The REAL Story of Donald Trump

- I know what trending is better than anybody in the world. I've been trending my whole life. From the day I was born, I've been trending.

I like the good publicity and I like the bad publicity. It all plays. It all plays.

- Who is Donald Trump? A while back, I realized that for all the attention Trump gets, I actually didn't know much about his life, how he rose to become one of the most powerful people on the planet, and what his life and career can teach us about what he really wants. I didn't know any of that.

So I delved in to try to better understand how he rose to power and, most importantly, why there are so many products with his name and face on them. (upbeat music) - [Larry] It is not a toupee, okay. - Okay?

- [Larry] Alright. - Will you please inform the public? - So join me as we explore the rise of Donald Trump.

- [Narrator] Rich, ruthless, and famous, known for the buildings he's built and the wives he's divorced. (upbeat music) - He played Monopoly. But more than Monopoly, he played with building blocks, always with building blocks.

- [Johnny] Donald Trump was born in Queens, New York, a river away from the gleaming skyline of Manhattan. He was a middle child of five kids, the son of an immigrant mother from Scotland who ran the Trump home and who was known for her charitable work in the community. But in Trump's telling, his father was his greatest influence.

- My father built low and moderate income housing in Brooklyn and Queens. - His dad made a big fortune taking advantage of post-World War II government programs that funded affordable housing complexes during New York's rapid growth. By all accounts, Fred Trump was an obsessively hard worker, saying that he was successful because he could, quote, "Squeeze nine days of work into a seven day work week.

" Growing up, young Donald was the rich kid on the block. But even still, his hardworking father forced him to have a newspaper delivery route to teach him hard work. Though apparently when it rained, his dad would drive him around on his newspaper route in his Cadillac.

Okay. Fred Trump focused on teaching his son the ways of the real estate business, taking young Donald to construction sites from a very young age. He instilled in his son a deep drive to win, to win at anything you do, to be the winner.

He would tell Donald that he was raising him to be a king and that he must become a killer at anything he did. He was tough on Donald because he wanted him to be a winner. At school, Donald Trump was, in his own words, aggressive.

His music teacher, who died in 2015, once said that, quote, "There are certain children who need attention all of the time. He was one of those. " And even punching that music teacher in the face, apparently giving him a black eye, because, quote, "I didn't think he knew anything about music.

" I mean, he was like in elementary school. But it does show you some of this personality that starts to shape up from a young age. Trump says in his book that he focused on creating mischief because, for some reason, quote, "I liked to stir things up.

I liked to test people. It wasn't malicious. It was just aggressive.

" You can read a lot more about this in his book, "The Art of the Deal," where he talks a little bit about his childhood, as well as this really well-reported biography, "Trump Revealed. " I pulled a lot from these sources in my reporting here. Anyway.

- One of the great choices I ever made in terms of success was the choice of going to NYMA, New York Military Academy. - [Johnny] Trump's father, Fred, obsessed with hard work and discipline, sent Donald to military boarding school to live full time when he was just 13 years old. And this is where Donald Trump really starts to thrive.

- It was a good education. It was a good training. It was a good training, I enjoyed it.

- From my reading, this military academy was pretty intense. It was a place where, quote, "Physical brutality and verbal abuse were tolerated and encouraged both in hazing new students and physical disciplining from teachers. " Trump actually thrived on this kind of intense structure.

It helped fire up his competitive nature. And soon, he would be getting good grades and winning medals for things like having the cleanest room, or the shiniest shoes, or the best made bed, all while going around telling fellow students that, quote, "I'm going to be famous someday. " And this is where I wanna start to make a list of some of Donald Trump's core beliefs that start to become clear from a young age.

This is stuff we'll see over and over again, and I wanna make a list. First and foremost, the guy is obsessed with winning. You see this all over his childhood and the rest of his life.

- I was a great baseball player. - What position? - [Donald] First base, catcher, first base.

- Trump was super into baseball. His baseball coach recounts that, quote, "Donald always had to be number one in everything. He would do anything to win.

And he wanted people to know that he was first. " So teenage Donald Trump spends the school year thriving at military academy, eventually rising to the rank of captain over the rest of the cadets, and then spending summers back in Queens working with his dad, learning the ways of the real estate business. Both of these experiences are very formative and lay the foundation of who he will become and what he will do in his future.

That future continues when he goes off to college. - I went to an Ivy League school. I'm very highly educated.

I know words, I have the best words. - Trump gets into college and he still doesn't know exactly what direction he's gonna take. He considers going to film school in LA to become a filmmaker.

- My other fantasy as I got older was to do movies. I wanted to be a movie maker. - Man, what an alternative world that would be, Donald Trump the, like, movie director.

(chuckles) - Down the hall and to the left. - Thanks. - I like keeping a low profile.

(audience laughing) - (sighs) If only. But ultimately, he decided to follow his father's path. He studies economics and business.

And this is like during the '70s. There's a war going on in Vietnam. Young men are being recruited.

But Trump qualifies for an educational deferment, meaning he gets out of the draft, four times, because he's going to college. Once he got out of school, he would've been eligible for the draft, but he qualified once again for a deferral because of a problem with his heel bone. Though there is some controversy around this because the doctors who wrote Trump's deferral recommendation both lived and/or worked in buildings owned by Fred Trump, Donald Trump's dad.

And there's some speculation as to whether or not he actually did have a heel spur or whether or not these doctors were doing Donald Trump's dad a favor by making it so his son wouldn't be sent off to war. Either way, he didn't go to war and instead starts working for his dad's thriving real estate business, building lower and middle income apartment buildings in Brooklyn and Queens. And then there's this moment in 1964 that shows us another important part of his personality.

We'll make it the second item on our list here. There was this huge bridge in New York that had just been completed. It was a massive feat of engineering.

It connected Brooklyn to like Staten Island or something. Fred Trump was invited to the opening ceremony of this bridge, and he invited his son Donald to be present. Donald sat there in the crowd and noticed that during the celebration of the bridge, the guy who actually designed the bridge was there, but he was just off in the corner.

Quote, "No one even mentioned his name," recalls Donald. He goes on to say, quote, "I realized then and there that if you let people treat you how they want, you'll be made a fool. I don't want to be made anybody's sucker.

" - They just took us like, you know, for a bunch of suckers. - This is a huge one, that for Donald Trump, it's not just about winning, it's that you must fight for recognition, that if you're not the center of the show, you're a sucker. Recognition and attention matter a great deal to Trump from a very young age, - I'm an artist.

In a certain sense, I'm an artist. I built the greatest buildings in the world. - [Johnny] Okay, so Trump joins his dad's business and he starts really learning the ways.

- And I started off making little deals in Brooklyn and Queens with my father, and they seem to workout. - He's only in his 20s, but he quickly runs into some big issues that would redirect the course of his life. At this point, we're in like the 1970s.

The Civil Rights Act had just passed, which made it illegal to discriminate against people based on their race. And to enforce this, the US government, the Justice Department, would send agents undercover around to different apartment complexes to make sure that landlords weren't discriminating on who they rented to. This was a routine thing that they were doing, and it eventually happened to the Trump apartments.

The DOJ would send in a Black person undercover to apply for an apartment. And they quickly started to see a pattern, where Black or Hispanic people would be told that there was no available units in that complex. And then right after, the DOJ would send in a white person looking for the same type of apartment, only to find that suddenly there was room in that apartment complex.

Department of Justice officials did this over and over, and started to see a pattern of systematic racial discrimination. And on one day in 1973, Trump and his dad are hit with this lawsuit. The United States of America v.

Fred Trump, Donald Trump, and Trump Management Inc. The DOJ is hitting him with this lawsuit over allegedly discriminating against people based on race or color. They found that managers would mark rental applications with a C, indicating color.

But yeah, these are one of these rental applications, and this may be the C that they are referring to, here in the remarks section. I don't actually know, I haven't verified that. But in one testimony, a doorman for Trump's property said that he was directed to tell Black applicants that the rent was twice as much as it actually was.

And then when they asked the super why they denied certain applicants, the super replied that he was, quote, "Doing what my boss told me to do. I'm not allowed to rent to Black families. " The DOJ found that this was widespread, happening all over in Trump's at least 14,000 units.

This lawsuit was a pretty huge deal. It was one of the largest fair housing cases at the time. Here's the New York Times front page the day after this came out.

Major Landlords Accused of Antiblack Bias in City. 27-year-old Donald Trump was furious. But instead of admitting to these allegations and settling with the DOJ, he fought back.

And this is where we get to the next item on our list, which is a pattern we'll start to see, which is that when Donald Trump is called out for something, his response is often to fight, to fight no matter what. - I think people see me as a fighter. I think people have always seen me as a fighter.

They know that I don't take a lot of crap from people. - The Trump's responded by counter-suing the Department of Justice for a hundred million dollars, claiming that they made false statements. Now, the judge dismissed this suit outright, saying that there was no basis for it.

But even still, the Trump's fought on. During this time, Trump said that, quote, "I'd rather fight than fold, because as soon as you fold once, you get the reputation of being a folder. " So he kept fighting for years even though there wasn't really a solid defense there.

And finally, he was forced to fold. But watch how he does it. Watch what he prioritizes.

He strikes a deal with the DOJ that allows him to admit no wrongdoing but that would require him to make a bunch of changes, like emphasizing that his apartment complexes are open to people of all races, taking out ads in the paper saying that Trump apartments actually do welcome Black renters. But he didn't have to admit any guilt, and that is a point of pride for him. - We settled the suit with zero, with no admission of guilt.

It was very easy to do. - Fighting no matter what means never admitting you're wrong, regardless of the circumstances, never apologizing, never folding. It's something that all humans do.

They evade responsibility. But Trump has kind of made a brand out of it. It's a pattern that we'll see over and over.

But anyway, a bigger point I wanna make here is that this whole lawsuit really turned Donald Trump off of his dad's business. He didn't like this whole renting to middle and lower income tenants. It was causing too much trouble for him.

Remember, he grew up in a rich New York City family, with a reputation and connections. He had a taste for prestige, and luxury, and wealth, and attention. And none of that was out here in Queens.

So in his early 30s, he starts to turn his attention across the river, toward Manhattan, the epicenter of wealth, prestige, excess, and attention, the high life of New York City. (rhythmic music) And it wouldn't be long before he was at the top of it all. And this is where we need to take a slight diversion.

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Okay, let's get back to Donald Trump's story. - I've never seen anything to the extent that I have in New York. Now, from a real estate standpoint, it's probably become the hottest city in the world.

People are flocking here by droves. - Well, they weren't flocking here by droves right away. In fact, when Trump moved to Manhattan, Manhattan was kind of a city in decline.

It was full of empty, crumbling buildings, kind of like a faded memory of its glory days. But Trump came in with a huge vision, a huge enthusiasm to resurrect the city at a time when most investors were pretty sheepish about putting their money in this crumbling city. Check out this New York Times feature on Donald Trump around this time.

Tall, lean, blonde, with dazzling white teeth. A glib, nonstop talker, who believes that, quote, "New York is either going to get much better or much worse. " And he's predicting that it's going to get, quote, "Much better.

" That's a pretty good prediction. Over the next decade, Trump used his father's company connections, money, reputation, to buy old, decaying buildings and give them glitzy renovations. - And we purchased the old Commodore Hotel and we've reconverted that now into about $110 million Grand Hyatt Hotel, which is- - This includes the purchase of this old department store on Fifth Avenue, atop of which he built his signature project, Trump Tower, a 68-story building in Midtown Manhattan, or was it 58 Floors?

Trump sort of has a habit of like exaggerating the number of floors in his buildings. Anyway, the point is the city kind of loved it. It was a welcome renovation, a unique style of a building.

But no one loved it more than Donald Trump himself because he was winning. In a very short time, he had broken away from his life in business in Queens and built a temple unto himself, a physical expression of his love for opulence, and status, and exclusivity, and attention. - [Reporter] Trump Tower, the creation which holds a shopping area, where if you have to ask the prices, you don't belong there.

- Marble, gold, columns, waterfalls, mahogany woodwork, chandeliers. And for Trump and his family, a massive three-story penthouse that looks like a European palace had a baby with Las Vegas. But remember, winning is not all that matters to Trump.

Next, he needed to make everyone know about it. And he needed to control the narrative. The story couldn't be that he had grown up with a rich dad who gave him money, and reputation, and connections to make a lot of this happen, or that a lot of these deals were made with a combination of tax exemptions with some fairly shady financial sleight of hand and, at times, full on lies to banks in order to secure funding.

That's something we understand now because court rulings have come out to prove how shady a lot of this was. But no, no, no. At the time, the story needed to be that he was this smart, hardworking guy.

And honestly, there's no doubt about that. But this is where Donald Trump's master storytelling comes into play, showing his ability to subvert the law while crafting a story about his success that people would just eat up. (upbeat music) And a big part of that storytelling is reflective of another one of his core beliefs, that people want to be sold a fantasy.

I mean, and I'm not speculating on this, in his book he says that, quote, "I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why little hyperbole never hurts.

People want to believe that something is the biggest, and the greatest, and the most spectacular. " This is truly one of the most important things on this list because I think he's right. I think people do like to be sold a fantasy.

- I like him. The man's got it made, got everything. - He started crafting this big fantasy image of this rich, no-BS talker.

He became good at getting in front of the camera, telling the story that you want to hear. - I'm a rather, and you'll be surprised, but I can be a rather humble person if I want to be. I like to be non-controversial.

Have you folks noticed that? (attendees laughing) - By the mid 1980s, Trump's tower and big personality had made him famous, giving him the platform to keep selling his fantasy persona as a rich party animal, always surrounded by women and famous people. And there was perhaps nowhere that helped elevate this image and storytelling more than the New York City tabloids.

- I mean, 22 days in a row or something, I'm on the cover of the tabloids. It's never been anything like that. - Trump appeared on the front page of the New York tabloids 87 times in the course of 15 years.

And this was not by accident, it was by design. This was a part of his strategy. He learned how to hack the media really early on.

This idea that no matter how much bad press you get for shady business, like racial discrimination, bribing people that have connections to the mob, allowing his casinos to be used as money laundering, all of this can be washed away if you distract people with a tantalizing, glamorous lifestyle. Sell them a fantasy 'cause that's what they want. Or better yet, in his own words in 1991 in an Esquire interview, quote, "You know, it really doesn't matter what they write, as long as you've got a young beautiful piece of (beep).

" This would prove to be true and still is true. And the tabloids were his megaphone for this strategy. - The reputation of Donald Trump, the man who dates a different woman every year.

- I wanna talk a little bit more about the tabloids because I feel like this was like his bootcamp for learning how to work human psychology and the media to get attention. He became an expert at getting people to pay attention to him for good and bad, and finding a way to get whatever he wanted to appear in print. Like, for example, when the tabloids were covering his struggling marriage with his first wife, Ivana Trump, who he later had three children with, he and Ivana faced off trying to shape the tabloids' narrative by fostering relationships with different columnists and planting information.

Trump had been having an affair with actress Marla Maples, who later became his second wife and the mother of his fourth child. And this affair, this tension, became so juicy to the New York tabloids it was everywhere. And instead of hide from it, Trump fueled it because it added to his image.

It was these years where he really learned that all press was good press. He also got really good at planting rumors, using fake names like John Miller or John Barron. Yes, I'm literally saying that Donald Trump would call journalists and pretend that his name was John Barron to give them information that would benefit himself, Donald Trump.

Like, here he is in 1984, calling a Forbes reporter who is assembling a list of the 400 richest Americans. - [Jonathan] Okay, what's your first name? - [Donald] John, John Barron.

- Even though it sounds just like Trump, we know that it's him pretending to be John Barron, saying that he's the vice president of the Trump organization and saying that he knows how much Trump owns of the family business and thus how rich Trump is. - [Jonathan] Okay, and would you say, you know, in excess of 90% of the ownership probably? - [Donald] I'd say in excess of 90.

In fact, well, it's really closer to even the the ultimate, but it's in excess of 90%, yes. - If it's not obvious, he's lying. He's playing pretend.

He didn't own 90% of his dad's business. And guess what? It totally worked.

Forbes ended up coming out with a list that said that Donald Trump was worth a hundred million dollars. But later, we learned that he was only worth $5 million. Man, if only it was that easy today.

Like, were reporters not skeptical back then? This guy obviously sounds like Donald Trump. I mean, listen to him.

- [Donald] Just consolidated. I think last year, somebody showed me the article, and I think he had 200 and 200. And really, it's been pretty well consolidated now for the most- - And if you're skeptical, Trump himself testified in court that, quote, "I believe I occasionally use that name," referring to his use of John Barron as a fake name.

And as his baseball coach said way back when he was a teen, Trump will do anything to win. Oh, and let's be clear though, the definition of winning here isn't what most of us think of, which is being the best at something while following the rules that everyone else follows. To Trump, winning means making people think you won, making people think you're worth a hundred million dollars even though you're really worth $5 million.

The truth doesn't matter. The perception matters. He gave them the drama that they wanted about his divorces and relationships, and in exchange, he got the attention that he craved and that he used to craft his image.

So, so far, this is my list, my interpretation of what motivates this guy, what he really believes, how he thinks, and how he's used that to be successful, first in real estate development, but soon in much, much more. - [Narrator] A man that was the darling of the '80s is seen in the '90s as a man in trouble. - This surely will be my favorite part of the video because it's about to get wild.

(rhythmic music) - There is a new billionaire in town. Trump's the name. Donald Trump is a major deal-maker, a swashbuckler.

- Throughout the '80s and '90s, Trump's name starts to appear on everything, Trump magazine, real estate and luxury living. Dear reader, over the years, I've developed an intensely cogent philosophy. (laughs) And then he launches an airline.

- [Reporter] Donald Trump bought the Eastern Shuttle for a price tag of $365 million. The Eastern shuttle is no more. Tomorrow morning, it will be the Trump Shuttle.

- Planes with leather seats, faux marble, gold-plated sinks, carpet that was so thick that the flight attendants couldn't push their drink carts, to which Trump responded, unsurprisingly to anyone, "Tell them to push harder. " - We are going to run the best airline in the industry, and we really don't anticipate any problems. - The airline did fail within a couple of years.

But remember our rules. We don't admit defeat. He claimed that it was a success.

He launches a board game. Trump: The Game, which is effectively Monopoly but with a few tweaks. (lighthearted music) I got the instruction booklet with faux marble texture.

I would be disappointed with anything less. We got a hundred million dollar bills, monopoly money with Trump's face on it. You got real estate, you got investors, got casinos, hotels.

The game represents everything that Trump wants you to believe about him and parts of his real life. He had built a real estate empire. - I win.

- Yeah, you always win. - Trump opens a slew of casinos in New Jersey that helped revive Atlantic City. These casinos were over-the-top, excessive luxury, just like everything Trump touched.

He helped start an American football league to compete with the NFL. - And the answer is we are in a form of war right now with the NFL. There's no question about it.

- That didn't work out. He launched a vodka brand. I have it right here.

Success distilled. Even though, side note, Donald Trump doesn't and apparently hasn't ever drank alcohol. - I'm glad I'm not a drinker.

I mean, I've never had a drink in my life. - This also no longer exists and was very expensive, but I did it for the fans. 120 bucks on sale.

The world's finest, super premium vodka. Like, it sounds like Trump. His wording, like, I swear, it's just like, super premium, the finest, the best, like everything's the best.

Everything's the best. And then of course there's the beauty pageants. A big part of Trump's image was that he was consistently surrounded by women.

- [Contestants] Donald, Donald, Donald! - So he bought up major beauty pageants. - [Donald] You know, they're standing there with no clothes.

Is everybody okay? And you see these incredible-looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that. - At least 26 women have come out publicly, accusing Donald Trump of some form of sexual misconduct.

This includes his ex-wife, who accused him of sexually assaulting her, but then later softened the allegation after a legal settlement. Anyway, this is a long list of women and accusations that each have a specific context and results. But it includes one case where Trump was found guilty for sexual abuse.

Now he denies all of this, that is, until he thinks he's not being recorded. - [Donald] I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful, I just start kissing them.

It's like a magnet. I just kiss. I don't even wait.

And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. - [Billy] Whatever you want.

- [Donald] Grab 'em by the (beep). You can do anything. (crew member laughing) - But this didn't stop Trump from continuing to rise as an icon of relatable fame and fortune.

He continues to put his name on everything, turning, as one Trump organization executive put it, quote, "From a serious businessman into a cartoon. " He's on the cover of Playboy. He creates a real estate investing course that he calls his university, which he eventually got massively sued for.

He launches a travel and tourism website, a mortgage company, a home and furnishing brand. - Finally, the same luxury and comfort I demand in my hotels. - A men's clothing line, including ties.

Okay, wait, side note, I have a funny story here. When I was a Mormon missionary and I had to wear this every day, the only way to express yourself is with a tie. And so we would trade ties with each other.

And the most valuable ties were Trump ties because they were like so, I don't know, they just had weight. They just had brand power associated with them. Yeah.

I once traded a Trump tie, I'm not gonna lie. Anyway, moving on. There's Trump winery.

And then he's suddenly launching a steak brand. - When it comes to great steaks, I've just raised the stakes. - Like, we kept finding new things that Trump's name was on, like this urine test kit that is currently on eBay for a couple hundred bucks.

No, we did not buy it, right? - [Staff] I was told to, $500. - $500, no thank you.

Oh my god, we almost pulled the trigger on that one. Nope. And then of course this, literal water called Trump Ice, with the guy's face on it and just water from 2004 or something.

We also paid a lot of money for this. Collector's item. Oh no, it expired in 2004.

We're going on 20 years from when this expired. 20-year-old water, I wonder how it's doing. Should I take a sip?

Should I open it? Like, what else am I gonna do? I have to take a sip.

I'm drinking some right now. - [Staff] Whoa. - I'm doing it.

Oh, whoa, this is like, this expired 20 years ago. Oh, dude, it's been like vacuum sealed. Oh.

It smells chemically. I'm taking a sip. This could be my final sip.

Death by Trump water. (imitates choking) No, I'm just kidding. Wow.

Okay, Trump water, tastes like prestige. Like, this guy could brand anything with his name and face. He had become a symbol.

But what you have to know about all of this stuff is that he didn't own most of this. He's really just licensing his name. Like, all around the world, you see these buildings.

They have the Trump name on them. But Trump or his organization didn't build them. They don't manage them.

They simply give the people who do own them permission to use the name to signal a sense of prestige, brand power. Trump's image had become his greatest asset, appealing especially to the American middle class. Because even though Trump came from extreme wealth, he presented like an everyman, who was a plane talker, he had an outer-borough, Queen's accent, and yet he had it all, the money, the women, the luxury, and this pull yourself up by your bootstraps reputation of having earned it from the ground up, a Disneyland-esque version of the American Dram, which was a mix of half reality and half fantasy.

We're used to a lot of this stuff now, celebrities and influencers putting their name on stuff to sell someone else's product. But back in like the '80s, most people would see all of these products and think that like Trump owned all of it, that he had this massive empire with dozens and dozens of products. Leasing his name allowed him to build an empire of products but without using his own cash.

And when these businesses failed, as nearly all of them eventually did, Trump could pocket his profits, cut ties, without facing the fallout of the business folding. Now let me be clear. I'm not saying that this is illegal or even unethical.

If anything, it was smart. I guess my takeaway here is that Trump's main skill wasn't being a businessman in the traditional sense. It was being a marketer, a showman, the sales pitch, the ability to sell himself and the fantasy that he built around himself.

His rise is almost entirely explained by his ability to do that, combined with the fact that he was born and raised with an obscene amount of money to get him started. Okay, but let's move ahead with the story. I've emphasized this enough.

Trump has built this big fantasy brand. It's really working. He's making a lot of money.

He becomes like an icon. But by the early 2000s, his brand was kind of losing its luster. His business empire starts to kind of decline, his casinos were filing for bankruptcy, and his glory days seemed to be maybe over.

But that would change in 2004 when he was able to once again monetize his persona, this time on a reality TV show. - [Donald] New York City, it's the benchmark for success. Believe me, I know.

My name is Donald Trump, and I'm the largest developer in New York. - The concept was the brainchild of the creator of the reality TV show "Survivor. " And it was pretty brilliant.

Trump would be the boss looking over his vast business empire, and there would be contestants who would compete to impress the big boss enough to get hired. This ended up being a powerful premise for a dramatic show. It was a massive success, bringing in tens of millions of viewers and rejuvenating Trump's persona, actually elevating it, a household name for many Americans who would tune in to watch him act out this role that he had been preparing for his whole life, the showman in the spotlight, entertaining people while also building his brand and his image as a ruthless businessman.

- You're fired. - Oh God, oh my God. - "The Apprentice" with Trump lasted for 14 seasons and laid the foundation of what would happen next, his launch into running for president.

- I am officially running for president of the United States. (attendees cheering) (attendees applauding) And we are going to make our country great again. (attendees cheering) (attendees applauding) - Do you have the the genes to be a successful politician?

- Well, you never really know. I think I'm pretty outspoken, and that's not probably a good thing in terms of a politician, but it's a good thing if you ever got elected, you can really do a job. - You've said though that if you did run for president, you believe you'd win.

- Well, I don't know, I think I'd win. I tell you what, I wouldn't go in to lose. I've never gone in to lose in my life.

- [Johnny] Trump had flirted with running for office a few times before. - On the Republican side, there's speculation that developer Donald Trump may throw his hat into the ring. - But it was only in the 2000s, while he was crafting his image on "The Apprentice," that he started to insert himself into politics more and more, like in 2008 when he challenged whether or not then candidate Barack Obama was actually an American citizen.

- More recently, Donald Trump have questioned President Obama's citizenship. - We have to look at it. We have to see, is it real?

- Now, this was an overt display of racism that did not land well with a lot of Americans. And it coincided with a sharp decline in The Apprentice's ratings. Eventually, most of Trump's branded ventures would go on to fold.

And once again, he seemed to be on course for being a name of the past. But we know this guy by now. He is fueled by an endless desire to win and be recognized for it.

And he had a pretty tried-and-true playbook to do it. So in 2015, Trump descended an escalator and threw him himself into the spotlight, the spotlight that he knows so well. When he was asked later why he decided to run for president, he said, quote, "Because here's the way I look at it.

I have so many rich friends and nobody knows who they are. " You must fight for recognition or you'll end up as someone else's sucker. - Say what you will about Mr Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House.

(attendees laughing) - So he wielded his tireless work ethic and his ability to inflame, and divide, and lie, and lie, and lie some more, and bully all the way into the limelight. After years of practice on smaller stages, he entered the largest stage of them all and expertly sold the fantasy of being the every man despite having never lived like anything but a king. And it worked.

He won. He didn't get the most votes, but he still won fair and square. And he became the President of the United States for four years.

And then when he lost, he did what he's always done, what we could have predicted he would do. He fought it, fought it to the death, attacking the rules of the system that he had lost in, selling his lies to an angry population who believed them, and dealing a blow to the foundations of our fragile democracy. And tens of millions of people continued to love it.

(protesters jeering) (siren blaring) There's a reason why Republicans who understand how power works are scared that he's back, that he's running for president again. Dick Cheney, the epitome of a conservative Republican, said that, quote, "In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who's a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters rejected him.

He can never be trusted with power again. " He's one of the many Republicans, including his previous vice president, who understand how our country works, how delicate our system is, and who see clearly how this person does things. And it scares them.

It scares them for the very existence of our country. This is not typical political fighting. This is weird, this is different.

This is a genuine worry for the system itself, a system that now, thanks to a new Supreme Court ruling, gives a sitting president immunity from the law right at a time when indictments from government prosecutors are racking up against Donald Trump, not because the deep state is out to get him, not because the Democrats have coordinated this, but because he has broken the law and our system is working to make him stand accountable. - [Jack] Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.

- As Trump runs again for the White House, I've been seeing these same ingredients play out, these beliefs, these behaviors. He has a tried-and-true playbook, and he'll use it over and over again. I mean, just look at this side by side that "The Daily Show" recently did.

- Joe Biden is a failed president. She was a failed vice president. The worst president in the history.

The worst vice president in history. He's incompetent. She's incompetent.

She can't talk. She can't talk. Lower IQ, he's a low IQ individual.

She happens to be really a low IQ individual. She really does. She has a very low IQ.

(audience laughing) - After studying his life and watching him lead my country for four years, it feels clear to me that Donald Trump will continue to pursue this playbook, these beliefs, this lifelong ambition to win, to not be anybody's sucker, to win and to get recognition for it, recognition that he so deeply and nakedly craves. This is what he's been doing his whole life, to win at all costs, to do whatever it takes. And my genuine worry, like that of Dick Cheney's, is that this time he's willing to rip apart the entire country in the process.

I've made a similar video for the other candidate running, Kamala Harris. That video comes out next week. It is a similar biography commentary on Kamala's life.

I've tried to approach both of these with a non-biased lens, but at some point I also have to say what I observe and what I see. You know, I really feel like my view of Trump was expanded through this research. I was able to humanize him, and see him in a different way, and understand him.

And I think that's really important. And yet, when I feel like the political system that ensures my freedom and security is being attacked, like, that is also something that I will say full-throatedly and without mincing words. Make sure to check out our other channel, Search Party, which is a deep dive on geopolitics and global sports started by my old colleague Sam Ellis.

If you like this channel, you'll like that channel as well. And also make sure to check out our music brand. All the music that we make in our videos is custom-made by our composer Tom Fox.

He publishes that music, and it is available to be licensed. So the link is in the description for that. It's called Chromatic.

You can go listen to it or license it with that link in the description. Lastly and most importantly, if you are above 18 years old and you're an American, please go register to vote. It takes probably 90 seconds.

If you have a driver's license or some other form of ID, you can do it online, and then you can go vote. Please do that. Half of young people will not vote this election.

Therefore, half of a huge constituency in our system will just not be heard, which is like, that's not democracy. So make time to do it. It feels good.

And you get a sticker afterwards, which is really fun. Okay, thanks, everyone. See you.