Donald Trump apparently isn't big enough to admit Jeb Bush got the better of him in 1998.
Trump couldn't admit during the second GOP presidential debate Wednesday night that not only did he try to bribe his way into a Florida casino future by throwing a lavish fundraiser for Bush when he was a gubernatorial candidate -- but the whole thing blew up in his face.
No gambling favor after Bush won, no quid pro quo for The Donald.
It's all true, even though Trump tried to deny it during Wednesday night's GOP presidential debate.
In December 1997 Trump hosted a lavish, $500-a-head fundraiser at Trump Tower boosting Bush's gubernatorial campaign, according to several news reports from that time. That fundraiser and subsequent out-of-state donations helped Bush double his Democratic rival's fundraising haul in the subsequent campaign-filing period.
According to a CNN story Thursday, during the next year, as Bush continued to campaign for governor, Trump donated $50,000 to the Florida Republican Party. And through it all, Trump employed Mallory Horne, a former Florida House speaker and Senate president, to lobby on behalf of his gambling interests in the state.
Once elected, Bush never gave up his hard-line stance against gambling as bad for Florida, "delivering a death blow to Trump's hopes of building out a multimillion-dollar casino endeavor with the Seminole Tribe of Florida and prompting him to abandon those plans," the CNN story confirmed.
"I am opposed to casino gambling in this state and I am opposed whether it is on Indian property or otherwise ... The people have spoken and I support their position," Bush told the St. Petersburg Times, now Tampa Bay Times, in 1999, referencing the three failed referendums to approve casino gambling.
Trump denied during the debate that his political help for Bush was linked to his desire for a casino. "If I'd wanted it, I would have gotten it," he said.
Doug Guetzloe, a Central Florida political consultant who worked for the gaming giant Bally Entertainment in the '90s, said of Bush's election, "It certainly had a chilling effect. Gov. Bush made it clear to everyone that he was not interested in having casinos in the state of Florida ... the word definitely went through."
"Donald Trump has repeatedly admitted he tried to buy politicians. That's not how Jeb works," Bush campaign spokesman Matt Gorman told CNN.
If Trump's barbs have a sharper -- maybe even nastier -- edge against Bush along the campaign trail, it might be because Trump -- used to getting his own way with his checkbook -- never overcame and never forgot the whooping the governor gave his Florida casino dreams 17 years ago.
