Carl Paladino, the upstate New York developer and local political gadfly, was interested in catching up with Donald Trump in early December, so he rang up the president-elect’s private security guard. The next day, on Dec. 5, Paladino found himself high in Trump Tower, recounting favorite moments from the campaign and gossiping about local politics with the president-elect for 45 minutes.

"He said, 'When are you going to be down in the city? Just call me when you get in,'" Paladino, the co-chair for Trump’s campaign in New York who is little-known outside the state, recalled of talking to the security guard, Keith Schiller. "So I called his number, and his guy told me to come in the next day at 11 o'clock. He hadn't changed a bit."


Since winning the presidency, Trump has taken calls from world leaders, interviewed dozens of potential Cabinet officials and huddled with the country's richest executives, activities that are often associated with the intense transition effort for a president-elect.

But Trump's schedule has also been filled with municipal officials from Long Island, pastors and lower-level business executives. He has huddled with sports figures like Jim Brown, recording artists Kanye West and Andrea Bocelli, and a number of other celebrities and well-known figures, like TV producer Mark Burnett and talent agent Ari Emanuel.

"Those are just his friends," the Rev. Al Sharpton said. "He knows all these guys because he ran casinos and sporting events and threw some of the biggest boxing matches in the main room at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City."

Trump's wham-bam scheduling, and his meetings with all sorts of figures, don't seem to have slowed his Cabinet appointments. He has filled most of the spots — including the big four of Defense, State, Treasury and Attorney General — ahead of many past presidents.

Yet his willingness to meet with seemingly anyone and everyone has worried some, as he has sometimes declined a daily intelligence briefing and often seems more interested in pizzazz than substance. He’s also been accused of not quickly returning calls with some traditional allies, and engaging in conversation with other foreign leaders, like the president of Taiwan, that the U.S. has typically ignored, at least publicly.

And they wonder why he is meeting with some of these people at all.

"It's going to be more challenging if that's brought to the White House," said Craig Fuller, the co-chair of George H.W. Bush's transition committee and his former chief of staff. “There is a high demand of issues to bring to the White House. You can't just shoot from the hip, shall we say."

People who know Trump say this is just Trump being Trump and that the path to meeting him in Trump Tower hasn't changed after his surprise win on Nov. 8. Meetings can be set up on a whim by a number of people, from his security guard to his longtime assistant, Rhona Graff, to a number of advisers. Trump likes to be busy, talking with people at all times.

Political operatives and lobbyists say they've expected to get the runaround — only to be told Trump can talk or meet — and soon.

Sometimes, he has met with people simply because they happened to be in New York. Sometimes, Trump yells across the office to have his secretary call someone unexpected, as he did recently to reach Sharpton. Sharpton at first hung up on the secretary because he didn't believe it was real, he said.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who has worked with Trump on golf course and real estate deals in the past, had his call returned within 15 minutes on a recent morning, a spokesman said. The two talked about the death of Fidel Castro, Cuba's president, the spokesman said.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was surprised with a phone call and a 62-minute meeting with Trump within 10 days of him winning the presidency. The meeting was partially orchestrated by a Staten Island city councilman. "No one knew why the meeting went that long," one person close to de Blasio said.

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said Trump asked him when he was visiting New York and then scheduled a meeting for that day, Dec. 15. "It was very casual," he said. He also met with the mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, and the former mayor of Burnsville, Minnesota, as part of a U.S. Conference of Mayors delegation.

Some of Trump’s longtime acquaintances have even had some fun with the spectacle, as reporters and gawkers camped out in the lobby of Trump Tower watch every move of the president-elect’s visitors.

Media widely reported Trump met with Barry Switzer, the former University of Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys coach who has known Trump for decades. But Switzer said he was shopping with his wife and daughter on Fifth Avenue and decided to walk into the Trump Tower lobby after seeing the Naked Cowboy. He had no meeting scheduled.

"All the media people said, 'Coach what are you doing here,'" Switzer said in an interview. "I told them I was here to see the president like everyone else."

Switzer said he instead went upstairs in Trump Tower, bought a coffee at Starbucks and came back downstairs.

"I told the reporters I had a great visit, and that we were going to make the wishbone great again," he said. "I told them I was going to be Secretary of Offense and that Trump knew how to run the ball down the field."

"Then I went back to my hotel and laughed my ass off," he said, still laughing this week. "It went everywhere. Everyone believed it. I had all these calls, but I was just jerking people around."

Those who know Trump say little in his demeanor has shifted, except for the bulletproof glass that now encompasses his office windows on the 26th floor of Trump Tower.

Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, spoke to Trump's secretary on a recent Monday and was told the president-elect would see him three days later. King said they discussed the intricacies of his district and how Trump would handle homeland security. Other high-level, soon-to-be Trump officials, such as the CIA director and the treasury secretary, sit in "glass-enclosed cubicles with their titles scotch-taped on the wall," King said. "And they'll be running the government in about a month."

"He was joking around, making disparaging comments about other politicians in a humorous way," King said. King said Trump orchestrated photos of the group that accompanied King, telling people "where to stand, and the angle to hold the camera."

King's daughter, Erin King Sweeney, a town councilwoman from Long Island, tagged along for the meeting and came in for the pictures, which were taken by Vice President-elect Mike Pence with a pink camera from King's office. John J. LaValle, the Suffolk County Republican Party chairman, who also was part of the visiting group, said it "was just another meeting, checking in with the boss on how things are going."

"I'm like the smallest of small local public officials. I represent 120,000 people and I fill potholes," King Sweeney, who represents Hempstead, said with a laugh, adding they talked about economic development on Long Island. "He was really interested in the details of how he won on Long Island."

Trump has also met with all three Emanuel brothers — Ari, Chicago Mayor Rahm and physician Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects of President Obama's Affordable Care Act, who talked about health care with Trump.

Ezekiel, the oldest of the three, said he’s still a little mystified by his face time with the president-elect.

"I believe it came about, but you'd have to ask him, because of my brother," Ezekiel Emanuel said, adding he was pleased that he made it on Trump’s schedule. "The president has a very limited amount of time."

