He also hosted a Seminole leader on his vacation estate that year, reported the Tampa Bay Times.īush, meanwhile, was already known as an opponent of gambling because he had served on the board of No Casinos, a group that organized a few years earlier to fight casinos in Florida. Trump backed a 1998 Seminole proposal to state officials to share gambling revenue with Florida. The tribe was seeking to open Vegas-style slot machines and poker in casinos, to be managed by Trump.

As the race continued the next year, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts donated $50,000 to the Republican Party of Florida, when Trump was pushing the state to allow him to open casinos on Seminole tribal land. Trump held a 1997 fundraiser, which reportedly raised $500,000 for Bush when he ran for governor, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. News reports from the 1990s show that Trump helped finance Bush’s campaign and the state Republican Party during Bush’s 1998 bid for governor - while Trump was seeking to open casinos in Florida.

1 CNN article headlined 'Jeb Bush: the man who killed Trump’s casino dreams.' A spokeswoman for Bush referred us to a Sept. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined to provide any evidence to refute Bush’s claim. Trump’s history on casino gambling in Florida

Trump builds casino around house