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00:00Donald Trump is a street fighter.
00:05Donald Trump learned a crucial lesson as a child.
00:08Do whatever you have to do. You say whatever you have to say. Winning is everything.
00:13Donald Trump is a major dealmaker,
00:15and he has made his money mainly from Manhattan real estate.
00:18Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
00:20His name is his power.
00:21He realized what Americans really loved was celebrity.
00:24If you were a celebrity, everything was possible.
00:27You're fired.
00:27You're fired.
00:28You're fired.
00:28And if people mocked him,
00:30Donald Trump is here tonight.
00:32He certainly would bring some change to the White House.
00:36He should fight back.
00:37I am officially running for president of the United States.
00:42Here comes the war of the Trumps.
00:44It was war, and they were determined to win it.
00:46You don't know what he's going to do next.
00:48You don't know what's going to happen to him next.
00:51This isn't another video about Donald Trump's time as president.
00:54There are hundreds of those.
00:56Over the years, I've surprised a lot of people.
00:58The biggest surprise is yet to come.
01:00This is the story of how Donald became Trump.
01:08Of all the men who've influenced Donald Trump,
01:10none have had a bigger influence than his father.
01:13Fred Trump was born in the Bronx to German immigrants Frederick and Elizabeth.
01:17After he finished high school, he took a job as a carpenter's assistant.
01:20He liked the work, but he wanted to be the boss.
01:23So when he turned 21, Fred incorporated a company, E. Trump & Son,
01:27named for his mother, who started the company before Fred was old enough to run it.
01:32During the Depression, Fred almost went out of business.
01:35But before he did, he got his big break.
01:37Fred built one of New York City's first modern self-serve supermarkets
01:41and sold it for a profit.
01:43He and his business partner used the profits to buy a subsidiary
01:46of a bankrupt real estate company for pennies on the dollar.
01:49That subsidiary gave them easy access
01:52to a bunch of properties that were nearing foreclosure.
01:54Fred bought them low, sold them high,
01:56and made enough money to turn E. Trump & Son
01:59into one of New York's biggest real estate companies.
02:02He passed his success on to his children.
02:05Donald and his siblings grew up in a house that had 23 rooms,
02:09and the family chauffeur drove them to school every morning.
02:13Fred also passed on his ruthless streak.
02:15Throughout Donald's childhood, his father always gave him the same advice.
02:19Work hard, don't be weak, be a killer.
02:22Donald took it to heart.
02:24He bullied his classmates.
02:25He even bullied his younger brother.
02:27One day, he threw an eraser at his teacher.
02:30Fred immediately took action and sent Donald to a military boarding school upstate.
02:35It was a tough, competitive environment.
02:37But surprisingly, for a rich kid, Donald thrived.
02:40He excelled at several sports and was named captain his senior year.
02:44In the yearbook, he was named ladies' man.
02:47Years later, Donald would credit his time at boarding school
02:50with teaching him the discipline he needed to succeed in business and politics.
02:53But he knew that discipline by itself wasn't enough.
02:56So he went to college, two years at Fordham University,
02:59before a transfer to the University of Pennsylvania's business school.
03:02After graduating in 1968, Donald Trump joined his father's company.
03:07The first few years weren't glamorous.
03:09Donald and Fred had to roll up their sleeves and turn around some housing projects
03:13which were losing money.
03:14For Donald, it was an early lesson.
03:16Just because he'd been given lots of advantages, he still needed to work for his success.
03:21After a three-year apprenticeship, Donald became president of the company.
03:24The torch had been passed from father to son.
03:26One of his first moves was to rebrand.
03:29E. Trump & Sons sounded stale and old-fashioned.
03:32A modern real estate business led by a dynamic young entrepreneur
03:36needed a glamorous name.
03:38So Trump rebranded it to the Trump Organization.
03:41It was an early step in the evolution from Donald to Trump.
03:52Trump moved into an Upper East Side apartment
03:55and started going to some of Manhattan's elite nightclubs,
03:58usually with a beautiful woman on his arm.
04:00It didn't look like it to most people, but Trump was working.
04:03He was marketing his most important commodity, himself.
04:07It was right around this time that he made his debut
04:10in another high-profile local institution, the New York Times.
04:15The Times embodied the elite establishment that, decades later,
04:19Trump would build a political career upon opposing.
04:22But in the early 1970s, he was anxious for their attention and approval.
04:26The first time the New York Times mentioned Donald Trump,
04:29it wasn't for a good reason.
04:30The headline said it all,
04:32Major Landlord Accused of Anti-Black Bias in City.
04:36The story concerned a Department of Justice lawsuit
04:39filed against Donald Trump and his father,
04:41which alleged that the Trump Organization
04:42discriminated against African Americans.
04:45Even for someone who believed all publicity was good publicity,
04:48it was tough reading.
04:50Most of the lawyers Trump talked to urged him to settle,
04:52but that just wasn't who he was.
04:57Trump met Roy Cohn at a swanky Manhattan nightclub in the early 1970s.
05:02Trump was complaining to anyone who'd listen
05:04that he couldn't find a lawyer
05:05who believed he could win the discrimination lawsuit.
05:08Cohn offered his services.
05:10He filed a $100 million counter suit against the Department of Justice.
05:14Although it was unsuccessful,
05:16the final settlement ultimately allowed the Trump Organization
05:19to get away without admitting any wrongdoing.
05:21It was a win for Trump
05:23and a lesson he'd carry with him for the rest of his life.
05:26Never admit your mistakes.
05:28Roy Cohn was Donald Trump's lawyer for 15 years.
05:32This is a picture of Donald and me in which he says,
05:36Roy is my greatest friend.
05:41Trump soon set his sights on something that could make his career.
05:44The old Penn Central Railroad had gone broke a few years earlier
05:47and left behind three prime real estate assets,
05:50the Commodore Hotel and two rail yards on New York's West Side.
05:54The rail yards were the largest undeveloped tracts of land left in Manhattan.
05:57If Trump could get his hands on those assets,
06:00he'd prove to everyone, including his father,
06:02that he could succeed as a developer in his own right.
06:05He knew that if he played his cards right, he had a chance.
06:08He wined and dined the development agency's lead official.
06:11He held press conferences where he outlined his vision for the site.
06:15And thanks to his father's political connections,
06:17he met face-to-face with the mayor.
06:19After pulling strings for weeks,
06:21Trump got what he wanted, the right to develop the sites.
06:25Trump turned the Commodore into the Grand Hyatt.
06:28The Grand Hyatt held its grand opening today.
06:30Probably the most successful hotel, one of them, in the country, we feel.
06:33He knew that just winning the development rights wasn't enough.
06:36It wasn't going to silence his critics,
06:38who said he was only in that position because of his father's money and connections.
06:42And it wasn't enough to satisfy his own ambitions.
06:44If he truly wanted to be the king of New York real estate, he had to build.
06:48And not just anything, something big.
06:50So Trump swung for the fences.
06:52He promised to build 20,000 apartments on the site,
06:56more than his father had built in his entire career.
06:59All along from 72nd all the way down to 59th,
07:02we're going to have magnificent marinas, shopping, restaurants,
07:05everything all over the Hudson River.
07:08The local community hated the idea.
07:10They thought the proposal just didn't fit with the character of the neighborhood.
07:14And they were politically influential enough to block the development.
07:17Trump raged.
07:19But there wasn't much he could do.
07:21Full-scale attack wouldn't work.
07:22The situation required deft diplomacy that Trump just didn't have in his toolkit.
07:27So when the option came up in 1979, he had no choice but to let it lapse.
07:32It was the biggest and most bitter disappointment of his career to date.
07:36But in Trump's mind, defeat was only ever temporary.
07:39So he made a vow that next time he wouldn't let it slip out of his grasp.
07:43In the meantime, he had other things occupying his mind.
07:46Ivana Marie Zelnikova was a tall, striking blonde with an exotic backstory.
07:51A competitive skier and child actor, she married a childhood friend
07:55so she could use his Austrian citizenship to escape the Eastern Bloc.
07:59After they divorced, she moved to Canada, where she met Trump.
08:02A few months after they started dating,
08:04they got married at a church on 5th Avenue on April 9th, 1977.
08:09Their first son, Don Jr., was also married to Ivana.
08:13Their first son, Don Jr., was born about nine months later.
08:175th Avenue wasn't just home to the church where Donald Trump got married.
08:21He also wanted it to be the new headquarters of the Trump Organization.
08:24Trump had dreamed of building a tower on 5th Avenue since he was a kid.
08:28To him, it represented the peak of glamour and power.
08:31The site he wanted was occupied by a luxury department store.
08:35In order to press his case, he kept calling and calling the parent company
08:38asking if they were interested in selling the site.
08:41They thought he was joking.
08:43But he was serious, and he wasn't going to give up.
08:46Finally, after a couple years, the parent company's new chairman,
08:49who was looking to pay down some debts, said yes.
08:51Bonwits is being sold to Donald Trump.
08:54Trump secured the site, but that was only half the battle.
08:57He still had to persuade the approval committee,
08:59which was made up of the same sorts of people
09:01who'd blocked his plans for the rail yards just a couple years earlier.
09:05Trump needed a different approach.
09:07So this time, instead of aggression, he pointed to the fact
09:10that reputable architects liked his plan design.
09:13Not everyone was persuaded.
09:15The media class hated it.
09:18The construction of Trump Tower marked another big step
09:20in the journey from Donald to Trump.
09:22This is the greatest skyline in the world,
09:24so this is a great addition to your skyline.
09:26The completion of the tallest concrete building.
09:30And it marked the beginning of what would prove to be a highly successful decade.
09:34Hello, welcome to the 80s.
09:36Ronald Reagan, the next president of the United States.
09:39Introducing McIntosh.
09:41We have a new formula for Coke.
09:44That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life.
09:48I die on the process.
09:49Take the Gorbachev off the board.
09:51The murder of John Lennon,
09:53one of the most influential people of his time.
09:56Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
10:02The 1980s were tailor-made for Donald Trump.
10:05Greed was good, and Ronald Reagan proved
10:07you didn't need to be a career politician to become president.
10:10Only in the 1980s could Trump go from being a real estate developer
10:14to a national celebrity who bridged the worlds
10:16of finance, entertainment, and politics.
10:19Boy, there's a lot of coverage in that.
10:22The newspapers and magazines which had made fun of him
10:25were forced to cover his rise.
10:27He became a frequent guest on talk shows
10:29whose hosts liked his charisma
10:31and his willingness to talk about all sorts of topics.
10:34Opening a casino added to Trump's opulent glamour.
10:38To many Americans, Trump, who had a tower with his name on it
10:41and a glamorous European wife,
10:43embodied the 1980s hyper-capitalist version of the American dream.
10:47You'll walk down the street sometimes
10:49and people will touch you just for the good luck.
10:52It's a strange phenomena that's been taking place.
10:54But even though he had almost everything anyone could ever want,
10:58there was still one thing Trump wanted,
11:00but didn't have.
11:02The West Side Rail Yard.
11:07After Trump was forced to give up the option
11:09half a decade earlier,
11:11it had been taken over by a friend of his father's,
11:13a man named Abe Hirshfield.
11:15Although the redevelopment plan was approved,
11:17Hirshfield couldn't finance the project.
11:20It was partly because he had made too many concessions
11:22to the local government.
11:23But mainly, it was because Donald Trump
11:25was working hard behind the scenes
11:26to make sure he didn't get the money he needed.
11:28When Hirshfield eventually walked away in frustration,
11:31Trump bought the development rights
11:33and a second chance to move out of his father's shadow
11:35once and for all.
11:36The week before Thanksgiving in 1985,
11:38he announced his plans.
11:40The site would house nearly 8,000 apartments and condos
11:43and about 600 football fields worth
11:46of TV and movie studio space.
11:48Trump wanted to call it Television City.
11:52Donald Trump would like NBC to move to this site
11:55on the West Side of Manhattan.
11:56Why is it so important that NBC stay in New York?
12:00Thousands of jobs,
12:02hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes,
12:04and perhaps almost as importantly
12:06and maybe more importantly,
12:08NBC has a name, an image, a prestige
12:11that you really just don't get with another company.
12:14Once again, the local community stood in his way.
12:16But Trump soon realized
12:18that his most formidable opponent
12:20wouldn't be local residents.
12:22It was the mayor.
12:23Ed Koch was Trump's mere image.
12:25Each man wanted the same thing.
12:27They wanted New York City
12:28to be the greatest city in the world,
12:30and they wanted to be the main character.
12:32But they went about it in very different ways.
12:34Koch was a Democrat who described himself
12:36as a liberal with sanity.
12:38He despised the way Trump constantly tried
12:40to strong arm the state
12:41into giving him tax breaks
12:42while turning the city into a playground
12:44for the ultra rich.
12:45But he was growing increasingly dependent
12:47on the tax revenues that Trump
12:49and other rich developers brought in.
12:51Trump, meanwhile, hated anyone who stood in his way.
12:55I hope that New York City
12:56has a different mayor at some point
12:57because I think Ed Koch is a total disaster.
12:59He's been a very bad mayor for the city.
13:01The two men had already fought a long battle
13:03over the tax status of Trump Tower.
13:05Television City was the next battlefront.
13:08How have you the chutzpah
13:10to say that this government
13:13has been anti-development?
13:15That's an outrageous comment on your part,
13:17and I can prove that you're wrong.
13:20Koch refused to give Trump
13:21the tax breaks he wanted.
13:23I would say he's got no talent
13:25and only moderate intelligence.
13:27If I've done anything,
13:28I've gotten NBC focused on
13:32by the city of New York,
13:33and I think that's very important.
13:34I think it's vital.
13:35Trump again found himself
13:37in the uncomfortable position
13:38of being powerless.
13:40He couldn't overcome the combined resistance
13:42of Ed Koch and the community activists.
13:44The dream of Television City was dead,
13:47and the rail yard site
13:48remained frustratingly out of reach,
13:50at least for now.
13:51Trump turned his frustration into speculation.
13:54He bought a fleet of planes
13:55from a bankrupt airline
13:57and started his own airline,
13:58Trump Shuttle.
13:59I never thought I'd be doing this,
14:01I have to tell you.
14:02So just everybody have a good time,
14:04and for many years,
14:05enjoy the Trump Shuttle.
14:06He plowed money into expanding
14:08his casinos in Atlantic City,
14:09but in hindsight,
14:10the most important thing he did
14:12was release a book.
14:13The Art of the Deal was about
14:14Trump's life, career,
14:16and business strategy.
14:17It was a big success,
14:19and it was his gateway
14:20to what would become his future career.
14:26If you lost your fortune today,
14:28what would you do tomorrow?
14:29Maybe I'd run for president.
14:3130 years before he ran for president,
14:34Donald Trump was talking
14:35about the same issues.
14:36The United States is systematically
14:38being ripped off
14:39by many of the wealthiest
14:41countries of the world.
14:43The fact is that the world
14:44is ripping off this country,
14:45Germany is ripping us off big league,
14:47Saudi Arabia is ripping us off big league.
14:49Everybody's taking advantage
14:51of the United States.
14:51We're defending Japan,
14:53and the Japanese folks,
14:54who I respect greatly,
14:55but they're not treating us fairly.
14:58Trump didn't just talk about
14:59politics on TV.
15:01He spent nearly $100,000
15:03on a full-page ad
15:04where he criticized
15:05U.S. foreign policy.
15:07I find those ads ridiculous.
15:10He spent $100,000
15:12for self-advertisements.
15:14Who's really interested
15:15in his foreign policy?
15:16Anybody?
15:17Maybe Mrs. Trump.
15:21Trump's politics were shaped
15:22by his fear of weakness
15:24and by the zero-sum environment
15:25of Manhattan real estate.
15:26We're going to have a war
15:27through weakness
15:28because this country
15:29is acting so weak to what Iran.
15:30It's pathetic.
15:31In real estate,
15:32at least the kind of real estate
15:33that excited Trump,
15:34there was no such thing
15:35as a permanent ally
15:36or a win-win situation.
15:38Everything was temporary
15:39and transactional.
15:40Foreign affairs worked differently.
15:43After the success
15:43of the art of the deal
15:45and the positive reaction
15:46from some quarters
15:47to his political statements,
15:48Trump realized the public
15:50wanted to hear
15:50what he had to say,
15:52even about issues
15:53outside his wheelhouse.
15:55You have said that
15:55if you ran for president,
15:57you'd win.
15:58I think I'd have a very good chance.
15:59I mean, I like to win.
16:00When I do something,
16:00I like to win.
16:01I like to do well,
16:02and I think I probably
16:03would have a pretty good chance.
16:05Trump enjoyed moonlighting
16:06as a political commentator,
16:07but events would soon drag him back
16:09to his core business.
16:13A pair of Forbes journalists
16:14were sent a leaked copy
16:16of a financial disclosure statement
16:17that Trump had to file
16:18with New Jersey's
16:19Casino Control Commission.
16:21The report revealed something
16:23which no amount of bluffing could hide.
16:25Donald Trump was drowning in debt.
16:27He fought hard to keep the story
16:28from being published,
16:30but it went to print
16:31with just one last-minute edit.
16:33His net worth was bumped up
16:35from zero to $500 million.
16:37By now, being seen as rich and successful
16:39was an important part
16:40of Trump's business strategy.
16:42So the accusation that he wasn't actually
16:44as rich as he claimed to be
16:45was a big blow,
16:46especially when it was made
16:48by a media that was itching
16:49to bring him down a peg.
16:50There's no reason to expose yourself
16:52to millions of people.
16:53But you know why you do it?
16:54Why?
16:55You love the publicity.
16:56Oh, I hate the publicity.
16:57Oh, come on, get out of here.
16:59I'm telling you, I hate the publicity.
17:00Oh, please.
17:01The revelation that Trump
17:03and his businesses
17:03were struggling financially
17:05marked the end of peak Trump
17:06and the beginning of the hardest period
17:08of his entire career.
17:10If the 1980s were the boom,
17:12then the 1990s were the crash.
17:14So what happened?
17:17It was a combination of both
17:18the micro and the macro.
17:20The micro was, well,
17:21that he was Donald Trump.
17:22He didn't pursue what you'd call
17:24a disciplined personal investment strategy.
17:27Instead, he leveraged against
17:28what was becoming his biggest asset,
17:30his personal brand.
17:31But brands can lose their appeal.
17:35The macro was slightly more complicated.
17:37When Trump began his career,
17:38New York City was experiencing
17:40a major economic and social crisis.
17:42He took advantage of historically
17:44low property prices
17:45and frankly, a government
17:46that was desperate for extra revenue.
17:48When the economy rebounded,
17:50his fortune grew rapidly.
17:52His entry into the casino business
17:54followed a similar pattern.
17:55He got in soon after New Jersey
17:57legitimized casino gambling.
17:59Most of Trump's acquisitions
18:00were funded by debt,
18:01and that wasn't necessarily a problem
18:03so long as the economy stayed strong.
18:05But that's not what happened.
18:07Right at the beginning of the 1990s,
18:08the US economy slipped into recession.
18:11Trump's businesses were all dependent
18:12on high levels of consumer spending.
18:14When the economy slowed down,
18:16they stopped spending money
18:17and Trump started hemorrhaging cash.
18:19At one point, Trump was more
18:21than $3 billion in debt.
18:22In exchange for an emergency loan
18:24that kept the Trump organization afloat,
18:26Trump had to sell his yacht,
18:27airline and part of the Grand Hyatt,
18:29one of his first ever real estate projects.
18:32His three casinos declared bankruptcy.
18:34He was even put on an allowance.
18:36Trump's high profile problems
18:38weren't limited to his career either.
18:40His marriage was collapsing.
18:41Trump had started an affair
18:42with an aspiring actress, Marla Maples.
18:45The affair was splashed
18:46across tabloid headlines
18:47in full view of the public,
18:49Ivana and the couple's three children,
18:51Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka.
19:00When they divorced in 1991,
19:01Ivana got $14 million,
19:03the 45-room Connecticut mansion
19:05and an apartment in Trump Plaza.
19:07Trump's critics greeted his downfall
19:09with shadden fraud.
19:10To them, his problems proved
19:12that the image he portrayed
19:13of being a self-made man
19:14who won by taking bigger risks
19:16than anyone else was fake.
19:18Instead, he only got to where he was
19:20because he received the sort of help
19:21other people didn't have access to,
19:23generous tax breaks from the government
19:25and millions of dollars worth of gifts
19:26and low interest loans from his father.
19:28Trump took big risks
19:30because he knew he had a safety net
19:32and it was those risky high profile investments
19:34that had created the Trump legend.
19:36Just when it looked like Trump
19:37had hit rock bottom,
19:38he was forced to finally admit defeat
19:40on the project he'd been chasing for years,
19:43the West Side Rail Yards.
19:44The community activists
19:46he'd fought for so long
19:47drew strength from Trump's struggles.
19:49They developed their own plans
19:51for the 76-acre lot.
19:52Once he'd accepted the proposal
19:54brought by the local activists,
19:55all the political opposition he'd been facing
19:57suddenly melted away.
19:59He eventually sold the development rights
20:00to a consortium of businessmen from Hong Kong.
20:03It saved him from the ultimate indignity,
20:05filing for personal bankruptcy.
20:06And it marked the beginning
20:07of one of the most famous
20:08and controversial comebacks in history.
20:14The turmoil that destroyed Donald Trump's marriage
20:16and almost destroyed his career
20:17was a major inflection point in his life.
20:20From now on,
20:20he wasn't going to be the biggest developer
20:22in New York City.
20:23He had to become something else.
20:25But if Trump was going to reinvent himself,
20:27first he needed a comeback.
20:28Comebacks are a key part of Trump's psychology.
20:31They're his way of telling himself
20:33and the whole world
20:34that even though it looked like he might be losing,
20:36he actually just wasn't winning yet.
20:39And comebacks are the transition
20:40from the about to be winning state
20:42to the winning state.
20:43The other thing to know about a Trump comeback
20:45is that the facts come second to the story.
20:48That's not to say the comeback wasn't real.
20:50It was.
20:50Trump made a good deal
20:51when he sold the development rights
20:53to the Westside Railyard site.
20:54Taking the Trump Plaza Casino public
20:56on the New York Stock Exchange
20:57helped him solve his immediate cashflow problems.
21:00And convincing the banks
21:01that they didn't want to get involved
21:03in the casino business
21:04took a lot of courage and instinct.
21:06All up, Trump went from a net worth
21:08of negative $900 million
21:10to positive $700 million in five years.
21:13But he was never content
21:14to let the numbers speak for themselves.
21:16In word and deed,
21:17he told America that he was back.
21:20He started splashing out on high-profile assets
21:22like the Miss Universe, Miss USA,
21:24and Miss Teen USA pageants,
21:26as well as a 70-story office building
21:29at 40 Wall Street,
21:30which he renamed the Trump Building.
21:32He released The Art of the Comeback,
21:34a book-length announcement that he was back
21:37and that he remembered the names
21:38of everyone who deserted him in tough times.
21:40Telling everyone that he was back
21:41generated business opportunities,
21:43positive media stories,
21:44and a sense of momentum
21:45that was impossible to resist.
21:47Mr. Trump here wrote The Art of the Deal.
21:49Then he wrote a new bestseller,
21:50The Art of the Comeback.
21:51Two books.
21:53Wow.
21:53It was genius,
21:55and it taught Trump a lesson.
21:56People love a comeback story.
21:58He filed it away for future reference.
22:01Over the years,
22:02I've surprised a lot of people.
22:04The biggest surprise is yet to come.
22:08Now that he had a comeback story to sell,
22:10Trump became curious about another
22:11potential run for the presidency.
22:13A political consultant he'd started working with
22:15by the name of Roger Stone
22:16commissioned some polling.
22:18More than three-quarters of respondents
22:20said they'd never vote for him.
22:22But despite that,
22:23there was good raw material to work with.
22:25He was one of the most famous people in America.
22:27Just 17% of respondents,
22:29basically one in six,
22:30had no opinion about Trump.
22:32And people loved his story.
22:33They saw a successful businessman
22:35who embodied the American dream.
22:37They saw him as someone who got things done.
22:40I sort of love and hate him at the same time.
22:42I mean, I think he has, you know,
22:43a monumental ego.
22:45He comes off as being very, uh,
22:47what's the word I'm looking for?
22:49Arrogant?
22:50Yeah, he's arrogant.
22:52I like him.
22:53He's got it made.
22:54He's got everything.
22:55Perhaps the most interesting result
22:57was that more people,
22:58about a quarter of all respondents,
23:00saw Trump as liberal,
23:02more than the share of people
23:03that saw him as a conservative.
23:05Trump's political identity
23:06had long been a mystery,
23:07perhaps even to himself.
23:09He was a rich guy at a time
23:10when being rich almost automatically
23:12meant being Republican.
23:13But his social life,
23:14the parties, the girlfriends,
23:16the tabloid stories
23:17made him seem more like a Democrat.
23:19Remember, this was a time
23:20when the Democratic president
23:21happened to be a well-known womanizer.
23:24I did not have sexual relations
23:27with that woman.
23:28The results bolstered Trump's belief
23:30that if he put his mind to it,
23:31he could be president.
23:33They say a job like president
23:34requires a big ego.
23:36How do you think?
23:39You think you can handle it?
23:40I'm not sure my ego is big enough.
23:42That's one of the things which I can do.
23:43Really? Can I write that down?
23:45You can write it.
23:46But before he could make any decisions
23:48about what to do next,
23:49tragedy struck.
23:53In June of 1999,
23:55his father, Fred Trump, died.
23:57He'd been suffering from dementia for years,
23:59and when he contracted pneumonia,
24:01he couldn't fight it off.
24:02Privately, Donald was heartbroken,
24:05but publicly,
24:05he used the occasion to reminisce
24:07about his favorite subject,
24:09He began his eulogy to his father
24:11by saying that it was the toughest day
24:13of his own life.
24:14It was ironic, he said,
24:15to have learned of his death
24:16right after reading a New York Times story,
24:18front page,
24:19about one of his own successful developments.
24:22Marla Maples didn't attend
24:23Fred Trump's funeral.
24:25Her and Donald had divorced
24:2717 days before his death.
24:29Instead, Trump was accompanied
24:31by Melania Nauss,
24:32a Slovenian model
24:33who he'd been dating
24:34since the previous year.
24:36How did you two meet?
24:38We met in New York, 1998.
24:41Did you like him right away?
24:42It was a great chemistry and energy.
24:45After the funeral
24:46and a drawn-out fight
24:47over his father's will,
24:48Trump turned his focus
24:50back to the question
24:50he'd been mulling over
24:52since before his father's death.
24:53Should he run for president?
24:57This time,
24:57he'd come closer than ever before.
25:00But it wouldn't be as a Republican
25:01or a Democrat.
25:02Instead, he almost ran for the party
25:04that, out of nowhere,
25:06had emerged as a real force
25:07in American politics.
25:08Before Donald Trump,
25:09there was another successful businessman
25:11who'd made a massive impact
25:13on U.S. politics.
25:14His name was Ross Perot,
25:16the founder of a successful data company
25:18Perot ran for president
25:19in 1992 and 1996.
25:22Do you want a government
25:23that comes at you from Washington
25:25or do you want a government
25:27that comes from you?
25:31Who do the people in Washington work for?
25:36Who pays their salaries?
25:40I want to be your president.
25:45Although he didn't win
25:46a single electoral vote either time,
25:48he introduced Americans
25:50to a new kind of politics.
25:51His views didn't fit neatly
25:53into either the Republican
25:54or Democrat columns.
25:56He was skeptical about free trade
25:58at a time when both major parties
26:00supported it.
26:01And he supported a balanced federal budget
26:03while also wanting to raise taxes
26:05on the wealthy.
26:06Lots of people,
26:07especially those who didn't support him,
26:08called Perot a populist.
26:10Whatever he was,
26:12he struck a chord with voters.
26:13Perot won almost 18%
26:15of the popular vote
26:16running as an independent
26:17in the 1992 election,
26:18the highest share won
26:19by a third-party candidate for 80 years.
26:22Four years later,
26:23he won 8% of the vote
26:24as the Reform Party candidate.
26:26From his penthouse,
26:27Donald Trump was watching closely.
26:29A successful CEO
26:30with experience running a big company
26:32had just shaken up American politics.
26:34Perot demonstrated
26:35that there were votes
26:36in challenging the consensus
26:37on mainstream issues like free trade.
26:39And besides,
26:40Trump had way more name recognition.
26:42If he ran,
26:43why couldn't he win?
26:44Acting on the advice
26:45of his friend Jesse Ventura,
26:47a former professional wrestler
26:48who'd been elected governor of Minnesota,
26:51Trump joined the Reform Party.
26:53He formed an exploratory committee,
26:55went on talk shows,
26:56took a high-profile campaign swing
26:58to California,
26:59and vowed to spend $100 million
27:01to win not just the Reform Party nomination,
27:04but the presidency.
27:05He rushed out a book
27:06outlining his policy proposals.
27:08He even talked about having Oprah
27:10as his running mate.
27:11Trump won the Reform Party's
27:13California primary.
27:15It looked like he'd win
27:16the entire nomination.
27:17He could have been up on stage
27:18with George W. Bush and Al Gore,
27:20two guys who weren't exactly known
27:22for their charisma.
27:24And then,
27:24just as quickly as he entered the race,
27:26Trump dropped out.
27:28I'm not going to be running.
27:29The party is,
27:30as you know,
27:30self-destructing.
27:31The Reform Party was being consumed
27:33by infighting.
27:34Trump believed it wasn't in a position
27:36to give him the support he needed.
27:38But that was a smokescreen.
27:39Even after the Reform Party collapsed,
27:41he could have just run
27:42as a self-funded independent.
27:44Trump didn't run in 2000
27:45because he knew that if he ran
27:47and didn't win,
27:48he'd look like a loser.
27:49That was his biggest nightmare.
27:51I would run if I thought I could win.
27:53And in order to win...
27:54Not only the nomination,
27:55but the presidency.
27:56The whole thing.
27:56I don't want to get 20% of the vote.
27:58And I think I could.
27:59And I know I could get the nomination.
28:00But I always said,
28:02and I said to you,
28:02if I could win the whole thing,
28:03you could only win the whole thing
28:04with a totally unified party.
28:06But Trump didn't close the door
28:08on a future run.
28:09When asked by a reporter
28:10if he'd consider running again,
28:12for real,
28:13he said he'd consider it
28:14in a few years.
28:15It's a real possibility.
28:16We're back to the flirtation here.
28:18Well, I always flirt.
28:24Six months after the 9-11 terror attacks,
28:27a man named Mark Burnett
28:28came to see Donald Trump with an idea.
28:30He'd just finished producing
28:31a popular primetime TV show
28:34and he wanted to remake it.
28:35Only this time,
28:36instead of being set in the jungle,
28:38it would be set in the boardroom.
28:39And he was wondering
28:40if Donald Trump would be interested
28:42in being one of the hosts.
28:43Trump thought it over for a while
28:45before agreeing.
28:46A couple of years later,
28:47the debut episode of The Apprentice
28:49went to air.
28:50New York, my city,
28:53where the wheels of the global economy
28:55never stop turning.
28:56More than 20 million people
28:57tuned in on average every week
28:59to see contestants face off
29:00in various business-related challenges.
29:03But the real star was Donald Trump.
29:05NBC quickly shelved plans
29:06to have rotating hosts
29:08and built the entire show around him.
29:10In the intro to the very first episode,
29:12Trump invoked his comeback
29:13of a few years earlier.
29:15I was seriously in trouble.
29:16I was billions of dollars in debt.
29:19But I fought back and I won.
29:21Big league.
29:22And as the master,
29:23I want to pass along my knowledge
29:24to somebody else.
29:26I'm looking for The Apprentice.
29:29The Apprentice was one of the best things
29:31that ever happened to him.
29:33Over the 14 seasons he was host,
29:35Trump made close to half a billion dollars
29:37from his salary, licensing,
29:39and other residuals.
29:41And it did wonders for his reputation.
29:43By the 2000s,
29:44real estate had been overtaken
29:45in the cool stakes
29:46by industries like tech.
29:47Trump, by virtue of his personality,
29:49was partly immune to that effect.
29:51But by beaming him into millions of homes
29:54every week,
29:54Trump was also reminding people
29:56that he was a successful businessman
29:58with a lifestyle worth emulating.
30:00The Apprentice was a major step
30:01in the transformation of Trump
30:03from being primarily a real estate developer
30:05to being someone whose main business
30:07was selling his own name.
30:09You seize opportunity.
30:11You get a hit TV show
30:14and the show wasn't even on that long
30:15and you're thinking,
30:16fragrance,
30:17board game,
30:18books,
30:19suits,
30:20and you get all that out there.
30:21I've been on the air for
30:2211 coming up on 12 years,
30:24not one product.
30:26Most of these products failed.
30:28Some after a few years,
30:29others almost immediately,
30:31but that was almost beside the point.
30:33They were all possible
30:34because of the success of The Apprentice.
30:38It was 2009
30:39and Trump was about to release
30:40his latest book,
30:41Think Like a Champion.
30:43The U.S. was facing major upheaval
30:45on two fronts.
30:46The collapse of the investment bank
30:47Lehman Brothers triggered
30:48a wholesale financial meltdown
30:50and recession.
30:51And just months after,
30:52the country elected
30:53its first ever non-white president.
30:55The combination of those two seismic events
30:57was fundamentally altering
30:58the country's politics.
31:00For Donald Trump,
31:01who by now was a Republican again,
31:03this transformation looked like bad news.
31:05In 2010,
31:06he was introduced to the director
31:08of a documentary
31:09about the financial crisis.
31:10His name was Steve Bannon.
31:12Bannon was a microcosm
31:13of the evolution of conservative politics.
31:16He'd been an investment banker
31:17for Goldman Sachs.
31:18From there,
31:19he pivoted into media
31:20where he ended up becoming
31:21the executive chairman
31:22of Breitbart News,
31:24a bomb-throwing,
31:25right-wing news organization.
31:27At Trump's luxury penthouse apartment
31:29atop the tower that bore his name,
31:30the two men talked about
31:32how China was ripping off
31:33the United States.
31:34It was just like Trump's old diatribes
31:36against Japan,
31:37updated for a new age
31:38and a new rival.
31:39In the United States,
31:40a majority of Americans
31:42say the country
31:43is on the wrong track
31:45and no segment of the electorate
31:46is more frustrated
31:47with the U.S. government
31:48and President Barack Obama
31:51than the folks driving
31:52the Tea Party movement.
31:54The Tea Party is hard to define
31:56because it doesn't want to be.
31:58It's anti-big government,
32:00anti-liberal,
32:01anti-Barack Obama.
32:02But after that,
32:03the lines blur.
32:04The Tea Party movement
32:05was partly inspired by a backlash
32:07to Barack Obama,
32:08but it was also an eruption of anger
32:10about issues
32:11that had been bubbling up
32:12under the surface for years.
32:14Federal bailouts,
32:15corporate welfare,
32:16and government overreach.
32:18Dozens of Tea Party activists
32:20ran against establishment
32:21Republicans in primaries,
32:22and some even went on
32:23to become senators
32:24and members of Congress.
32:26Despite the massive amounts of energy
32:27generated by the Tea Party movement
32:29and major gains in the 2010 midterms,
32:32Republicans didn't have a candidate
32:34who could channel that energy.
32:35Lots of Republicans
32:36wanted to vote for someone
32:37who wasn't afraid to throw a punch,
32:39someone they knew and liked,
32:41and someone who wasn't afraid
32:42to say some pretty outrageous things.
32:45Who would be their champion?
32:56We're going to win.
33:12We're going to win so big.
33:14Thank you very much.
33:23In early 2011,
33:24Trump spoke at CPAC,
33:26a high-profile Republican conference.
33:28He walked out to the Abbasong Money, Money, Money,
33:30called Republican candidates losers,
33:32quoted a magazine story
33:34about what a great entrepreneur he was,
33:36and promised to repeal Obamacare.
33:38It was classic Trump.
33:40What was new, at least for him,
33:41was his claim that Obama
33:43came out of nowhere.
33:44Our current president came out of nowhere.
33:47Came out of nowhere.
33:48If the audience didn't take the bait,
33:50he'd probably have dropped it,
33:51but they bit.
33:52Trump gave the most popular speech
33:53of the entire conference.
33:55Asking questions about where Obama was born
33:58was a strategy modeled directly on his campaign
34:00against the Central Park Five
34:01more than 20 years earlier.
34:02Trump happily exploited people's racial biases
34:05because doing so helped generate publicity.
34:08I want him to show his birth certificate.
34:11There's something on that birth certificate
34:13that he doesn't like.
34:15Thanks mainly to the birther claims,
34:16Trump surged to the top of early polls
34:19for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
34:22In a crowded field,
34:23full of eccentric candidates,
34:25Trump applied the skills he'd learned
34:26from years in the bare-knuckle world
34:28of Manhattan real estate.
34:30Eventually, Obama was forced to produce
34:31his long-form birth certificate.
34:33And just to be clear,
34:34I know where my birth certificate is,
34:36but a lot of people don't.
34:38A few weeks later,
34:39he got his revenge when he roasted Trump
34:41at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
34:43No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter
34:47to rest than the Donald.
34:51And that's because he can finally get back
34:52to focusing on the issues that matter.
34:56Like, did we fake the moon landing?
35:04Trump responded to the humiliation
35:06by pulling out of the race.
35:08In the end, despite the excitement
35:10created by candidates who were on board
35:11with the Tea Party's agenda,
35:13the Republican nomination was won by Mitt Romney,
35:16a polite Mormon who'd founded a private equity firm.
35:19But Romney couldn't inspire enough Republicans
35:21to vote for him in the general election.
35:23Everyone expected Trump's interest in politics to fade
35:26and for him to move on to other interests.
35:28If anything, his interest deepened.
35:30To people who made a career out of following Trump,
35:33it actually wasn't a surprise.
35:35Trump had a short attention span
35:36for things he didn't really care about.
35:37But when it came to things he did care about,
35:40like the West Side rail yards,
35:41he could be very determined.
35:43During this time, America was changing.
35:45News had become more and more polarized,
35:47and a spate of alternative news sources
35:49had begun popping up, such as Breitbart News.
35:52Trump took notice of the void
35:53that these organizations were filling
35:55and had begun really pushing the same narratives
35:58on his now-blossoming Twitter account.
36:00Large swaths of the country were becoming red-pilled,
36:03and so was the Republican Party.
36:05Republicans won big in the 2014 midterms,
36:07winning the Senate
36:08and expanding their majority in the House.
36:11And they'd won by talking about crime,
36:13border security,
36:14and the threat from countries like China.
36:16Pollsters couldn't remember the last time
36:18so many candidates won
36:19despite having net negative approval ratings.
36:22Trump had always believed he could become president,
36:24but he'd never had the support
36:26from a major party he needed to actually win.
36:29Suddenly, the stars were aligning.
36:31Americans, especially Republicans,
36:33were willing to listen to increasingly radical solutions
36:35to the problems they faced.
36:36But no one on either side of the political aisle
36:39had Trump's charisma or name recognition.
36:41If he could put it together,
36:42it could be a potent combination.
36:49On June 16th, 2015,
36:51Donald Trump descended down an escalator at Trump Tower
36:54with his wife Melania by his side
36:56and Neil Young's
36:57Rockin' in the Free World playing and Change the World.
37:02Ladies and gentlemen,
37:05I am officially running
37:09for president of the United States.
37:13And we are going to make
37:15And we are going to make
37:18our country great again.
37:20He opened his speech by lamenting
37:21that the United States didn't have victories anymore.
37:24The country had become a dumping ground
37:26for everyone's problems.
37:28Billions of dollars had been spent on overseas wars
37:31with nothing to show for it
37:32except dead and maimed soldiers.
37:34The economy was weak
37:35and being made weaker by Obamacare and trade deals
37:38that were offshoring jobs to places like China and Mexico.
37:40And Republicans weren't serious
37:42about tackling the problems facing the nation.
37:44Trump's candidacy was a comeback narrative.
37:47He engineered one of the most famous comebacks in history.
37:50He could do the same for his country.
37:52The mainstream media,
37:53which had never really taken him seriously,
37:56treated Trump's speech largely as a joke.
37:58I will personally write you a campaign check now.
38:02Does anybody seriously think that Donald Trump
38:04is serious about running for president?
38:07But his campaign wasn't a joke.
38:09In fact, Trump had been planning it for months.
38:12He'd hired a staff
38:13and kept guys like Stone and Bannon close.
38:16Contrary to the public perception of Trump as scattered,
38:19they maintained a laser-like focus on issues
38:21where they knew that Trump's views resonated with voters
38:24like trade and immigration.
38:26A few months before Trump went down the escalator,
38:28his advisors suggested that he start talking
38:31about a physical wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.
38:34They actually intended it mostly as a metaphor
38:36that would remind him to talk about immigration.
38:39But Trump took it literally
38:41and his instincts were correct.
38:42The wall became one of the most enduring images
38:45of his entire presidential campaign,
38:47and it ensured that Trump
38:48was always taken seriously on immigration.
38:50The mainstream media might have treated Trump as a joke,
38:53but Republican leaders didn't.
38:55Trump was their worst nightmare.
38:57Remember, they wanted to extend an olive branch
38:59to minority voters.
39:01Meanwhile, Trump was on stage talking
39:02about how Mexican immigrants were rapists.
39:04But establishment Republicans would soon learn
39:07that they couldn't do anything to stop him.
39:08The 2016 Republican primaries became the Trump Show.
39:12You've called women you don't like,
39:14fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.
39:19Your Twitter account—
39:20Only Rosie O'Donnell.
39:23He turned politics into must-watch TV,
39:26and voters loved it.
39:28He hit my hands.
39:29Nobody has ever hit my hands.
39:30I've never heard of this one.
39:31Look at those hands.
39:32Are they small hands?
39:35And he referred to my hands.
39:37If they're small, something else must be small.
39:40I guarantee you there's no problem.
39:42I guarantee it.
39:43Trump quickly rose to the top of the polls.
39:46In private, he didn't think he'd stay there,
39:48but his campaign just kept gathering momentum,
39:51and events overseas ensured it would stay that way.
39:57On December 12, 2015,
39:59a Muslim couple killed 14 people
40:01at a work Christmas party.
40:02Trump, who'd made headlines the previous month
40:05after terrorists killed 130 people in attacks in Paris,
40:08quickly called for a total and complete shutdown
40:10of Muslims entering the United States.
40:12It was a significant escalation
40:14of his anti-Muslim rhetoric in the campaign.
40:16Trump's opponents latched on to the remark.
40:19Finally, they thought,
40:20we can nail him.
40:21But they couldn't land a blow.
40:23Trump said something which should have,
40:24by the usual rules of presidential politics,
40:27made him lose support,
40:28but instead he would gain support.
40:31Voters didn't care about convention.
40:33Instead, they rewarded him for talking about issues
40:35in a way they perceived as true.
40:38Trump himself recognized that he was wearing plot armor
40:41and could get away with saying some pretty crazy things.
40:44My people are so smart.
40:45And you know what else they say about my people?
40:47The polls.
40:48They say, I have the most loyal people.
40:49Did you ever see that?
40:50Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue
40:52and shoot somebody,
40:53and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?
40:55It's like incredible.
40:57Two months after the shooting in San Bernardino,
41:00Trump's name appeared on a ballot
41:01for the first time as an active candidate
41:03at the Iowa caucuses,
41:05which marked the start of voting
41:06in the Republican primaries.
41:08Despite leading in the polls,
41:09Trump actually finished second in Iowa
41:11behind Ted Cruz.
41:12Lots of people,
41:13including most of the mainstream media,
41:15breathed a sigh of relief.
41:17Surely they thought the madness was about to end.
41:19The adults were about to take over,
41:21but Trump was just getting started.
41:23He won in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina,
41:26a state where more than a quarter of people
41:27were African-American.
41:29Soon, Trump's opponents were forced to admit something.
41:31To have any chance of stopping him
41:33from winning the nomination,
41:34they had to work together.
41:36The field was soon whittled down
41:37to just three candidates,
41:38Trump, Cruz, and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
41:42People who were desperate to see Trump fail
41:44thought he might stumble under the pressure
41:46of being closer to the finish line,
41:47especially as questions began being asked
41:49about his tax returns.
41:51Before 2016,
41:52it was customary for serious candidates
41:54to release their tax returns
41:56as part of the public vetting process.
41:58I'm not releasing the tax returns
41:59because as you know,
42:00they're under audit.
42:01You know, the only one that cares
42:02about my tax returns
42:03are the reporters.
42:04But Trump simply chose to play
42:05by a different set of rules.
42:07He knew his tax returns
42:08would be full of compromising details
42:10like big debts and business dealings
42:12in places like Russia.
42:13So instead of releasing them,
42:14he concocted an excuse
42:15about how he wasn't legally allowed to
42:17because he was being audited by the IRS.
42:20It was yet another example
42:21of how he was able to run rings
42:23around both his opponents
42:24and a critical media.
42:26As the Republican convention,
42:27the event where a nominee
42:29would be formally selected, approached,
42:31Trump had a huge lead
42:32in the delegate count.
42:33He won 41 of the 56 primary contests.
42:37It looked like a formality.
42:38Ted Cruz made a last-ditch attempt
42:40to get delegates to change their mind.
42:42But just like every other attempt
42:44Republicans made to stop Trump,
42:45it failed.
42:46I humbly and gratefully accept
42:50your nomination
42:52for the presidency of the United States.
42:56Something which for years
42:58had seemed totally impossible
42:59had, in truth, been inevitable for months.
43:02Donald Trump had concocted
43:03a hostile takeover
43:04of the Republican party
43:05and made it look easy.
43:07He'd done it by tapping into a well
43:08of genuine grievances
43:10about American society
43:11and the economy
43:12and having the charisma to say
43:14what other people weren't willing to.
43:16And now, almost 30 years
43:18after he first flirted
43:19with the idea of running,
43:20he was the nominee of a major party
43:22set to run against a highly experienced
43:24and well-known opponent, Hillary Clinton.
43:27You couldn't imagine
43:28two more different people.
43:29Trump was the brash real estate developer
43:32from Jamaica Estates
43:33who bulldozed his way
43:34into the national consciousness
43:35through sheer force of will.
43:37Clinton was the secretary of state
43:38and former first lady
43:40who'd been preparing to run for president
43:42since she was in college.
43:43Serious people expected Clinton
43:44to win pretty easily in November.
43:46The establishment wanted her to win,
43:49but it wouldn't be so simple.
43:50Clinton's campaign found itself
43:52fighting allegations
43:53and answering for thousands
43:54of private emails
43:55sent to and from its chair, John Podesta,
43:57that were hacked and published by WikiLeaks.
43:59And the Clinton campaign knows
44:01this could be a problem for them
44:02every day until election day.
44:05In the leaked emails,
44:06leading Democrats talked about
44:07how to undermine Bernie Sanders.
44:09The DNC hack could not have come
44:11at a better time for Republicans.
44:13They'd been trying to make the Democrats'
44:14sloppy information security
44:16an election issue
44:16ever since the FBI opened an investigation
44:19into Hillary Clinton's use
44:20of a private email server
44:21while she was secretary of state.
44:23The leaks gave them an opening
44:25to attack Clinton for her personal ethics.
44:27And they looked like great fodder for Trump.
44:30Her criminal action was willful,
44:33deliberate, intentional,
44:35and purposeful.
44:37But despite first appearances,
44:38the leaked emails
44:39weren't all good news for Trump.
44:41In fact, they brought up an issue
44:42that he'd been trying desperately to avoid.
44:45Why did Donald Trump
44:46seem to like Vladimir Putin so much?
44:51The relationship between the two men
44:53dated back to at least 2013,
44:55when Trump wrote a tweet
44:56asking if Putin would attend
44:58the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow
45:00and whether he'd become his new best friend.
45:02That was weird,
45:03but at the time,
45:04no one really paid much attention.
45:05But since then,
45:06Putin had sent Russian troops
45:08to annex Crimea
45:09and destabilize the democratically elected
45:11government in Ukraine,
45:12a U.S. ally.
45:14And long before then,
45:15his disregard for the rule of law
45:16had turned him into
45:17one of the United States'
45:18main geopolitical adversaries.
45:20Trump seemed to genuinely like Putin
45:22and admire his strongman political style.
45:25But people also wondered
45:26if there was something deeper.
45:27Did Trump have business interests
45:29in the country?
45:30Did the Russians have
45:31compromising material on him?
45:32And why was Trump acting
45:34so weird about it?
45:35Do you have a relationship
45:37with Vladimir Putin?
45:38I do have a relationship.
45:39What exactly is your relationship
45:41with Vladimir Putin?
45:42I have no relationship with Putin.
45:44Trump's reluctance to criticize Putin
45:46cut against a core part
45:48of his pitch to American voters,
45:50that he would use the negotiation skills
45:52he'd honed over a long business career
45:54to stop the U.S. from being ripped off
45:56by other countries.
45:57But he saw things a different way.
45:58If Russia was willing to interfere
46:00in the U.S. election on his behalf,
46:02why should he stop them?
46:03Besides, Trump was confident
46:04that after 40 years in the spotlight,
46:06Americans knew who he was,
46:08for better or worse.
46:11As the campaign neared its conclusion,
46:13Clinton had established
46:14a small but clear polling lead.
46:16If it held up on election night,
46:18she'd become the country's
46:19first female president.
46:21But there were still
46:22two more surprises in store.
46:23A month before the election,
46:25the Washington Post published a video
46:27of a conversation Trump had had
46:29with the host of a TV show
46:30called Access Hollywood,
46:32where he'd made degrading remarks
46:33about women.
46:48The tape was large-caliber ammunition
46:51for Trump's critics.
46:52It showed he was crude, misogynistic,
46:54and not fit for the office
46:56he was seeking.
46:56Trump knew it was bad,
46:58because for the first time
46:59in his campaign,
47:00and maybe for one of the first times
47:01in his adult life,
47:02he apologized.
47:04I've never said I'm a perfect person
47:06nor pretended to be someone
47:07that I'm not.
47:08I've said and done things I regret,
47:11and the words released today
47:12on this more-than-a-decade-old video
47:15are one of them.
47:16The campaign briefly went into lockdown.
47:18Some people even told Trump
47:20to drop out.
47:21But he had no intention
47:22of doing anything like that.
47:23Instead, he used the time
47:25to plan his counterattack.
47:27I've said some foolish things,
47:29but there's a big difference
47:30between the words and actions
47:32of other people.
47:33Bill Clinton has actually abused women,
47:36and Hillary has bullied, attacked,
47:38shamed, and intimidated his victims.
47:41Donald Trump's decision to appear
47:42before the second presidential debate
47:44with the women who accused Bill Clinton
47:46of sexual assault
47:47was a move straight from the playbook
47:48of New York real estate.
47:50Instead of groveling
47:51or pulling out of the race,
47:52he went on the offensive.
47:54It was a reminder that Trump
47:55was willing to do whatever it took to win,
47:57and that despite his own flaws,
47:59his opponents weren't spotless either.
48:01Mr. Trump may have said some bad words,
48:05but Bill Clinton raped me.
48:08The tactic worked.
48:09Instead of the Access Hollywood tape,
48:11people started talking
48:12about Trump's audacity
48:13and Bill Clinton's past.
48:14The Access Hollywood experience
48:16hardened Trump's belief
48:17that he would be rewarded
48:18by his supporters
48:20for standing up to what they saw
48:21as the politically correct establishment.
48:23If the mainstream media and Democrats
48:26and even some Republicans
48:27wanted him to drop out,
48:28that was like a badge of honor
48:30he was happy to wear.
48:31But an eventful campaign
48:32still had one twist left.
48:34The FBI reopening the investigation
48:37into Hillary Clinton's email use.
48:39Director James Comey explaining
48:41in a letter to Congress,
48:42in connection with an unrelated case,
48:44the FBI has learned of the existence
48:46of emails that appear to be pertinent
48:49to the investigation.
48:50James Comey's decision
48:51to reopen the investigation
48:53into Hillary Clinton's email server
48:54was a shocking last minute surprise.
48:57Still, it looked like
48:58it was too little too late.
49:00On election night,
49:00Trump wasn't expecting to win.
49:02He enjoyed how close he'd come
49:04and enjoyed a campaign
49:05which had been built
49:06around indulging him.
49:07He settled in for the night
49:08at his Trump Tower penthouse.
49:10Clinton, meanwhile,
49:11had booked out the Javits Center,
49:13a convention center
49:14with a glass ceiling
49:15she thought she'd be breaking through,
49:17which just happened to be built
49:18on a site which Donald Trump
49:19used to own back in the 1970s.
49:22And then, over the course of the night
49:24and into the early hours of the morning,
49:25history was made.
49:27Clinton or Trump,
49:29it's time for America to decide.
49:32We will, of course,
49:33retain the White House
49:34with the election of Hillary Clinton.
49:36America will vote Trump.
49:38We have a projection.
49:39It is a big one.
49:40It is the state of Florida.
49:4229 electoral votes.
49:43They go to Donald Trump.
49:44We have already called Ohio
49:46for Donald Trump.
49:47And in modern times,
49:48the way Ohio goes
49:50has been the way the country has gone.
49:52Both Clinton and Trump
49:53are putting a ton of attention
49:55in one particular battleground state,
49:56North Carolina.
49:57Donald Trump has won
49:58the state of North Carolina.
50:00Donald Trump wins Wisconsin,
50:02surpassing the 270 electoral votes.
50:04Huge news, actually.
50:06The AP now projecting
50:07that Donald Trump has won
50:08the state of Pennsylvania.
50:09There's just no path forward
50:11for Hillary Clinton.
50:11That's 20 electoral votes
50:13from Pennsylvania.
50:14This is CNN Breaking News.
50:17The American people have spoken.
50:19Donald Trump will be
50:21the 45th president
50:22of the United States.
50:28Despite getting almost
50:293 million fewer total votes,
50:31Trump won the states he needed to
50:34and pulled off an incredible upset.
50:36The man almost no one thought
50:38would actually run,
50:39who no one thought
50:40would last the distance,
50:42who no one thought
50:43would win the nomination,
50:45and who almost no one thought
50:46would win the election,
50:47had triumphed.
50:48It didn't matter that almost
50:50no one thought Trump could do it.
50:52He always believed he could.
50:54Two and a half months later,
50:56on a cold January day,
50:57he was inaugurated
50:58as the 45th president
51:00of the United States.
51:01For the first time,
51:03the 45th president
51:05of the United States of America,
51:07Donald J. Trump.
51:12Throughout his career,
51:13his candidacy,
51:15and then his presidency,
51:16Donald Trump changed
51:17the United States
51:18in profound ways.
51:20He grabbed hold of the fault lines
51:21in American society
51:23and ripped them wide open.
51:24There's just one question left.
51:26Why did he run for president?
51:28Wouldn't it have been easier
51:29just to keep tweeting
51:30and doing The Apprentice?
51:32The answer is that Trump
51:33has always had a burning desire
51:35to prove people wrong.
51:36Sometimes they're people he loves,
51:38like his father.
51:39But more often,
51:40he's spurred on by the thought
51:42of shutting up his critics.
51:44The mainstream media,
51:45who never took him seriously.
51:47The establishment,
51:48who considered him
51:49unworthy of higher office.
51:51And the people who deserted him
51:52when he was at rock bottom
51:54in the 1990s.
51:56I truly believe that Trump
51:57decided to run for president
51:59after being humiliated
52:00by Barack Obama
52:01at the White House
52:01correspondence dinner.
52:03What better way to stick it
52:04to all those coastal elites
52:06than by taking over the office
52:08they cared so much about?
52:10And what better way
52:11to prove to his father
52:12that he was a killer?
52:14I don't think people
52:14change very much.
52:16I don't like to analyze myself
52:18because I might not like
52:19what I see.
52:20To learn more about the man
52:21who defeated Donald Trump
52:23in the 2020 election,
52:24Joe Biden,
52:25just watch this video next.
52:27Thanks for watching.