Casino mogul Ruffin spends night at White House
WASHINGTON — TI owner Phil Ruffin planned to dine and spend the night at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday. According to a spokeswoman, it will be the 82-year-old billionaire’s first-ever visit to the White House.
Over the years, Ruffin’s ties with President Donald Trump have mixed business and friendship — and later politics. Ruffin is a co-owner of the Trump International hotel in Las Vegas. Trump was best man at Ruffin’s 2008 wedding to supermodel Oleksandra Nikolayenko. The wedding venue was Mar-a-Lago.
After Trump won the White House in 2016, Ruffin served on the finance committee for Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Ruffin told The Associated Press he spent $18,000 for a suite at the Trump International Hotel to be there for the president’s swearing-in ceremony and festivities. Ruffin also stayed at Trump’s D.C. hotel after flying into the Capitol on Wednesday.
Thursday’s overnight at the White House was free.
Ruffin was looking forward to catching up with his old friend. “It’s a lonely job,” Ruffin told the AP, “and I have been friends with him a long time. It’ll be nice to catch up.”
The two met when Ruffin traveled to Trump Tower in the early 2000s when he was thinking of adding a Trump-branded hotel to his holdings on the Strip. That deal never worked out, but they stayed in touch.
One night in Las Vegas, after dinner, Ruffin took Trump to a Nordstrom parking lot to show him a parcel of undeveloped land. “I said, ‘This is where you ought to be,’” Ruffin told the AP. “And he instantly made a decision.”
Trump International opened in Las Vegas in 2008.
Ruffin owns a 4-acre parcel next to the Trump building and says he’d like to develop it “at some point” with the Trump Organization.
NOTE: An earlier version of this story said Ruffin owned Treasure Island casino when he met Trump in the early 2000s. Ruffin was the owner of New Frontier at the time and didn’t become owner of Treasure Island until 2009.
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.
