It was January 2013, and the Lincoln Dinner was just a few months away. Oakland County, Michigan has one of the largest and oldest Lincoln Dinners—which raise money for the county’s Republican Party—in the country. I had promised, as the chair of the event, to organize the most successful event in our 125-year history and I had no keynote speaker.
I had asked various GOP stars (of the time)—Bobby Jindal, Dana Perino, Ted Cruz—and they all declined. So I threw what I thought was a Hail Mary pass, and overnighted an invitation to Donald Trump. A week or so later, I received a call from Rhona Graff, Trump’s longtime assistant in New York. She told me he would love to be the speaker. We set a date for after Trump was done taping that year’s season of The Apprentice: May 21, 2013.
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