In alphabetized indexes of Trump biographies, Paolo Zampolli can be found way down under Z: a Milanese former modeling agent who introduced Melania Knauss to Donald Trump at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998.
But it turns out that the cosmopolitan businessman-diplomat with slicked-back hair kept a foot lodged in the gates of Mar-a-Lago, absorbing—or infusing—the more exotic policy views of Trump World. Way back when I first met Zampolli, in 2016, to hear his thoughts about the Trump campaign, he told me about his idea to convert Gaza into a Mediterranean Riviera with high-rises and shopping malls. Or as he explains it now, “Let’s make it like Dubai, but with no golden faucets.”
