Jeb Bush and Florida Republican Party

Trump Tower: But when Bush took office in 1999, Trump didn't get the political help he needed to make his casino dreams a reality in the Sunshine State, according to CNN. Instead, Bush maintained his hardline stance against gambling in the state, delivering a death blow to Trump hopes of building out a multi-million dollar casino endeavor with the Seminole Tribe of Florida and prompting him to abandon those plans. "It certainly had a chilling effect," Doug Guetzloe, a Florida political consultant who worked for the gaming giant Bally Entertainment in the '90s, said of Bush election. "Gov. He did so for Jeb Bush in 1998, holding a high-dollar fundraiser for the gubernatorial candidate in Trump Tower and shelling out $50,000 to the Florida Republican Party. Bush made it clear to everyone that he was not interested in having casinos in the state of Florida ... the word definitely went through." As Trump and Bush now lock horns in their fight to secure the Republican presidential nomination, the casino episode illustrates that the animus between the two men took root far before the 2016 race. Petersburg Times, now Tampa Bay Times, in 1999, referencing the three failed referendums to approve casino gambling. Florida laws prevented casinos from expanding their offerings from bingo-style games to wider gambling operations, and when Bush was elected in 1998, he made clear none of that would happen on his watch. "I am opposed to casino gambling in this state and I am opposed whether it is on Indian property or otherwise ... The people have spoken and I support their position," Bush told the St. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.