Jesse Marx

Palm Springs Desert Sun

Donald Trump’s transition in the 1980s from an obscure to nationally known businessman was marked by a change in title. “Real estate developer” became “tycoon.”

By the time he visited Palm Springs in October 1991, the press was referring to him simply as The Donald.

It was a quiet affair. Over a candlelit dinner at Melvyn’s Restaurant, Trump kissed Marla Maples, his fiancée. He ate a New York steak. She had the chicken Mary Louise in celebration of her 28th birthday.

“He wasn’t pretentious or demanding,” remembered Brian Ellis, the restaurant's long-time maître d'. “He didn’t push his weight around.”

Maples had a guest role on the CBS drama “P.S. I Luv U,” which was filming in the Coachella Valley, as one of three sisters entangled in a murder over the family fortune. Trump, according to the show’s producer, Glen Larson, had discussed a possible role on the show.

Larson’s suggestion fed the gossip-column speculation back east that Trump, who’d flirted with a run for political office in 1988, was looking to further his “brand” by breaking into television.

Trump’s visit — like Maples’ show — was short-lived. The day after his date at Melvyn’s, he watched the filming of a car crash at the Indian Canyons Golf Resort in Palm Springs and spent his evening at the Marquis Hotel eating take-out.

By the time locals read about it the following morning, the future 45th president of the United States was long gone.

It'd be two years before Trump returned to the desert — for the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, a professional golf tournament now known as the CareerBuilder Challenge that featured celebrity participants. While he was in Palm Springs, Trump helped the amateur golf team to win a charity event, and for days he basked in the attention.

"We were all surprised at how good a golfer he was at that time," remembered John Foster, chairman of the Desert Classic Charities board.

During a visit to the Bermuda Dunes Country Club, Trump signed golf balls, visors and a copy of his book, "The Art of the Deal," taking dozens of pictures with residents in between. He smiled for the cameras and patted children on the head, causing one observer to note, "If Trump wasn't having fun, he's a good actor."

Trump said he was "often amazed" that other celebrities didn't take the time to interact with the public. "I get a great reaction," he noted. On the second tee, he stopped to take a business call on his cell phone, later bragging to a reporter, “That’s big money."

This was a decade before The Apprentice made Trump a household name. Yet the residents who'd come to see him play were gushing. Rex Loath, the owner of a janitorial service company, remarked: "He takes nothing and creates something just by his name. I think he's the ultimate salesman."

Unlike most post-World War II presidents, Trump’s connection to the desert is not a particularly strong one. Except for those early visits, the president and his family — Ivana Trump stopped here in 1994 on a book tour — have viewed the California desert in strictly business terms.

He did not arrive here as a war hero or distinguished statesmen in search of privacy and relaxation, but as a celebrity looking to make a buck.

As letters to the editor make clear, written well before Trump's 2016 president campaign, the businessman’s brash and immodest style was not always appreciated. The desert has long been home to wealthy and conservative retirees, and Trump sought attention in the late '90s as a political candidate by proposing to soak the rich in new taxes. He wanted to use the money, he said, to pay down the nation’s debt and “save Social Security.”

A Desert Sun phone poll in October 1999 asked whether Trump should challenge Pat Buchanan, a former adviser to Richard Nixon, by seeking the Reform Party’s nomination for president. Nearly 80 percent of the respondents said no.

The newspaper’s editorial page summed up 173 responses like this: “Trump has no political experience and is a self-acknowledged playboy. Any attempt to run would be merely to stroke his oversized ego.” Another 45 people disagreed, saying he’d “proven himself a winner in the world of corporate finance.”

The latter has become the dominant view among Republican voters here today.

In the 2016 election, the fact that Trump had never held office was a benefit. Trump’s image as a outsider-reformer — although he’d spent years greasing the wheels of government — helped him soar through the primaries and narrowly win the White House, despite losing the popular vote.

Although his approval numbers continue to fall nationwide, they've been growing across the Inland Empire since the inauguration. Forty percent of adults here who were surveyed in a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll view positively the job the president is doing.

The years between the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections weren’t great for him locally, although they started off well enough.

Following the passage of Proposition 1A in California, the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians announced a partnership with Trump Hotels & Casinos, Inc., for the $60 million expansion of the tribe’s Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella. While the terms of the management contract awaited regulatory approval, Trump loaned the tribe $11 million to make the conversion of Spotlight 29 into Trump 29 possible.

After the deal was approved by gaming officials in 2002, Trump's face was plastered on local billboards, touting Coachella as the place where “the desert meets the Donald.” The opening celebration was held under shimmering disco balls with showgirls in skin-tight silver dresses.

"I think Las Vegas is in serious trouble because of what is happening in California," Trump said.

In 2004, during another visit to the casino, he spent half an hour fielding questions from the press about his hit TV show, but hanging over the brief visit was his company’s financial collapse. The tribe wound up firing Trump later that year, ending the management contract after learning much about the casino business and saving itself millions in the process.

The relationship had struck many as odd from the beginning, because Trump had made disparaging remarks about Native Americans and secretly funded an incendiary ad campaign against a competing tribal casino in southeastern New York.

Although Twenty-Nine Palms officials have described the split as mutual, other members of the industry have suggested the tribe was especially happy to see him go.

“They figured out pretty quickly that this guy was not what he said he was, and they could do a better job. And they have,” said Victor Rocha, an Indian gaming advocate from Temecula.

Judging by statements Trump would make in the years to come, his view of Coachella Valley soured after his relationship with the tribe came to an abrupt end. Since then, he's taken multiple swipes at the windmill farms visible from Interstate 10.

He was in the midst of a dispute with Scottish officials over the building of windmills near his golf course in 2012 when he tweeted: “Ugly wind turbines have destroyed the entrance to Palm Springs, CA. These monstrosities are ruining landscapes”

Less than two weeks before voters went to the polls in 2016, he broached the subject again, unprompted, on an Atlanta radio show.

“You know, you’re driving into Palm Springs, California,” he said, “and it looks like a poor man’s version of Disneyland. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen."

Coachella Valley would go on to vote two to one against Trump in the general election.