When he proposed to Frances, her father came to his office and asked him “a hundred questions” about his intentions. “Some very pointed questions because I’m considerably older than her. And apparently I passed. But he’s just a very nice man, a very gentle, even-keeled kind of guy. And she’s the same. And why would she want to marry a rogue like me? You’d have to ask her. But I’m very glad she did. She doesn’t need money. A lot of the things women would be attracted to me for, she doesn’t need any of that.”
For a wedding present, he bought her a farm.
‘When you run for mayor, half the people hate you and half the people like you’
Buzbee collects presidential memorabilia. On the desk there is a wine decanter that once belonged to George Washington, a tobacco holder that belonged to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Elsewhere in the house, there is a framed piece of the original Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired the US national anthem, and a framed doodle drawn by John F Kennedy on stationery from the Rice Hotel in Houston, where Kennedy stopped the day before he was assassinated in Dallas. The rocking chair he sat in is upstairs.
There was a time when Buzbee had political ambitions of his own. He was chairman of the Democratic Committee in Galveston, but gave it up citing pressure of work and the responsibilities of having a young family.
In 2019 he ran for mayor of Houston, and lost. “When you run for mayor, half the people hate you and half the people like you,” he says. In 2016 he hosted a fundraiser for Donald Trump at his home, raising $500,000 for Trump’s first run at the presidency. “And that automatically gets you 40 per cent of the people who hate you and think you’re the anti-Christ.’
The idea of hosting Trump, he says, was “just a novelty”. Trump had just finished the last series of The Apprentice. “I thought that was a cool show. I was asked, would you give this fundraiser; nobody else would do it in this area, so I said I’ll do it.” He was single at the time. “They said, bonus – Ivanka’s coming! I thought, ‘Let’s go!’” He laughs. “And she didn’t turn up.”
Trump, he says, was “not what I expected. My mother came and we sat in the kitchen and he signed autographs for the kids.”
There were some 40 people in his house, waiting to meet Trump and 700 more in the backyard. “That’s how it is in America; you pay a little more and you get a picture.” Trump was supposed to give a 10-minute speech indoors, then give his main speech outside, with those inside joining to hear it.
“Well nobody told him that apparently. So he gave his typical 45-minute speech, off the cuff, just rambling. He thought he was finished, so I went and tugged on his arm and said, Mr Trump there’s 700 more people waiting in the backyard. So he went out and gave exactly the same damn speech.” He laughs.
I asked why he ran for mayor.
“It was probably to assuage my inner child.” Buzbee often jokes in conversation, but he’s being serious. “If you want the honest answer, that’s probably it. I can go deeper if you want. To get the external validation I didn’t get as a child. That’s probably the truth after many years of reflection on it, because I’ve asked myself, why did I do that?
“I spent $13 million doing it. Obviously I had a lot of ideas. I care about the city and the place where I live. I know how the city works and how it should work. I had a lot of people backing me who had great ideas…”
Tony Buzbee in 2014, when he was on the team that would be handling tackle two felony indictments against Texas governor Rick Perry Credit: Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images
And you wanted the power? “No, it was a lot of things. If you look closely at your life, you’re probably dealing with things that happened in your past.
“Not to get too psychological, but why do I have personalised licence plates? Why do I live on the richest street in town? I’m in a fishbowl. There’s no privacy here.”
It’s become a tradition at Christmas time for every house to be decked out with spectacular decorations – Buzbee’s is no exception – and the streets are thronged with thousands of people from all over town coming to look.
He pulls on his cigar. He’s been doing a lot of soul searching over the last few months, he says. pondering on all this – his upbringing, his success – man’s search for meaning, as Viktor Frankl would put it.
Therapy?
“I’m doing my own analysis and therapy all the time. Adaptive behaviours that become maladaptive in adulthood, extreme self-reliance… probably not the best trait to have if you’re trying to have connection and vulnerability with people. I rarely show any vulnerability, I rarely express emotions other than anger. Anger has fuelled my career for 30 years.”
That shark tattoo, I say – it’s definitely saying something…
He pulls up his sleeve to show me. There is another on his arm in Latin script, “bellum omnium contra omnes”. It’s from Thomas Hobbes, he says. “War against everyone. I always used to say, whether it’s philosophical or otherwise, we’re always at war.
“I created this aura of, we’re going to kick your ass and here we come – that in-your-face kind of thing. There was a lot of thinking and calculation that went into that. But now I’m trying to figure out, why am I doing that?
“Running from something. Running to something. Running… Having a chip on your shoulder only goes so far. Are you going to have that till you’re 90? I hope not. My dad still does. He’s never been able to process it, work it out. He was always angry about something.”
But he must be proud of you, I say.
“I would assume, but it’s not something I’ve discussed with him. I don’t think I’ve seen him since I told him I was going to slap the s–t out of him, probably seven or eight years ago, and told him to get off my property.”
‘It’s important to the clients, it’s important to me and I’ll put on a good show’
Buzbee has a 7,000 acre ranch in north Texas, where he keeps a menagerie of animals including horses, llamas, zebra, wildebeest, water buffalo… the list goes on. “For a while I had him working on it. But at some point you have to make some decisions about how to go forward, and I made the decision to go forward without him in my life for my own peace of mind.”
Buzbee thinks about this. He’s been making an inventory of his life, all this stuff he’s acquired and surrounded himself with. The Second World War-era tank that used to be parked in the forecourt. The 40 cars he collected over the years. “I’m getting rid of them slowly. I didn’t care about them. I didn’t drive them, and when I did I didn’t enjoy them. So I finally had to ask myself, why have them? We have the worst streets here in Houston.”
For a wedding present, he bought her a farm.
‘When you run for mayor, half the people hate you and half the people like you’
Buzbee collects presidential memorabilia. On the desk there is a wine decanter that once belonged to George Washington, a tobacco holder that belonged to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Elsewhere in the house, there is a framed piece of the original Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired the US national anthem, and a framed doodle drawn by John F Kennedy on stationery from the Rice Hotel in Houston, where Kennedy stopped the day before he was assassinated in Dallas. The rocking chair he sat in is upstairs.
There was a time when Buzbee had political ambitions of his own. He was chairman of the Democratic Committee in Galveston, but gave it up citing pressure of work and the responsibilities of having a young family.
In 2019 he ran for mayor of Houston, and lost. “When you run for mayor, half the people hate you and half the people like you,” he says. In 2016 he hosted a fundraiser for Donald Trump at his home, raising $500,000 for Trump’s first run at the presidency. “And that automatically gets you 40 per cent of the people who hate you and think you’re the anti-Christ.’
The idea of hosting Trump, he says, was “just a novelty”. Trump had just finished the last series of The Apprentice. “I thought that was a cool show. I was asked, would you give this fundraiser; nobody else would do it in this area, so I said I’ll do it.” He was single at the time. “They said, bonus – Ivanka’s coming! I thought, ‘Let’s go!’” He laughs. “And she didn’t turn up.”
Trump, he says, was “not what I expected. My mother came and we sat in the kitchen and he signed autographs for the kids.”
There were some 40 people in his house, waiting to meet Trump and 700 more in the backyard. “That’s how it is in America; you pay a little more and you get a picture.” Trump was supposed to give a 10-minute speech indoors, then give his main speech outside, with those inside joining to hear it.
“Well nobody told him that apparently. So he gave his typical 45-minute speech, off the cuff, just rambling. He thought he was finished, so I went and tugged on his arm and said, Mr Trump there’s 700 more people waiting in the backyard. So he went out and gave exactly the same damn speech.” He laughs.
I asked why he ran for mayor.
“It was probably to assuage my inner child.” Buzbee often jokes in conversation, but he’s being serious. “If you want the honest answer, that’s probably it. I can go deeper if you want. To get the external validation I didn’t get as a child. That’s probably the truth after many years of reflection on it, because I’ve asked myself, why did I do that?
“I spent $13 million doing it. Obviously I had a lot of ideas. I care about the city and the place where I live. I know how the city works and how it should work. I had a lot of people backing me who had great ideas…”
Tony Buzbee in 2014, when he was on the team that would be handling tackle two felony indictments against Texas governor Rick Perry Credit: Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images
And you wanted the power? “No, it was a lot of things. If you look closely at your life, you’re probably dealing with things that happened in your past.
“Not to get too psychological, but why do I have personalised licence plates? Why do I live on the richest street in town? I’m in a fishbowl. There’s no privacy here.”
It’s become a tradition at Christmas time for every house to be decked out with spectacular decorations – Buzbee’s is no exception – and the streets are thronged with thousands of people from all over town coming to look.
He pulls on his cigar. He’s been doing a lot of soul searching over the last few months, he says. pondering on all this – his upbringing, his success – man’s search for meaning, as Viktor Frankl would put it.
Therapy?
“I’m doing my own analysis and therapy all the time. Adaptive behaviours that become maladaptive in adulthood, extreme self-reliance… probably not the best trait to have if you’re trying to have connection and vulnerability with people. I rarely show any vulnerability, I rarely express emotions other than anger. Anger has fuelled my career for 30 years.”
That shark tattoo, I say – it’s definitely saying something…
He pulls up his sleeve to show me. There is another on his arm in Latin script, “bellum omnium contra omnes”. It’s from Thomas Hobbes, he says. “War against everyone. I always used to say, whether it’s philosophical or otherwise, we’re always at war.
“I created this aura of, we’re going to kick your ass and here we come – that in-your-face kind of thing. There was a lot of thinking and calculation that went into that. But now I’m trying to figure out, why am I doing that?
“Running from something. Running to something. Running… Having a chip on your shoulder only goes so far. Are you going to have that till you’re 90? I hope not. My dad still does. He’s never been able to process it, work it out. He was always angry about something.”
But he must be proud of you, I say.
“I would assume, but it’s not something I’ve discussed with him. I don’t think I’ve seen him since I told him I was going to slap the s–t out of him, probably seven or eight years ago, and told him to get off my property.”
‘It’s important to the clients, it’s important to me and I’ll put on a good show’
Buzbee has a 7,000 acre ranch in north Texas, where he keeps a menagerie of animals including horses, llamas, zebra, wildebeest, water buffalo… the list goes on. “For a while I had him working on it. But at some point you have to make some decisions about how to go forward, and I made the decision to go forward without him in my life for my own peace of mind.”
Buzbee thinks about this. He’s been making an inventory of his life, all this stuff he’s acquired and surrounded himself with. The Second World War-era tank that used to be parked in the forecourt. The 40 cars he collected over the years. “I’m getting rid of them slowly. I didn’t care about them. I didn’t drive them, and when I did I didn’t enjoy them. So I finally had to ask myself, why have them? We have the worst streets here in Houston.”
