- yesterday
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Tonight, I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear...
00:21As Donald Trump begins his presidency...
00:24We had won the election that no one thought we could win.
00:28The inside story of how he got there...
00:30Once I understood that he's willing to double down and be a fighter for what he believes in, I'm all in.
00:35They'd be carried out at a stretcher, folks.
00:37It felt like a box of matches even before he took the stage.
00:41And they were just waiting for Donald Trump to come and light it.
00:44From his closest advisers...
00:46I had said to Mr. Trump one day, are you ready to win?
00:49And his rivals...
00:51He just got smacked by a two-by-four, and it came out of nowhere.
00:55The provocative campaign...
00:58Nobody knows the system better than me.
01:00...to the presidency.
01:02Which is why I alone can fix it.
01:07Tonight on Frontline...
01:09So help me God.
01:10Trump's road to the White House.
01:12Tonight's program contains graphic language.
01:38Viewer discretion is advised.
01:42Today is finally the day.
01:44The presidential nominees have made their final...
01:46It is Decision Day in America, and we are taking a look at the presidential race...
01:49After a long, contentious presidential race...
01:51On election day, Donald Trump and his senior campaign team were huddled at Trump Tower.
01:57They went into election night believing that they were going to lose.
02:01The polls close across the country...
02:03At 5 o'clock, they received the first exit polls.
02:05We're coming down to the first poll closings right now...
02:08When we got those early returns, the exit polls that I actually got at about 5.01...
02:15We all had a little bit of a gut punch.
02:17If Trump wants to win, he's got to hold on to Florida...
02:20In state after state, he was so far behind that I knew that he was going to lose.
02:25Because the exit polls don't get it wrong.
02:27We would get crushed in, like, Michigan, Pennsylvania...
02:31I mean, it just...
02:32And so from, like, 6 o'clock on, you know, we're all like, oh, my God.
02:37And look at all these wins we're projecting for Hillary Clinton right now.
02:40Take a look at the electoral...
02:41It seemed to confirm what the media and political establishment had been saying for months.
02:45As a lead...
02:46Donald Trump never had a chance.
02:48Every senior Republican that I talked to, with only one exception, thought that Trump was going to lose.
02:58But as the votes were counted in Florida, a surprise.
03:02And CNN projects Donald Trump will carry the state of Florida with its 29 electoral votes.
03:08Donald Trump...
03:08Florida was just the beginning.
03:10There's a big old call to make right now.
03:12Donald Trump has won the state of Wisconsin, and there goes her blue wall.
03:17Late on election night, one of the senior campaign officials emailed me and just said,
03:23Can you type President Trump?
03:26Fox News has called Pennsylvania for Donald Trump.
03:31Our communications director, Jason Miller, held up and said,
03:34AP just called.
03:35And I said, just called what?
03:37Which state?
03:37And he said, the whole race.
03:38This means that Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States.
03:45The most...
03:46Unreal, surreal election we have ever seen.
03:52Chris Christie's son said, Kellyanne, your phone is ringing.
03:54I looked down, and it said, Uma Abedin.
03:56And she said, Secretary Clinton would like to speak with Mr. Trump.
03:59And I said, right now?
04:00And she said, if he's available.
04:01And I said, he's available.
04:03And I said, sir, Secretary Clinton.
04:05She had been first lady, a senator, and secretary of state.
04:09She conceded to an entrepreneur, reality TV star, and novice politician.
04:16The call lasted about a minute.
04:19In an electoral college victory that virtually no one saw coming a year ago, a few months ago.
04:24A week ago.
04:25Even a month ago.
04:26Even yesterday.
04:27It was an oh-my-god moment.
04:29It was euphoria that we had won the election that no one thought we could win.
04:36Not long after, to the music from Harrison Ford's movie, Air Force One, the president-elect arrived at his victory celebration.
04:51Even for him, it was an overwhelming feeling to see yourself be elected president of the United States.
04:58You're never going to see anybody like this again.
05:04He is somebody that defied every political rule that existed in a way that nobody has ever done before.
05:10It's my honor.
05:12It was an amazing evening.
05:13It's been an amazing two-year period.
05:16And I love this country.
05:20It was an unprecedented outcome.
05:23Over 17 months, Donald Trump had broken nearly every rule of American politics.
05:29Then came the question whether the way he had campaigned would be the way he would govern.
05:36Trump is going to be Trump.
05:38This idea that you can make him into something else, that's not what the people voted for.
05:43They voted for Trump as he is.
05:45That's the way they want him to be.
05:48And nobody's going to remake him.
05:49He will either succeed or fail being Donald Trump.
05:53The sheer unpredictability of a president Donald Trump.
05:57How unpredictable the new terrain here in Washington is.
06:00Is this our new normal?
06:01Is there reason for the creation of a new reality?
06:05Donald Trump has broken the rules of what it means to be president.
06:07What Trump are we going to see, do you think?
06:09We're going to constantly have rules that are broken in my way or the highway.
06:13But President Trump is very much a wild card.
06:15We're calling a political earthquake, an unraveling of the system, or even a revolution.
06:19The seeds of Donald Trump's presidency are embedded in his path to power.
06:25He redefined what it meant to be a serious presidential candidate, starting with his announcement.
06:31I remember watching the announcement and laughing at the entertainment value the way a lot of people did.
06:44In Washington, you could almost just hear people around town laughing at the idea that this person was going to be a credible threat.
06:58He seemed like a cartoon character.
07:01He did the exact opposite of what every candidate has done before him.
07:04It was like extending the middle finger to the political establishment, and in doing that, in that very first moment, people took a look at him and said, you know what? He really is different.
07:16That is some group of people, thousands.
07:19I wrote what was supposed to be his announcement speech, and that speech was supposed to clock in at about 7 minutes and 43 seconds.
07:25Because we've got to make the country rich.
07:27It sounds crass.
07:28Somebody said, no, that's crass.
07:30It's not crass.
07:31We got $18 trillion in debt.
07:34Probably three or four minutes into his remarks, I could clearly tell that these were not the prepared remarks, which I had drafted, and then he had gone on to make an announcement speech, which lasted somewhere around 45 or 48 minutes.
07:46When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best.
07:51They're bringing drugs.
07:53They're bringing crime.
07:54They're rapists.
07:55And some, I assume, are good people.
07:58When he made his comments about Mexicans, everybody was convinced, that's it.
08:03He just blew himself up.
08:05Everybody was like, oh, this is going to be the death of him.
08:08Behind the scenes, Trump's campaign was as unconventional as his announcement.
08:13Donald Trump's campaign was lean and small, and in a sense, run out of Donald Trump's, you know, instincts.
08:20I mean, he threw all of the normal things out the window.
08:24Corey Lewandowski, an obscure political operative, was the campaign's manager.
08:29In my very first meeting with Mr. Trump, when he offered me the position to be his campaign manager in January of 2015, he asked me what I thought his odds were of winning the Republican nomination.
08:37I said, 5%.
08:38And he said, 10%.
08:39I said, let's settle at 7 1⁄2.
08:41They worked 50 floors below Trump's New York penthouse.
08:45It had once housed the set where The Apprentice was shot.
08:49All of The Apprentice camera equipment and furniture had been ripped out of it.
08:53You looked up at the ceiling, and it was open piping.
08:55It was bare bones, and a lot of Trump pictures all over the walls.
08:59As key advisers, Trump chose his children, running things behind the scenes, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
09:07It's this family business.
09:09With Ivanka and her brothers, Eric and Don Jr., and Ivanka's husband, Jared, we had this kind of council of advisers around Trump that he would turn to.
09:19The campaign had a fundamental rule.
09:22Let Trump be Trump.
09:24I used to liken my role to being a jockey on a great racehorse, and I'd say American pharaoh.
09:31And my job was to maybe drive that horse into the corners a little bit and put some blinders on, but you've got to let it run.
09:37Donald Trump is back on the road campaigning.
09:39He caused controversy from the very start.
09:42...to secure the evangelical vote with three campaign events in Iowa today.
09:45In Iowa, as he was interviewed by Republican pollster Frank Luntz.
09:49And he and I get into an exchange over John McCain, because he's taking shots at McCain.
09:56And I thought they were gratuitous.
09:57He's not a war hero.
09:58He's a war hero.
09:59He's a war hero.
10:00Five and a half years of the people that he came to camp.
10:01He's a war hero because he was captured.
10:03I like people that weren't captured, okay?
10:05I hate to tell you.
10:06Do you agree with that?
10:07He's a war hero because he was captured.
10:10I couldn't believe he said that.
10:12I was completely stunned.
10:14Everyone in that room thought, this is it.
10:17It's over.
10:18Folks, I want to make America great again.
10:20We want to get down to brass tacks.
10:22We don't want to listen to his stuff with being politically correct and everything else.
10:27We have a lot of work to do.
10:29You know, I asked Mr. Trump after he came off the stage to have a private conversation with him.
10:33And I said, I think we need to fix this.
10:34And when I said fix it, I meant an apology.
10:37And Donald Trump understood things that I didn't understand about the American people.
10:40He said, no, no, you don't understand.
10:41Trump refused to apologize.
10:43And once I understood that he's willing to double down on his comments and be a fighter
10:48for what he believes in, I'm all in.
10:51And I'm there with you to support you.
10:53Don voyage.
10:54Trump is toast after insults.
10:56Everything erupted after this.
10:57Virtually every Republican criticized Trump for his comment.
11:00This clip is played on every newscast for the next 48 hours.
11:03So far, Trump's political campaign operates with a no guts, no glory approach.
11:07And he survived it.
11:08He survived walls and Mexicans and everything.
11:14That which doesn't kill us and makes us stronger.
11:17And if he ever needed any evidence, just look at Donald Trump.
11:20The biggest event to date in campaign 2016.
11:23Top 10 candidates taking the stage.
11:24Donald Trump gearing up for the crucial...
11:26Two and a half weeks later in Cleveland, the first Republican debate.
11:30Businessman Donald Trump.
11:32He was facing off against a group of candidates Republican leaders touted as the best in a generation.
11:39It is 9 p.m. on the East Coast, and the moment of truth has arrived.
11:43Among the other candidates, there was this sort of smug confidence that we know what we're doing.
11:49This guy is from show business, a little bit Hollywood, a lot of razzle-dazzle.
11:55Early in the debate, he faced a crucial test.
11:57Whether his tabloid past and outrageous statements would sink his campaign.
12:03You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.
12:10Your Twitter account is several...
12:12Only Rosie O'Donnell.
12:16Trump doesn't deny it.
12:17He simply says, I only said that about Rosie O'Donnell.
12:21And in a way, that is pure Trump.
12:24What I say is what I say.
12:27And honestly, Megan, if you don't like it, I'm sorry.
12:30I've been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be based on the way you have treated me, but I wouldn't do that.
12:36He's doing something that is both repellent and completely authentic all at once.
12:44And he's acknowledging that he said these horrid things.
12:47He's not shirking it.
12:49I think there were voters out there that said, you go, man.
12:52You said exactly what you think, and you're not backing down.
12:56And Trump wasn't done.
12:57After the debate, the candidates appeared in what is known as Spin Alley.
13:04Trump kept the controversy going.
13:07Donald Trump shows up as if he needed this hit of adrenaline before he went home to New York.
13:13Is it okay?
13:14Yes, sir.
13:14Don't hurt yourselves.
13:15It was like mosquitoes to a lantern on a summer night.
13:20I mean, the entire national press corps descended.
13:23People were being trampled, and camera equipment was flying all over the place.
13:27And I'd never seen a scene like this.
13:28I mean, I've seen many media stampedes, but nothing like that.
13:31What's your history with Meghan?
13:33I think Meghan behaved very badly personally.
13:35It's the question about women.
13:36You didn't like that?
13:37No, I thought it was an unfair question.
13:39They didn't ask those questions.
13:39Trump can't help himself because he considers anybody questioning his bona fides as someone who he needs to decapitate, essentially.
13:50It was just the beginning.
13:53At 3.40 in the morning, he lit up Twitter.
13:56Wow, Meghan Kelly really bombed tonight.
13:58People are going wild on Twitter.
14:00Funny to watch.
14:01On the phone with CNN, he pushed harder.
14:06What is it with you and Meghan Kelly?
14:08She starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions.
14:11And, you know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes.
14:14Blood coming out of her wherever.
14:17Donald Trump attacks her and suggests she only asked a tough question because she was menstruating.
14:23I mean, um, and his numbers went up.
14:31He's a lightweight.
14:31I couldn't care less about her.
14:33In fact, you're competing against her and I'm doing this.
14:34At every stage in the campaign, Donald Trump was perfectly happy to have the elites be aghast at him.
14:42The kind of non-politically correct, decisive, tough, battling kind of personality that he was putting forward in that debate
14:52and in the confrontations with Meghan Kelly and others that he sought out.
14:57While the media controversy swirled, Trump was out in the country building his base.
15:04His personal plane rolled up to hangers filled with curious onlookers eager to see the reality TV star in person.
15:12There were a lot of people who were there who were pure curiosity seekers.
15:15They were there to see a celebrity.
15:17They were there to see the guy they know from The Apprentice.
15:19Trump is a producer at heart.
15:22And when he did these rallies, he made sure that the staging was perfect.
15:26So we see the same elements that Trump applied in his hit TV show, The Apprentice.
15:33We saw that in the early rallies.
15:36We're not gonna take it.
15:39No, we ain't gonna take it.
15:41And right at the moment of the first chord, Trump hits the stage.
15:46And I felt this wave go through me.
15:52And that was the moment that I realized, holy s***, this is real.
16:01It was like Pavlov's dog.
16:04He hits the stage.
16:06They erupt.
16:07Trump just had them in the palm of his hand.
16:15He, I mean, they were responding to him.
16:17He was responding to them.
16:22Those crowds at those rallies, they were tremendously energizing to him.
16:28I mean, it was a, it was a symbiotic relationship.
16:30They fed off of each other.
16:32The crowd fed off of him.
16:33He fed off of the crowd.
16:36For Donald, confidence is a huge part of the game.
16:40This was the whole point of all those rallies.
16:43It wasn't just to fire up people to vote for him.
16:47It was to fire up Donald Trump.
16:50He feeds off of audiences in a way that I think very few politicians do.
16:55And needed to be energized by the affirmation.
16:59And it worked.
17:00And you know where?
17:01And look at all those live television feeds.
17:03It's always tough.
17:04Every time I speak, they put me on live television.
17:06So I have to make different speeches.
17:08These guys go around, they make the same speech.
17:10Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.
17:12Nobody cares.
17:13It's true.
17:14He was looking out at the camera bank.
17:16And he could see the red light on the camera.
17:18And that meant that he was live on CNN.
17:21You got CNN live.
17:22You got them all.
17:23Or Fox or one of the other networks.
17:26And he said that what he tried to do in those rallies was say whatever it took to keep the red light on.
17:33Now, if you like the media, give them a big hand.
17:36And if you don't, give them a big boo.
17:40Rather than rely primarily on polls...
17:43I had a feeling.
17:46...Trump watched to see how the crowd reacted.
17:49Early on, they were kind of...
17:51These rally speeches were a bit rambling and all over the place.
17:55As he went on, he started to really hone his message.
18:00And he started to remember what lines worked.
18:02We're going to have such a strong military that nobody, nobody is going to mess with us.
18:08And what the crowds wanted?
18:09Nobody.
18:09Donald Trump.
18:10We are led by very stupid people.
18:14Unfiltered.
18:14We are going to start winning big league.
18:17Angry.
18:18We can't beat ISIS.
18:20Give me a break.
18:21And it was every location.
18:23It was the same messages.
18:24We're tired of Washington lying to us.
18:26We're going to drive the cars over the illegals.
18:28Build a wall.
18:29The American people were angry.
18:34And they have a right to be.
18:35And what they see in Donald Trump is someone who's willing to fight for them for a change.
18:39He called them the forgotten and spoke directly to their fears and anger.
18:45At Washington.
18:47At trade deals.
18:49At immigration.
18:51People in this country are afraid of illegal immigrants.
18:55People in this country have become afraid of random violence.
18:59They're afraid of jobs being shipped overseas.
19:02There's so much that scares Americans.
19:04And Donald Trump is the only politician who talked to those concerns and those fears.
19:10To his critics, it's fear-mongering.
19:13To his supporters, it's truth-telling.
19:16Donald Trump is the projected winner of the new Hampshire.
19:19He gains his front-runner status in a crowded field.
19:22He's polling ahead in virtually every Super Tuesday state.
19:26In one state after another.
19:28We love Nevada.
19:30We love Nevada.
19:32Trump proved that he could use his base of working-class voters to win.
19:37It's mostly white.
19:40They don't like political correctness.
19:42They feel like they can't speak their mind at home or at work.
19:46And so they want something else.
19:49Trump strolls in.
19:51He says exactly what they want to hear.
19:53We are going to...
19:54This makes back-to-back victories for Donald Trump dominating his third consecutive...
19:58Donald Trump is a professional political wrecking ball.
20:01Finally, his opponents had to take him seriously.
20:05At that point, the establishment suddenly wakes up and says,
20:08we've got to do something.
20:10We've got to go after him.
20:11We can't ignore him anymore.
20:12He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.
20:15And you know how you make America great again?
20:18Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.
20:19The establishment feared him for a lot of reasons.
20:23One, he was not of them.
20:24Two, he didn't play by their rules.
20:26And three, they genuinely thought he was a threat,
20:28certainly to the Republican Party, to conservatism,
20:31and, if he got that far, to the nation.
20:34Guys, we have a con artist as the front-runner in the Republican Party.
20:37A guy who has made a career out of telling people lies.
20:40It was a shock to the Republican establishment.
20:42They did everything they could, for the most part, to prevent him.
20:46Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud.
20:48His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.
20:52He's playing the members of the American public for suckers.
20:55Every time the establishment attacked Trump,
20:57it played into the narrative that they wanted to put out there,
21:01which was that he was so anti-establishment,
21:03they were going to do anything that they could to take him down.
21:05This man is a pathological liar.
21:08He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth.
21:13Tonight, live from the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina.
21:17On the debate stage, Trump hit back.
21:20The single biggest liar.
21:21You probably are worse than Jeb Bush.
21:24You are the single biggest liar.
21:26One by one, each rival comes at him.
21:29He throws him away.
21:31He said he would take his pants off and moon everybody.
21:35Tosses a barb in their direction, diminishes them personally.
21:39And then he tells me, oh, my language was a little bit rough.
21:43Destroys their record.
21:44This little guy has lied so much.
21:47Donald Trump had the ability to just grab the microphone,
21:50just trample over people.
21:53That was entertaining.
21:54It was different.
21:56He hit my hands.
21:57Nobody has ever hit my hands.
21:58I've never heard of this one.
21:59Look at those hands.
22:01Are they small hands?
22:03And he referred to my hands.
22:06If they're small, something else must be small.
22:08I guarantee you there's no problem.
22:10I guarantee you.
22:12It was ruthless political performance by Donald Trump.
22:16He had nothing to lose, and he owed nothing to the Republican Party.
22:21So instead of standing there as a member of a party trying to get the nomination,
22:25he was there for Trump.
22:27That changed everything.
22:28Scott Walker is quitting the presidential race.
22:31One by one.
22:32Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie have suspended their campaign.
22:35Trump's competitors began to fall.
22:37Surgeon Ben Carson dropping out of the 2016...
22:40But on the campaign trail, at some rallies, things were increasingly ugly.
22:45The anger only increased as it got farther along.
22:53The anger only increased as it got farther along.
22:57It became completely acceptable, it became okay to come to a Trump rally
23:04and wear a shirt that says, Hillary Clinton is a C-T.
23:10And there were some in the crowds with a darker agenda.
23:15The campaign is continually dogged by a small and vocal number of white supremacists,
23:23Klansmen, neo-Nazis.
23:27Some would come in wearing Confederate flags on their t-shirts.
23:31This isn't a very large group of people, but they're very vocal.
23:35And they attach themselves to Trump.
23:38Trump, whenever there was a moment to draw a line between himself
23:42and these extreme parts of the voting bloc, he refused.
23:45I think without question, the only way you can interpret that is that he was going
23:50to use these groups to try to build this coalition.
23:54It wasn't long before anti-Trump protesters began to show up inside the rallies.
23:59There's a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches.
24:02I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that
24:05when they were in a place like this?
24:07They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks.
24:09I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you. That's true.
24:13You start seeing these really ugly moments, the rallies, with protesters,
24:19some of whom are non-white protesters, getting treated very violently by his supporters.
24:28Trump himself seemed to incite his supporters to go after protesters.
24:32Knock the crap out of them, would you? Just knock the hell.
24:35I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise.
24:38Trump didn't just turn on the protesters. He also directed the anger at the media.
24:44Absolute dishonest, absolute scum. Remember that. Scum. Scum.
24:49NBC's Katie Turr became a frequent target after one of her reports.
24:53She's back there. Little Katie. She's back there.
24:57He calls me out the rally. Look back there. Little Katie, she's back there.
25:02And I was like, what?
25:04What a lie it was. No. What a lie. Katie Turr.
25:10What a lie it was from NBC to have written that was a total lie.
25:15We are surrounded on all sides with people who are fired up and angry.
25:20Third-rate reporter. Remember that. Third-rate. Third-rate.
25:25And they are whipped up by Donald Trump. I described it as, like, you know,
25:29an unchained beast roaring at you in a crowd.
25:32And the whole place turns at me, looks at me, and boos.
25:45By July, Donald Trump headed to the GOP convention
25:48after soundly defeating the establishment candidates.
25:52And let's face it, he was larger than the Republican Party.
25:56In fact, his nomination was the hostile takeover of the Republican Party.
26:01In this case, the Republican Party is just a vehicle to get his name on the ballot.
26:05But his reach was always greater than the Republican Party's reach.
26:11He had won the nomination of a divided Republican Party.
26:15Now he would see if he could apply the same strategy
26:18to winning the presidency of a divided country.
26:22Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation.
26:27The attacks on our police and the terrorism of our cities
26:32threaten our very way of life.
26:36And I think the essential message there was,
26:39you have been neglected and abused by the powers that be,
26:43whether they are politicians or the media or academia or Hollywood.
26:47All of those folks are conspiring against you,
26:50the good, right-thinking middle Americans.
26:53I have joined the political arena
26:55so that the powerful can no longer beat up
26:58on people who cannot defend themselves.
27:02Nobody knows the system better than me.
27:14Which is why I alone can fix it.
27:28He just said, me, I'm the only person that can do this.
27:32You have to support me.
27:34That's the language of a strongman.
27:36That's the language that you hear in autocratic societies.
27:41I had at least five reporters approach me and say,
27:48didn't you think Trump's speech was too dark?
27:51And I told them all, no, I think the country's in deep trouble.
27:55We're in very dire times.
27:57And to pussyfoot around that and claim things are great is a mistake.
28:01And we need a strongman.
28:07Hillary! Hillary! Hillary! Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!
28:11And so, my friends...
28:13Just one week later, at the Democratic Convention,
28:15Hillary Clinton accepted her party's nomination.
28:19...that I accept your nomination for President of the United States!
28:25Clinton's strategy was to draw on Obama's legacy and bet big on diversity.
28:31This is a time of change for America,
28:33and it's a time to take stock and reaffirm the values
28:35that we hold as Americans.
28:37And that meant embracing the diversity.
28:41Please welcome...
28:43One moment turned out to be the centerpiece of their efforts,
28:47a speech by the father of a Muslim American soldier killed in combat.
28:52If...
28:54If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America.
28:59Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims.
29:06He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership.
29:18I don't think anybody or very few people who were planning the convention
29:22thought simply that moment alone would be as powerful as it was.
29:26Donald Trump, have you even read the United States Constitution?
29:31I will...
29:36I will gladly lend you my copy.
29:42As he watched Khan's speech, Trump saw an opportunity to go on the attack.
29:49I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention.
29:53And his advisers thought this was not a good idea.
29:56He shouldn't have done it, but Donald Trump just can't help himself.
29:59Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC,
30:04and is now all over TV doing the same, nice.
30:08The Khan episode illustrates Donald's major flaw,
30:13is he can't let something go,
30:16and he can't notice that he's losing a fight until he's really lost it.
30:22Now, on this week...
30:24He went after Khan's wife, Ghazalo.
30:26If you look at his wife, she was standing there.
30:28She had nothing to say.
30:29She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say.
30:32You tell me.
30:33But plenty of people have written that.
30:35Mid mounting backlash over Trump's comments,
30:37his campaign went into damage control...
30:38Veterans groups were outraged.
30:40At least two new polls show Hillary Clinton with a widening lead over Trump...
30:43As Trump's poll numbers collapsed...
30:45Republicans in particular have been quick to respond...
30:47Republican leaders further distanced themselves.
30:50Republican Senator John McCain offered a scathing...
30:52And his advisers are horrified.
30:53I mean, this is like, this is political suicide.
30:56And they say to Trump, you know, you just attacked a Gold Star family.
31:01And he said, well, what's that?
31:02Trump just sees it as a personal attack,
31:04and it's within his right to go on the counterattack.
31:07Trump's ongoing battle with the family of U.S. Army Captain...
31:10Virtually all the professionals expected Trump to change his tactics, to pivot.
31:16Everybody always wanted to mold Mr. Trump into their own image
31:19of what a candidate should look like, what a president should look like.
31:22And there was one thing that wasn't going to change about Mr. Trump
31:25was that he was going to stay true to himself.
31:27You know, whatever that means.
31:29And that if he was going to win this campaign,
31:32he was going to do it on his own terms.
31:34With barely 80 days before the election,
31:37Trump shook up his campaign and brought in Steve Bannon,
31:41the chairman of the right-wing website Breitbart.
31:44Bannon is a bomb thrower.
31:46Bannon joins the campaign because Bannon has a superior knowledge
31:52of alternative media combined with the fact that he's kind of a swashbuckler
31:56and a revolutionary, a guy who can think outside the box.
32:01It was a sign Trump was doubling down.
32:04Steve Bannon has made very clear all through recent career,
32:07his goal is to blow up the establishment.
32:09It's to take down the government as we know it.
32:11It's to destroy the Republican Party as it was constituted.
32:14I mean, he's a disruptor in, you know, in almost every way.
32:20As his new campaign manager, another unconventional pick,
32:24a pollster, Kellyanne Conway, who had bad news for Trump.
32:30On that day, I told him, I said, what's going on?
32:34Because you're running against the most joyless candidate
32:37in presidential political history,
32:39and this place is starting to seem like it.
32:41And he said, no.
32:42And I said, I've looked at the polls.
32:44He said, the polls.
32:45And I said, I've looked at the polls and we're losing.
32:47But you don't need to lose.
32:48You should be winning.
32:49Trump is hoping to finally put that controversy...
32:51They faced a formidable challenge.
32:53He's hurt himself, so...
32:55The first presidential debate.
32:57As Trump and Clinton get ready to go...
32:59What will likely be the most watched political showdown...
33:02As he had throughout his campaign,
33:05Trump was willing to gamble.
33:07He'd rely on his instincts, not preparation.
33:11There's actually a point of pride that he doesn't have to prepare.
33:15He values raw ability over study.
33:19So he wanted to prove that he was right about that.
33:22Trump mocked Clinton for spending so much of her time
33:25preparing for the debate.
33:27You know, you've seen me.
33:28I've been all over the place.
33:30You decided to stay home, and that's okay.
33:33Arguably, he was the worst prepared candidate
33:35in the history of American politics
33:37when he stepped up against Hillary Clinton
33:39for that first debate, and it showed.
33:41I think Donald just criticized me
33:43for preparing for this debate.
33:47And yes, I did.
33:49And you know what else I prepared for?
33:51I prepared to be president.
33:53And I think that's a good thing.
33:54She knew how to get under his skin.
33:56She had been practicing.
33:57She had been studying him.
33:58Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.
34:03I think it's real.
34:04I did not.
34:05I do not.
34:06Science is real.
34:07I do not say that.
34:08I do not say that.
34:09The team knew what his buttons were.
34:12And she just started unleashing them one after the other.
34:15You call yourself the king of debt.
34:17You talk about leverage.
34:19You even at one time suggested that you would try to negotiate down
34:24the national debt of the United States.
34:27And he lost control of the debate.
34:30Let me say this.
34:31There's nothing crazy about not letting our companies
34:34bring their money back into their country.
34:36This is Secretary Clinton's two minutes, please.
34:38I have a feeling that by the end of this evening
34:40I'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened.
34:43Why not?
34:44Why not?
34:45Yeah, why not?
34:46Hillary Clinton was very artful in getting under Mr. Trump's skin,
34:51in bringing up the issues that were like putting gasoline on a fire.
34:57One of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest.
35:04And he called this woman Miss Piggy.
35:08Then he called her Miss Housekeeping because she was Latina.
35:13Donald, she has a name.
35:14Where did you find her?
35:15Her name is Alicia Machado.
35:17Where did you find her?
35:18And she has become a U.S. citizen.
35:20And you can bet she's going to vote this November.
35:24Okay, good.
35:25Trump would insist he had won.
35:27Our debate for this evening.
35:29He was crushed in the first debate.
35:31I don't care whatever pronouncements he wants to make,
35:34he was crushed by every possible...
35:37Our focus group thought he was awful.
35:40He was down on Palm Beach.
35:42I moved on her and I failed.
35:43I'll admit it.
35:44Whoa.
35:45I did try and f*** her.
35:46She was married.
35:47That's huge news there.
35:48No, no, Nancy...
35:49It would get even worse for Trump.
35:50I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn't get there.
35:53And she was married.
35:55Just two days before the second debate,
35:57an unaired video from the TV show Access Hollywood.
36:01You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful...
36:03I just start kissing them.
36:04It's like a magnet.
36:05There was one account after another about Donald Trump
36:08attacking women, groping women,
36:10saying nasty things about women.
36:12But the moment that counts is the moment this is on video.
36:16And when you're a star, they let you do it.
36:18You can do anything.
36:19Whatever you want.
36:20Grab him by the p***y.
36:22I can do anything.
36:23Here's a guy who's making crude, disgusting jokes,
36:26and the father in you, the brother in you comes out,
36:30and the husband in you, and you can't defend it.
36:33The Trump camp has swiftly launched into disaster mode.
36:37A big, big development in this campaign as it comes...
36:40Right after that tape came out,
36:41suddenly everybody on the Trump team went radio silent.
36:44Everyone.
36:46This was the October surprise.
36:48Had the ability to take down a campaign,
36:50and the internal discussion amongst the campaign,
36:52some were, you need to apologize immediately,
36:55and some were you need to double down.
36:58Donald Trump's campaign,
37:00it's worst crisis ever.
37:02We keep being told he's going to come on TV,
37:05he's going to say something,
37:06he's going to apologize,
37:07and it gets delayed and delayed,
37:09and finally he comes out there,
37:10and it's an apology of sorts.
37:12I've never said I'm a perfect person,
37:14nor pretended to be someone that I'm not.
37:16I've said and done things I regret,
37:19and the words released today on this
37:21more than a decade-old video are one of them.
37:24And so he went on Facebook later that night
37:27and gave what was, by Trump standards,
37:29a contrite apology.
37:31But then he went on the attack.
37:33Bill Clinton has actually abused women,
37:35and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed,
37:38and intimidated his victims.
37:40I think Trump being Trump,
37:41his only instinct in those moments
37:43when his back is against the wall
37:44is to just go on the counterattack.
37:46We will discuss this more in the coming days.
37:49See you at the debate...
37:50I think with the exception of maybe one or two people,
37:52everyone thought that that was the end.
37:54How do you survive this?
37:56How do you survive this?
37:57As a Republican, how do you survive advocating
38:01or saying you're allowed to grab women
38:03in their private parts because you're a star?
38:06That is just not something that anybody can survive.
38:09I think the question now is,
38:11how do Republicans down the ballot break away from them?
38:14The next day, he appeared outside Trump Tower.
38:17To many, it seemed like his candidacy was over.
38:21I called Trump the day after Access Hollywood,
38:25and I asked him point blank,
38:28are you going to quit the race?
38:30That's what was on everyone's mind.
38:32And he says, Costa, I've lived life.
38:35I've seen so much in my life, business, personal.
38:39This is nothing.
38:41I've survived everything else.
38:43I'm going to survive this.
38:44And I kept asking him, are you going to quit the race?
38:46There's no chance I quit, he said.
38:48Not one chance.
38:50I am in this to the end.
38:52Donald Trump, undaunted,
39:00then headed to the second presidential debate.
39:03He showed up,
39:04and he was impervious to the naysayers and critics
39:06who were all trying to push him out of the race.
39:09Trump had a surprise of his own
39:12just before the debate was to begin.
39:14Next thing I know,
39:16and no one in the press knew this was happening,
39:18there was a press conference
39:19with all Bill Clinton's accusers
39:20right before the debate.
39:23These four very courageous women
39:25have asked to be here, and it was...
39:28Trump had invited four women to the debate,
39:31women who had accused Bill and Hillary Clinton
39:34of wrongdoing,
39:35charges the Clintons had denied.
39:37There was widespread shock.
39:40Nobody had it beforehand.
39:41The genius part of Donald Trump was,
39:43he didn't announce these women were coming.
39:46He just had them at a table and said,
39:49the media's welcome to come in right before the debate,
39:51and the media was stunned,
39:53because the media couldn't fathom doing something like this.
39:56Standing in the back of the room,
39:58the man who had orchestrated the event,
40:00Steve Bannon.
40:02Mr. Trump may have said some bad words,
40:06but Bill Clinton raped me,
40:09and Hillary Clinton threatened me.
40:12I don't think there's any comparison.
40:14It was to show America
40:17that he believed certain things about the Clintons
40:20that many Americans also believe,
40:23and that he was going to stand up for them
40:25against the Clintons
40:27in a way that was so tough
40:31and really so ruthless
40:33that it gave some satisfaction
40:35to people who hate the Clintons.
40:38Okay, thank you all very much.
40:40We appreciate it.
40:41Mr. Trump, did you touch women without consent?
40:44Why did you say you touch women without consent, Mr. Trump?
40:48Why don't y'all ask Bill Clinton that?
40:50Why don't y'all go ask Bill Clinton that?
40:52Go ahead and ask Hillary as well.
40:54By bringing the accusers to the debate,
40:56he put that issue front and center
40:58and forced voters out there to remember, in a sense,
41:02what it is that they didn't like about Hillary Clinton.
41:04This time on the debate stage,
41:09Trump stayed on the offensive.
41:11We have a divided nation because people like her,
41:14and believe me, she has tremendous hate in her heart.
41:17She's got tremendous hatred.
41:19And this country cannot take another four years of Barack Obama,
41:23and that's what you're getting with her.
41:25I don't think there was any moment in the campaign
41:27in which there was a more divergent interpretation
41:29among political professionals
41:31and members of Trump's vast and growing army of supporters.
41:35When you talk about apology,
41:37I think the one that you should really be apologizing for,
41:40and the thing that you should be apologizing for,
41:42are the 33,000 emails that you deleted
41:46and that you acid washed.
41:48Hillary Clinton, who's clearly much more measured
41:52and programmed than Trump.
41:54On the other hand, he's so much more of a live wire
41:58that, by contrast, she seems overly programmed.
42:02Allow her to respond, please.
42:03Personal emails, not official.
42:0533,000?
42:06Not, well, we turned over 35,000.
42:08Oh, yeah.
42:09What about the other 15,000?
42:10Please allow her to respond.
42:11She didn't talk while you talked.
42:13Yes, that's true.
42:14I didn't.
42:15Because you have nothing to say.
42:16I didn't in the first debate,
42:17and I'm going to try not to...
42:18He's mocked for this during and after the debate,
42:20kind of stalking around that debate,
42:22kind of stalking her.
42:24He's, you know, ridiculed for suggesting
42:25that he's going to put her in jail.
42:27If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general
42:31to get a special prosecutor
42:34to look into your situation,
42:36because there has never been so many lies,
42:39so much deception.
42:41There has never been anything like it.
42:43When he looked her straight in the eye
42:44and said that there should be a commission
42:46to study the crimes you've done,
42:49and to my surprise, my focus group said absolutely.
42:53Even those who supported Hillary Clinton
42:55want to see these candidates held accountable.
42:57We have to move on.
42:58Secretary Clinton, you can respond,
42:59and then we've got to move on.
43:00We want to give the audience...
43:01So, for what the media saw
43:04as third-world dictatorial politics,
43:09our voters saw as one candidate
43:12holding the other candidate accountable.
43:14It's just awfully good that someone
43:16with the temperament of Donald Trump
43:18is not in charge of the law in our country.
43:21Because you'd be in jail.
43:23We want to remind the audience
43:29to please not talk out loud.
43:32Please do not applaud.
43:33You're just wasting time.
43:34When I speak, I go out and speak.
43:36The people of this country are furious.
43:38That he was speaking the language
43:39of the American people,
43:40that he was holding Hillary Clinton accountable.
43:43You wouldn't know that if you lived
43:45in New York or Los Angeles.
43:47But you would know that
43:48if you're doing focus groups in Columbus, Ohio,
43:52in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
43:55or in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
44:00Back out on the campaign trail,
44:02Trump's anti-establishment message
44:04continued to resonate.
44:07And we are going to drain the swamp.
44:12We're going to drain the swamp.
44:16We're going to drain the swamp.
44:18That was how Donald Trump
44:20started out the campaign.
44:21We're going to drain that swamp.
44:23By saying things that were anathema
44:25to the establishment,
44:27but that had resonance in the base of support
44:30that he was able to cobble together.
44:33Yes, maybe he has offended me,
44:39and maybe he's offensive,
44:41but I'm still out of work.
44:42I'm still mad that people are pouring over the borders,
44:45and I'm still mad that ISIS is still attacking people
44:48all over the globe.
44:49And you know what?
44:50I'm just going to stick with him.
44:52With time running out,
44:54Trump's chances of winning still seemed slim.
44:57But the race would be shaken up by an unlikely source,
45:01WikiLeaks.
45:02Breaking news here.
45:03WikiLeaks is about to release, quote,
45:05significant material tied to Hillary Clinton.
45:07The campaign is doing damage control tonight
45:09after WikiLeaks released more...
45:11Tens of thousands of private emails
45:13from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta were released.
45:16There are some embarrassing details...
45:18This was a daily phenomenon.
45:19Both at home and abroad in all of this.
45:21It was a constant, you know, pain to our campaign.
45:28Flood of emails suggest that in private,
45:30her advisers like to tee off on everyone,
45:33from Catholics to Latinos and Southerners.
45:35Day after day, the stories continued.
45:38That she couldn't convey a clear message to voters.
45:41It was incredibly damaging,
45:42because every day there were bad stories coming out,
45:45and they could be perfectly timed.
45:47Senator Robby Mook lashed out, writing,
45:49quote,
45:50Wow, what a terrorist!
45:51It was anxiety-provoking.
45:52You just don't know what's going to come out on any day,
45:54and that you're going to have to deal with that.
45:56More than 2,000 emails...
45:58The first emails began to trickle out
46:01less than an hour after the Access Hollywood video.
46:04The Access Hollywood tape was a big surge,
46:08but then, you know, after it had run 400 times on television,
46:13it fell off.
46:14The Podesta emails kept getting dribbled out.
46:19News cycle after news cycle after news cycle,
46:22and it lives forever.
46:23There were media reports that intelligence agencies
46:26believed the leaks were orchestrated by Russia,
46:29but that didn't seem to bother Trump.
46:31WikiLeaks is amazing.
46:33The stuff that's coming out, it shows she's a real liar.
46:36This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable.
46:38It tells you the inner heart.
46:40You got to read it.
46:41WikiLeaks.
46:42I love WikiLeaks.
46:43After the election,
46:45intelligence agencies would go further,
46:48concluding that the leaks were part of a larger campaign
46:51ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin
46:53to help elect Donald Trump.
46:56It was cyber mixed with information warfare,
47:00and the press, the New York Times included,
47:04became the handmaiden to the process
47:06because these emails couldn't be ignored as news.
47:10They were newsy.
47:11They were out there.
47:12It's not like you could ignore it and not write about it.
47:16But in writing about it,
47:17you're doing the work that Vladimir Putin had in mind.
47:21Then, in the final days,
47:23as Hillary Clinton struggled to hold on to her lead,
47:26another crisis.
47:27An L.A. Times reporter came up to our traveling press secretary,
47:32Nick Merrill, and said,
47:34hey, have you heard anything about some reopening
47:37of the investigation by the FBI?
47:39I kept thinking, this can't be.
47:41This has to be a mistake.
47:42It's got to be referring to something else.
47:44The FBI director, James Comey,
47:47was resuming an investigation of Clinton's personal e-mail server.
47:52And I just remember this pit in my stomach
47:57and really worrying that this could change the game completely
48:02in a, you know, in a potentially lethal way.
48:07Moke and Palmieri briefed Clinton.
48:09When I went to tell her, I said, I got some news.
48:13And she said, okay, what's your news?
48:15And I said, it's bad news.
48:18So, um, she said, okay, what's the bad news?
48:22And so I told her, and she said,
48:24I knew we weren't going three weeks
48:26without something else hitting us.
48:28That pit in my stomach, you know,
48:31I'll never forget that, that feeling that, um,
48:37we just got smacked by a two-by-four,
48:39and it came out of nowhere.
48:44Donald Trump immediately seized on the news.
48:47I need to open with a very critical breaking news announcement.
48:54The FBI has just sent a letter to Congress informing them
49:11that they have discovered new e-mails
49:15of Congress pertaining to the former Secretary of State
49:23Hillary Clinton's investigation.
49:26And they are reopening the case into her criminal and illegal conduct
49:51that threatens the security of the United States of America.
49:59To win, you need a few breaks.
50:02The FBI announcement was such a break,
50:05certainly not controlled by the Trump campaign,
50:07but it really did throw all the cards up in the air
50:10at a pivotal time.
50:12We are going to drain the swamp.
50:14For the next week and a half,
50:16Trump traveled the country building on that momentum.
50:20To keep radical Islamic terrorists...
50:22Staying on message...
50:23The hell out...
50:25Off Twitter...
50:26We will build a great wall.
50:28Inside his campaign, they hoped it would be enough.
50:31And we will make America great again.
50:36It was the first time that Mr. Trump was relatively scandal-free
50:39at that point.
50:40A lot of things had gone away.
50:41Secretary Clinton was in the spotlight by herself,
50:44and we saw a spike in numbers that were just uncommon
50:47for anything that we've seen before.
50:49That was really the catalyst for the snowball effect
50:52that continued to happen until election day.
50:55In the final days of the campaign,
50:57he solidified the Republican base.
51:00And in rally after rally,
51:02he tried to win over voters in the heart of the blue wall,
51:06states a Republican hadn't won in a generation.
51:09In all these steel towns that have carcasses of factories,
51:13buildings where they used to have molten metal.
51:16No more.
51:17But know what was there?
51:19Trump signs.
51:21It is Decision Day in America,
51:24and we are taking a look at the presidential race.
51:26After a long, contentious presidential race,
51:28we are near the end.
51:29Donald Trump will carry the state of Florida with its 29...
51:33Donald Trump has won the state of Wisconsin,
51:35and there goes her blue wall.
51:37This means that Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States.
51:45As a candidate, he had broken all the rules.
51:49Now in the White House, he promises to do the same.
51:53You guys need to get used to it, that there is no pivot.
51:57That there is no normal.
51:59And the fact that there is no normal is the new normal.
52:03The only thing that is predictable is the unpredictability of Washington, D.C.
52:08from this point forward.
52:10So get used to it.
52:11Buckle your seat belts, sit back,
52:13because it is going to be a wild ride.
52:16From this day forward,
52:18a new vision will govern our land.
52:22On the front line of Iraq's fight against ISIS...
52:33The distance between war and civilian life is almost non-existent.
52:38Correspondent Keith Abdullaha is inside the besieged city of Mosul.
52:43This is the entrance of the building.
52:45Witnessing firsthand the casualties
52:48and the army's determination to take the city back.
52:52Battle for Iraq.
52:58Go to pbs.org slash frontline,
53:01where you can read extended interviews with Kellyanne Conway.
53:04We don't need to lose, you should be winning.
53:06John Podesta.
53:07Pain to our campaign.
53:09And others.
53:10Incredibly damaging.
53:11I'm all in.
53:12Explore an interactive feature on the film,
53:14with primary sources, video, and additional context,
53:17in collaboration with Duke University.
53:19Connect to the Frontline community on Facebook and Twitter,
53:23then sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org slash frontline.
53:28For more on this and other Frontline programs,
53:45visit our website at pbs.org slash frontline.
54:02Frontline's Trump's Road to the White House is available on DVD.
54:15To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
54:21Frontline is also available for download on iTunes.
54:24Frontline is also available for download on iTunes.
54:28Frontline is also available for download on YouTube.
54:29The 내려vals of the Green Bay Foundation for download,
54:31and if you are interested in towns atm
Recommended
20:55
|
Up next
1:04
47:05
0:33