DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We are going to make our country great again.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Donald Trump's 2016 campaign promise to make America great again was not
a new sentiment in American politics.
RONALD REAGAN, Former President of the United States: For those who've abandoned hope, we
will restore hope, and we will welcome them into a great national crusade to make America
great again.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: But it was a promise that fit the political atmosphere of a divided
country. And it propelled the Manhattan real estate developer to the presidency.
Robert Costa of The Washington Post.
ROBERT COSTA, Host, "Washington Week": He wants to hearken back to a time post-World
War II where America was a different world, racially, economically. He believes that the
country has lost some of its spirit from that period.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: For some Americans, the post-World War II era was marred by racial
and socioeconomic strife, of civil unrest and division. Donald Trump lived a much different
experience.
Author Gwenda Blair:
GWENDA BLAIR, Author, "The Trumps": They had a chauffeur, usually black, a live-in maid.
The kids were chauffeured to their private school. And they really had a semi-insulated
life.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Trump's father, Fred, a politically savvy businessman, made a fortune
developing low-income housing in Brooklyn and Queens.
GWENDA BLAIR: Fred Trump told his kids, his boys, he wanted them to be killers. He -- that
they had to be winners at all costs.
DONALD TRUMP: My father was great. Good salesman. Good builder. He loved to build houses.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Trump patterned his life after his father, but the pressure never sat
well with his older brother, Freddy, who died of alcoholism at 42.
Trump's father and mother, Mary, a Scottish immigrant, were deeply influenced by the 1950s
bestselling book "The Power of Positive Thinking." It was authored by their pastor, Dr. Norman
Vincent Peale.
GWENDA BLAIR: Donald Trump took that message of the power of thinking of yourself as successful,
and has made it into a kind of an armor plating, so that, if he did it, if he thought it, if
he said it, it is, by definition, successful.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Trump kept that mantra close, as he thrived at military school, despite
being shipped off at the age of 13.
GWENDA BLAIR: His classmates told me that he was so competitive, he was so determined
to win, that he didn't have very many friends.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: In 1964, Trump enrolled at Fordham University in the Bronx. He transferred
to the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania during the height of the Vietnam
War.
Much of America was divided between pro- and anti-war camps. But as protests rolled across
his campus, the same could not be said for Trump.
GWENDA BLAIR: Never went to a protest, never went to a demonstration. He was going to be
following his father's business, and that's all he cared about.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Trump received several draft deferments that exempted him from military
service.
DONALD TRUMP: Numerous deferments because of -- because of college, and I had a foot
thing, and I got a deferment for that. But it turned out that was one -- you know, look,
that was a rough war.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The deferments allowed Trump to launch a real estate career in Manhattan
after college, with the financial backing of his father's company.
GWENDA BLAIR: Donald Trump, from the minute that he moved to Manhattan, was interested
in becoming big, known, famous.
DONALD TRUMP: Everybody. You have never seen such beautiful people or so many beautiful
people.
GWENDA BLAIR: Every opportunity you could possibly think of, he got his name in the
paper.
So, he went to celebrity hangouts. He went to nightclubs. All three of his wives have
been models. He wants to draw attention. He wants to look like the most successful guy
in the room.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: His first Manhattan real estate venture, a remake of the Grand Hyatt
Hotel.
GWENDA BLAIR: He couldn't put his name on it. He was furious about that.
When you got to Trump Tower, which was his second deal, he put his name on that, and
he's put his name on everything since then. And he was determined to have his name be
literally prominent in New York City, and to have his name in front of everyone.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: But controversy around race often seemed to follow. In the 1970s, the
Justice Department sued the Trump administration for racial discrimination for the second time.
Kevin McGruder studies urban history at Antioch College.
KEVIN MCGRUDER, Antioch College: They put a code on the applications of the black applicants,
basically to identify them, to set them aside.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Trump responded by countersuing the department for $100 million, claiming
libel.
Trump continued to rise as a cultural figure, inspiring rap and hip-hop for decades with
his wealth and fame, photo-ops with elite socialites and celebrities alike, including
black icons.
With banks eager to lend him money, Trump went on a shopping spree in the 1980s.
GWENDA BLAIR: And in the course of events, he ended up being about a billion dollars
in the hole.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Many of his businesses, including three Atlantic City hotels, closed
one by one, often amid bankruptcy claims and unpaid debt.
Trump himself emerged relatively unscathed. In 1988, he toyed with a presidential run
while selling his book "The Art of the Deal" on the Oprah Winfrey show.
DONALD TRUMP: I would never want to rule it out totally, because I really am tired of
seeing what's happening to this country.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: A year later, Trump inserted himself into one of the decade's most notorious
crime cases. Five black and Latino teenagers were accused of attacking a white female jogger
in Central Park.
Trump stirred what quickly became a boiling pot over criminal justice and race by taking
out a full-page ad in The New York Daily News.
KEVIN MCGRUDER: The headline of the ad encouraged New York state to bring back the death penalty
and to support the police. That had nothing to do with real estate.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Trump never apologized when the five men were exonerated.
KEVIN MCGRUDER: The Central Park five ad says that he has an understanding of racist stereotypes
in the American story, because that's what that fit into. And he really rode that momentum.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Trump continued to tease presidential runs, identifying as a Republican
and later as a pro-abortion Democrat.
LARRY KING, CNN: Are you a Republican, Donald?
DONALD TRUMP: I'm a Republican, yes.
In many cases, I probably identify more as a Democrat.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: His business image rebounded under a wildly popular prime-time show.
DONALD TRUMP: This is a tough one. You're fired.
I'm looking for the apprentice.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: In 2011, he launched another presidential bid. This time, he grabbed headlines
by questioning President Barack Obama's citizenship, promoting the already discredited notion that
the president was not qualified to serve.
DONALD TRUMP: People have birth certificates. He doesn't have a birth certificate.
Now, he may have one, but there's something on that, maybe religion. Maybe it says he
is a Muslim. I don't know.
KEVIN MCGRUDER: He was able to take -- quote -- "foreignness" of a Kenyan parent, and project
that onto Barack Obama.
And what that does is, it fits into a long tradition of nativism within the United States.
ROBERT COSTA: Some people raised concerns, to be sure, but no one said then, Mr. Trump:
You can't be part of this party if you're going to take that view.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The campaign ended early, but Trump had already carved out a place for
himself in the Republican Party to launch a 2016 presidential bid.
KEVIN MCGRUDER: So, in 2016, Donald Trump begins his campaign by using race, this time
against Latino people.
DONALD TRUMP: They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some,
I assume, are good people. I will build a great, great wall on our Southern border,
and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.
KEVIN MCGRUDER: He's appealing to them from that racist trope.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: One pivotal moment in the 2016 race, less than a month before Election
Day, a tape surfaced of Trump bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.
DONALD TRUMP: And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em
by the (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: But Russian-hacked e-mails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager and
other Democratic staffers dropped 30 minutes later.
A bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee now says Trump allies directed the
release by WikiLeaks. At the time, Trump brushed his comments off as locker room banter. Some
members of his own party called for him to step down, but he refused.
ROBERT COSTA: This has been the entire approach of President Trump, to always deny, to go
after his own accusers, to skewer them whenever possible.
The fact that he was able to win election despite "Access Hollywood" and despite many
Republicans being unsettled by that entire episode proved to President Trump that he
didn't need anybody's help or guidance, that he could have total control of the Republican
Party and win the presidency, essentially, in his view, on his own.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: By election night in 2016, president-elect Trump's transformation of
the Republican Party was near complete. His promise to make America great again would
soon be tested.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We're going to make America great again.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: On the 2016 campaign trail...
DONALD TRUMP: We're going to drain the swamp.
AUDIENCE: Drain the swamp!
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: ... the reality TV personality promised change.
DONALD TRUMP: Repealing and replacing Obamacare.
We will terminate NAFTA.
We're building a wall.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Governing proved to be another matter.
Robert Costa of The Washington Post:
ROBERT COSTA, Host, "Washington Week": This was a total outsider who comes in without
any political experience, any experience in government, and he tries to be the disrupter.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: In a historic move, President Trump filed for reelection on his first day
in office. The campaign never ended.
As protests flared across the country, he continued to stoke tensions over immigration
and race at rallies.
DONALD TRUMP: And I have taken decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell
out of our country.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Using Twitter, he attacked opponents, fired staff and issued new orders
that eventually included directing the military to ban transgender service members.
AUDIENCE: Build that wall! Build that wall!
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: As the president clashed with Democrats and the press, he tightened
his control over the Republican Party.
ROBERT COSTA: There is perhaps no president in modern history who has made sure that the
Republican Party is always following him as much as possible, is at times in his image.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Republicans in Congress ceded power to the president at nearly every
turn.
DONALD TRUMP: It's always a lot of fun when you win.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: But they were securing conservative goals, from tax cuts to a complete remaking
of the country's courts, including two Supreme Court appointments.
DONALD TRUMP: There's another major promise I have kept to the American people. I have
nominated a fantastic justice to replace the late, great Justice Scalia. His name is Judge
Neil Gorsuch.
ROBERT COSTA: That became the glue that kept the Trump world with the Republican world.
They may not like him personally. They may be appalled by his conduct. But, at the end
of the day, he's coming through with policy wins for them.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: In foreign policy, President Trump had success in pushing some allies,
especially in Europe, to share more defense costs. He also publicly criticized their leaders
and slapped them with tariffs.
DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. It's fantastic.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: But with authoritarian leaders, he struck a more conciliatory tone, pursuing
deals that often never materialized.
China has yet to live up to the president's much-touted trade deal. but he renegotiated
other trade deals that he railed against on the campaign trail, like the North American
Free Trade Agreement.
DONALD TRUMP: I'm going to repeal it and replace it.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: When it came to domestic policy, the president and his Republican-controlled
Congress never repealed and replaced President Obama's signature health care law, the Affordable
Care Act, as the president had campaigned on.
His own party blocked the effort.
DONALD TRUMP: I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: As for candidate Trump's promised border wall, Mexico never paid for
it. Less than five miles of new wall has been built three months before the 2020 election.
The president did use his executive powers to grind legal and illegal immigration to
a near halt. Along the way, he continued to hammer his message.
ROBERT COSTA: This is a president who does not aim to unite when it comes to race. He
welcomes, at times, division, and he sees division as a way to underscore his own political
standing with his core voters.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: In August 2017, white supremacists protesting the removal of a Confederate statue
clashed with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.
PROTESTERS: Jews will not replace us!
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Kevin McGruder studies race and urban history at Antioch College.
KEVIN MCGRUDER, Antioch College: There was a Nazi element to that. It was an anti-Semitic
element, too.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: One self-described neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd, killing a 26-year-old
counter-protester named Heather Heyer.
In his initial response, President Trump declined to outright condemn the neo-Nazis.
DONALD TRUMP: And you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that
were very fine people on both sides.
KEVIN MCGRUDER: To suggest that those are good people from a president of a country
that the Confederacy fought against, it's mind-boggling. But it's equally mind-boggling
that he was able to do it, and with no real consequence politically.
FMR. REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI): I have had some candid conversations with him about this,
especially during that time. I have had some very candid conversations. So, I do really
believe his heart is in the right place.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The president struggled with other crises. A mass shooter who targeted
Latinos at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, echoed President Trump's own rhetoric around an invasion
of immigrants. He killed 23 people.
DONALD TRUMP: Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: While the president escalated his race-based attacks, he campaigned on investments
in historically black colleges and Opportunity Zones in low-income areas.
ROBERT COSTA: He has found himself in hot water often throughout his presidency.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The president also faced a series of investigations, including a two-year
special counsel probe into whether his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Seven of the president's associates were convicted.
DONALD TRUMP: This ridiculous hoax, this witch-hunt.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: As the 2020 election neared, President Trump sought to dig up dirt on his
political opponent former Vice President Joe Biden. That sparked his impeachment in the
House of Representatives.
ROBERT COSTA: His phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was ultimately what prompted
his impeachment.
DONALD TRUMP: I have done things wrong, but this is what the end result is.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: With all but one Senate Republican behind him, Trump avoided conviction
and removal from office.
DONALD TRUMP: It was called no collusion, no obstruction.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: As the nation's debt skyrocketed, the stock market, on an upward trend since
the Obama administration, broke records, with unemployment at a historic low.
CHRISTIAN KESSLER, Wisconsin Voter: Trump just needs to continue to talk up the strong
U.S. economy.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The president's supporters celebrated.
KAREN LEVESQUE, New Hampshire Voter: He's done a phenomenal job with the economy. My
stocks have never been higher.
MIKE PENCE, Vice President of the United States: It's just been three years of promises made
and promises kept.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Then the country plunged into a crisis, the coronavirus pandemic. As
America reeled, the president struggled to respond.
DONALD TRUMP: It's going to disappear. One day, it's like a miracle. It will disappear.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Unemployment skyrocketed, amid closures, as America suddenly faced an
economic and public health catastrophe.
ROBERT COSTA: He's seen himself as the victim of the pandemic politically.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Then came the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.
DONALD TRUMP: He will not have died in vain. But we cannot allow the righteous cries of
peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Peaceful protesters took to the streets in all 50 states, demanding
racial equality. Looting also rocked some cities.
On a private call with governors, the president demanded a military-like response.
DONALD TRUMP: You have to dominate. If you don't dominate, you're wasting your time.
They're going to run over you. You're going to look like a bunch of jerks.
KEVIN MCGRUDER: It distorted what actually happened, and it never acknowledged why they
were out there to begin with, at a time when the nation needed somebody to hear those complaints.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Protesters toppled and graffitied statues, including Confederate leaders and
America's founding fathers who owned enslaved people. The president defended those figures.
DONALD TRUMP: We must protect and preserve our history, our heritage, and our great heroes.
KEVIN MCGRUDER: When you say "our heritage," what he means is the heritage of white Southerners
who identify with the Confederacy and its goal to break away from the United States.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The effort seemingly a means to please his most ardent supporters. Republicans
largely stood behind the president.
ROBERT COSTA: The legacy of President Trump's first term is an outsider who wanted to build
a wall, who wanted to connect with his base and fight with every critic, but, along the
way, got Republicans many things they wanted.
It was for many of Republicans the bargain of a lifetime, but it will have consequences
for years to come.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Win or lose in November, President Trump has already remade the Republican
Party in his image.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Yamiche Alcindor.