Donald Trump famously failed in Atlantic City, but he's scored big in Vegas, courtesy of his partner, billionaire Phil Ruffin—who is taking steps to open a new Trump casino there
Ruffin is the only person whom the president has invested alongside in a Trump-branded property
Image: Tim Pannell For Forbes
It’s two days after Michael Flynn resigned as national security advisor, and the news is wall-to-wall Donald Trump, with a heavy emphasis on his relationship with Russia. Questions abound. What did Flynn discuss with a Russian ambassador weeks before Trump became president? Did he lie about the conversation to Vice President Mike Pence? Who told him to call Russian diplomats in the first place? Was Trump himself involved?
Phil Ruffin sits inside the DJT restaurant, named for Donald J Trump, at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, and puts down a Trump-filled newspaper. “This stuff about him having financial investments all over Russia—that’s just pure crap,” he says. “I went to Russia with him. We took my airplane. We were having lunch with one of the oligarchs there. No business was discussed. Donald has no investment of any kind in Russia, nor has he borrowed any money from Russia. If he had a business deal there, he would have asked me to go join him.”
Ruffin’s unwavering trust in the president comes via 25 years of personal friendship and one very lucrative ongoing deal. Of Trump’s more than two dozen global business partners, none is closer to him than Ruffin. Most of Trump’s ‘partners’ are more like customers, who pay to put his name on properties and then give him a percentage of revenues. The only person whom the president has invested alongside in a Trump-branded property? Phil Ruffin.
“I couldn’t imagine a better partner,” says Eric Trump, who manages the Las Vegas hotel that his father owns in a 50-50 joint venture with Ruffin. “It was great to have two people at the level of stature that we had in that project: (a) My father and (b) Phil Ruffin. I think it gave tremendous credibility to the project, especially in the market where there were a lot of deals that, quite frankly, weren’t credible. I think that’s always a great thing. Who are you partners with? Phil Ruffin. Enough said.”
Ruffin’s office boasts a framed photo of him and the president inside Ruffin’s private jet, ready to chow down on hamburgers. Trump signed the photo, in his customary gold marker, “Phil—You are the greatest.” The love is mutual. When Ruffin, 82, married Oleksandra, a former Miss Ukraine who is 47 years his junior, Trump served as best man.
When the president flew to Mexico last August to meet with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, he borrowed Ruffin’s jet, wary that the Trump name could pose a security liability. (Ruffin made sure the insurance company didn’t find out.) Today the billionaire buddies talk every other week or so, and sometimes the conversations turn to policy. “If something comes up, I’ll call him,” Ruffin says. “They’ll always put me through. But I don’t call unless it’s something important.”