Donald Trump Hitting Hollywood For GOP Event Friday

Donald Trump’s coming to town. Trump people confirm he is speaking to the group of Hollywood conservatives who go by the name Friends of Abe. The event is scheduled for 7:30 PM on Friday at the Luxe Sunset Blvd Hotel in Brentwood, the invite says.

The most controversial of the ever-expanding pack of GOP White House hopefuls is the latest paying a visit to the group. Other Republican contenders already have paid a call, but, of course, Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee have not made headlines saying Mexico is sending its drug users and rapists across the border into the United States, so their visits to Abe’s pals went largely unnoticed.

“We are delighted to hear from Donald Trump as we are from all 2016 Republican candidates,” a member of the Tinseltown organization told Deadline. The invite sent to Friends of Abe members asks them to come for a “dinner and insightful discussion” with Trump. The ex-Celebrity Apprentice host is called “the very definition of American success” on the invite. Trump’s camp confirmed he is scheduled to speak at the private event.

Friends of Abe was founded by the likes of Gary Sinise, Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer several years ago as a discussion group for embattled Hollywooders with conservative tendencies. Having grown now to more than 2,200 members, the media-avoiding FoA has become a station on the notable GOP presidential and fundraising path as candidates and the Republican Party try to get their hands on Tinseltown cash via networking at the group’s low-key events.

Word of Trump’s visit came as Hillary Clinton was clobbering him on CNN over his comments about Mexican immigration. “I’m very disappointed in those comments and I feel very bad, and very disappointed with him and with the Republican party for not responding immediately and saying, ‘Enough! Stop It!’,” Clinton told CNN’s senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar in Clinton’s first nationally televised interview since officially announcing her candidacy three months ago.

Trump this week acknowledged the remark he made about illegal immigrants coming across the border with Mexico in announcing his White House bid in mid-June, has cost him more business than he expected. Most notably, he has sued Univision for dumping plans to broadcast the Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants, which he co-owns with NBC, which also has bailed on the beauty pageant broadcasts, and said it is getting out of business with him. In LA today, pro golf’s PGA backed out of October’s PGA Grand Slam of Golf tourney that had been scheduled at Trump National golf course in Palos Verdes.

Clinton, however, said Trump is only in keeping with all of the GOP presidential candidates’ immigration stances, which she described as a “spectrum” of “hostility” on immigration in which all of the Republican hopefuls are opposed to providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants — by way of seguing to her “talk about comprehensive immigration reform.”