Lora Drobetsky, an Ashkenazi Jew from Uzbekistan, emigrated to the U.S. in 1990 and settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Drobetsky was then a 23-year-old single mom with a two-year-old daughter. On a trip to New York that year, she visited Trump Tower, the lavish skyscraper on Fifth Avenue. “It was breathtaking,” she recalls. “You walk in and you’re in paradise. The waterfalls. Everything’s pink and shiny and gorgeous. It’s so big. I thought, ‘This is America.'”
One of the first books Drobetsky read in English, in 1994, was Trump’s The Art of the Deal. The business advice guide and memoir was perfect for someone learning the language, Drobetsky says: “It was simple, like he was talking to me. It didn’t feel intimidating. There weren’t a lot of details.” She still uses many of the strategies she learned from the book. “He was giving you a picture of an attitude. What’s your goal? From what position do you want to negotiate? You think big, but you have to be flexible. When things change, you have to rethink your position. But you always have your final goal in mind.”
Trump has suggested he’d seek to deport the millions of undocumented immigrants already here, but Drobetsky says that’s just posturing. “He is a businessperson—he is not stupid,” she says. “It’s just a business maneuver. You put the most ridiculous idea out there, and then you negotiate to the middle.”
Last fall, Drobetsky contacted Kent Gray, the Springfield lawyer who’s directing Trump’s campaign in Illinois, and let him know she’d like to be a delegate. “At that time, nobody thought Trump would have a chance, but I knew,” she says. Soon after, she was informed she’d been selected.
