little dinner theatre every now and again?
He. Would. Not. Shut. Up. About. Himself.
The entirety of the two-hour dinner (amazingly, in retrospect, not at a Trump-branded establishment) was devoted to a single speaker and a single subject: The Donald, as narrated by The Donald. His business acumen. His latest coup of a deal. His fabulous lifestyle, his plane, his prowess with the ladies (Melania was not in attendance, and he leered at any server with a skirt). Any time anyone tried to get a word in edgewise to perhaps discuss a business deal or a point of common interest, he would immediately turn it back onto himself, with phrases like “Oh, that reminds me of when I…”
He is exactly the man I met years ago. The media portrays him as a self-absorbed, narcissistic buffoon, and that is who I found him to be. He did actually speak entirely in complete sentences during the dinner; I believe that when he takes the podium, he is actually terrified, and his brain leaps from topic to topic, attempting to gain applause. Perhaps that’s why he seems so scattered. He was less so at dinner, but then again, there were only 12 of us in total, and most at the table were ardent fans from whom he had to win no approval. I was not. He probably hated me for it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I found him to be a cravenly self-seeking yet painfully ordinary man. Were it not for his “pedigree,” he would be the guy permanently seated at the far end of the bar that nobody wants to talk to. Yes, money talks, but that doesn’t mean you have to listen. I did, but I wouldn’t have missed anything had I not.