Former Thiensville Village President Van Mobley, a Republican activist, longtime Donald Trump campaign volunteer and Concordia University history professor, attended a private luncheon May 4 at the Mar-a-Lago Club on the former president’s estate in Florida. The fundraiser for Trump’s 2024 presidential run featured a speech by Trump. Mobley said he donated $5,000 to attend. – As Told to Tom Kertscher
I got to the Four Seasons about 8 o’clock in the morning; I was one of the first ones there. I talked with J.D. Vance a moment. I did a little interview with a USA Today reporter. We took a bus about 4 miles to Mar-a-Lago.
You go through the Secret Service security thing and then you put your phone in a bag and then they lock it; you still have it, but you don’t have access to it.
Then you walk into the Grand Ballroom. There was a buffet on both sides. Oysters on the half-shell, boiled shrimp; both of them were very top of the line. Two different salads. Some salmon, roast beef with the horseradish on it. I went through the buffet with J.D. Vance’s wife. I just got a little bit of everything.
I didn’t go through the food line until late because, if you go too soon, then you can’t execute on your primary strategy of meeting as many people as you possibly could.
This is where I really shone: Not only did I talk to the people inside the rope line, I also worked the crowd. I talked to everybody at the tables. That’s an important thing.
You’re auditioning for a lot of things down there, and if you think that Mr. Trump is not watching everybody in the room like a hawk, then you live on a different planet. You’re in his house.
You’re there – why not?! You never know. Nothing bad can come of it.
When Trump spoke, he’s on a different level than other politicians in terms of energy and force. He spoke without a TelePrompter. He spoke very highly of the people that he had on the stage with him. He said, ‘Usually I’m talking myself up, and now I’ve got to get used to talking these other people up,’ which is out of character for him, I suppose. It wrapped up about 3:30 or 4.
After the interview, Mobley exclaimed, without joking: “Van Mobley for vice president!”
