How a Celtics co-owner helped mend the divide between Donald Trump and Mitt Romney
If Romney is appointed secretary of state, thank Steve Pagliuca.
Donald Trump and Mitt Romney’s dinner meeting Tuesday night may not have ever happened if it wasn’t for one person: Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca.
Indeed, according the Washington Post, Pagliuca called up Romney, his former Bain Capital colleague, shortly after Trump clinched the election earlier this month.
Pagliuca—a Framingham native and Bain executive, who like Romney led an (albeit unsuccessful) Olympic bid—reportedly shot an email off to his longtime friend, asking the former Massachusetts governor to consider joining the president-elect’s cabinet as secretary of state for the “best interests of the country.”
Then, according to the Post, Pagliuca lobbied Trump’s advisers to consider Romney for the same position.
Soon thereafter, Pagliuca’s efforts yielded results. Despite deeply-held objections to Trump’s campaign, Romney reached out to the president-elect to congratulate him on his election night win. In turn, Trump called the call, “Very nice!”
A week later, Romney met with Trump at the real estate mogul’s New Jersey golf club, reportedly to discuss his potential appointment as secretary of state, a top foreign policy position and perhaps one of the most anticipated of Trump’s cabinet appointments.
Amid other contenders for the job, Trump and Romney scheduled a second meeting (with their wives and GOP chair Reince Preibus) for dinner Tuesday night in Manhattan.
So how was Pagliuca so successful in getting the once-bitter foes to this point?
According to the Post, he “knew something others didn’t.”
Pagliuca, a Democrat with a (like Trump) mixed history of political donations, told the Post he golfed with Trump at a Boston-area course a few years ago and recalled Trump complementing “at-length” Bain, the private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984. Romney left Bain in 1999; Pagliuca, who was hired by Romney in 1989, remains at the firm.
Per the Post, Pagliuca, among others, think Romney and Trump also share more personal common ground in their life story:
Both came to prominence as risk takers and dealmakers, and both have spent much of their lives seeking to emulate and outdo the success of their famous fathers. Trump’s father, Fred, was a New York City developer, and Romney’s father, George, was a governor of Michigan who unsuccessfully sought the presidency.
Appointing Romney as secretary of state, above loyalists like former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani, would also be seen as somewhat of an olive branch to the elite, establishment wing of the Republican Party, which Trump alienated to a degree during the campaign.
It would also provide a moderating balance to Trump’s cabinet. Pagliuca is hopeful.
“I think Trump sees that,” he said.
Unfortunately for the Celtics owner, unlike the current president, Trump does not appear to be much of a basketball fan.
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