All language subtitles for The.Accidental.President.2020.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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[chattering]

- [Man] I guess turning on
the AC would be impossible.

- [Cameraman] That brown
leather thing is...

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

- [Soundman] Marker.
[beep]

[clapperboard clapping]

- My hair okay?

- [Director] Yeah

[clap]

- Uh...

- This is a lovely room.

This is one of the
best for an interview.

And it's the people's house,
so we might as well use it.

[clapping]

- We are on the fourth floor
of the New York Times building.

- Stupid is what stupid does,
as Forest Gump says, right?

- Is this fake news?

[woman laughs]

- This is not a complete
dumper on him, right?

- Check one, two, three.
Check one, two, three.

Check one, two, three, four.

- I dare you to put
this in the documentary.

- [Director] I
might give it a go.

- Tensions beginning
to run high. [chuckles]

- Run the tape back.

[tape rewinding]

[clapping]

- [Man] We're getting started!

- You tell me when you're
ready. I'm always ready.

- Well, like most people,
I didn't take it seriously.

- When the entire country
was laughing at him,

they were mocking him...

- Donald Trump has been saying

that he will run for
president as a Republican,

which is surprising,
since I just assumed

he was running as a joke.

[crowd laughing]

- There was just no
serious thought given

to him as a candidate.

- It's obvious that
the Republicans think

Trump's gonna lose.

- Well, I can imagine it
in a Saturday Night skit.

- Utterly unqualified

- He's an embarrassment
to this country.

- Hillary belongs
in the White House.

Trump belongs on my show.

- Right now we have
Hillary as about a 75

or an 80% favorite.

We have different versions

of the forecast.
- That high?

- You're not gonna be
president. All right?

[audience laughing]

- So discombobulated.
So unconventional.

- This is a joke, and
it's an absurdity.

- Donald Trump will
never be elected

President of the United States.

- I don't think there's
any way that Donald Trump

gets elected President
of the United States.

- Donald Trump is not
gonna be President

of the United States.

- You know, you guys
sound like two kittens

sitting on a train track,
looking down at a train,

thinking, "That train
got a little bit bigger

a few seconds ago, but
I'm sure it's gonna stop.

Hey, it got a little bit bigger,

but no way it's
gonna keep going.

Hey, it-"

Splat.

Listen, if something is
getting bigger and bigger

and bigger every day,

it's probably going to
continue doing that.

[dramatic electronic music]

[electronic beeping]

- 2015 U.S. was really a space
of more than one America.

[soft electronic music]

- [Reporter] Breaking
news coming in now

from Charleston, South Carolina,

where there are reports that
eight people have been killed

in a shooting at a church.

- We as a country will have
to reckon with the fact

that this type of mass
violence does not happen

in other advanced countries.

- There was this growing gap

between rich and poor Americans

and it was really one
of the major challenges

facing the country.

- Sometimes I just don't
buy groceries every months,

and I live eating a meal a day.

- We automated away

four million manufacturing jobs

in Michigan Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,

and those communities
have never recovered.

- Today, we can say
in no uncertain terms

we've made our union
a little more perfect.

[light electronic music]

[helicopter whirring]

- [Reporter] Orlando
became the tragic scene

of the worst mass shooting
in American history.

[train creaking]

[car honking]

[train rattling]

[crowd cheering]

[stark electronic music]

[crowd shouting]

- You killed that man!

- Huge country, 340 million
people, all Americans,

but pretty distinct
cultures regionally

and drastically different
political sensibilities.

So you had people
who were pleased

with the performance
of President Obama.

[upbeat electronic music]

- And that was a
winning campaign.

You just felt-

Millions of people at these
rallies, every age, every race.

You felt the swell of excitement

about this historic candidacy.

- It was a creed written
into the founding documents

that declared the
destiny of a nation.

Yes, we can.

[crowd cheering]

There was just incredible
enthusiasm for Obama,

enthusiasm very rarely
seen for a politician.

He offered a message
of hope and change

that electrified
the Democratic base,

and they turned out in
big numbers for him.

- And CNN can now project that
Barack Obama, 47 years old,

and will become the president
elect of the United States.

[crowd cheering]

- Walking down the street,

people were just
screaming, "Obama!"

[energetic electronic music]

- What Republican voters
believed to their core

was that Barack
Obama had succeeded,

that he had set out
to change America,

and he did, and he wrecked it.

[somber electronic music]

- You had a few
different contingents

that were starting to maybe look

for a way to coalesce
around something

to replace president Obama,
knowing that he'd be leaving.

- I think Liberals
and Conservatives

were both looking for someone
who would go to political war

for the issues
that we care about.

Obama pushed this
country way to the left.

Are you gonna keep that ground?

Or are you gonna
cede that ground?

And to just elect somebody
who was gonna come in

and be kind of a caretaker
of the status quo?

No way. Nobody wanted that.

[crowd cheering]

- Hello, Iowa!

[crowd cheering]

I'm back!

[crowd cheering]

- Well, what Democrats
believed as gospel

was that Barack Obama
had permanently changed

the composition
of the electorate.

[stark electronic music]

This ascendant coalition
of African-Americans,

of Latinos, of women,
of Millennials,

was going to turn out in
the same levels that it had

for president Obama's
two successful elections.

[crowd cheering]

- The Democratic party was like,

"You know what we should do?"

Hillary Clinton.

- Hillary Clinton.
- Hillary Clinton.

- Hillary Clinton.

She is running for president.
- I am running for president.

- This was like the
re-re-re-introduction

of Hillary Clinton.

Most people had already
formed an opinion about her,

and that's hard to change.

[crowd cheering]

- There had never
been a candidate

in the history of
the United States

who had been as famous for
as long as she had been.

- She's always prepared, she
always does her homework,

and she works very, very hard

not to make a story of herself.

- Has had 25 years to figure
out how to do this perfectly.

All the money in the world.

All the smartest
people around her.

And it was inevitable.

There was no way that
she would ever be denied

the idea that she'd be the
President of the United States.

Those segments
were all convinced

that Hillary Clinton
was the next president.

I don't mean like 90-to-10 or
85-to-15. Every one of them.

[crowd cheering]

- It was all math and no poetry.

It was all about
identifying Obama voters,

building this Hillary coalition.

And I thought, well, maybe
this is just how Hillary wins.

Sort of a dreary,
mechanical slog.

- And that kind of canned
political candidate,

Over-managed by consultants,

over work-shopped by a
giant committee of people,

that's what people are tired of.

People are tired of being
sold a polished product.

They want something that
feels like a real person,

even if that real person
is all kinds of weird.

[intense orchestral music]

[crowd cheering]

- I don't believe he
intended to become president

when he declared his candidacy.

- When he came down those
stairs, the escalator,

I did not think he was
a serious candidate.

I thought it was all
for publicity purposes.

- This was a marketing exercise.

This was a yolo campaign.

Even if he lost, he'd win,

because he'd raise his
profile even higher.

- I think his
expectation was that,

"I'll do well and do better

than people initially
thought I would,"

which was a smart bet,

"And I'll increased my brand
share, my market share."

[bright orchestral music]

- I think he intended to
provoke a conversation

about Donald Trump.

- Wow.
[energetic rock music]

Whoa!

That is some group
of people. Thousands!

- I think he was
contemplating turning 70

and thought, "How
do I want to go out?

Oh, I want to go out in
a blaze of attention."

And what better vehicle
for getting attention

than a presidential campaign?

[audience members cheering]

I am officially running...

[crowd cheering]

for President of
the United States...

[audience cheering]

and we are going to make...

our country great again!

[audience cheering]

[dramatic orchestral music]

- It's something that's been
in the back of Trump's mind

for a long time.

- Could the Manhattan magnate
be eyeing the White House,

or is he just calling a bluff?

- As early as 2000, he
floated the idea publicly

of running for president.

- I think that nobody's
really hitting it right.

The Democrats are too far left.

The Republicans
are too far right.

- He was thinking
about it in the 1990s.

- This sounds like political,
presidential talk to me.

- I do get tired of
seeing what's happening

with this country,
and if it got so bad,

I would never want to
rule it out totally.

- He talked about running
on the Reform Party ticket.

- Do you have a vice
presidential candidate in mind?

- Well, I really haven't
gotten quite there yet.

- He came very, very
close to running in 2012,

and people, I think, have
slightly forgotten that.

He was front runner at
one stage in the polls.

- Are you or are you not going
to run for the presidency?

- I am seriously
thinking about it.

Well, I am thinking about it,
but we'll see what happens.

- And ended up
endorsing Mitt Romney

and making a big show
of it in Las Vegas.

[audience cheering]

He was always
someone who, I think,

as part of his showmanship,
felt that he deserved to be

on the biggest
stage in the world.

- The country is
doing very poorly.

Our country is in
serious, serious trouble.

The country is going to
hell in a handbasket.

This country can not
continue to support Japan

and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

You look at what
China's doing to us,

how they're just ripping
us left and right.

They're taking our jobs.

I'll bring back our jobs
from China, from Mexico,

from Japan, from so many places.

I'll bring back our jobs, and
I'll bring back our money.

- I really believe
that this was a gimmick

to get NBC to
raise up his salary

and to keep "The Apprentice" on.

- Well...

- And I would bet
the farm on that.

- [Interviewer] Some
say Donald Trump

entered the race to win it.

And the other half
say he entered

to see where it took him.

- He absolutely-

And I talked to
him before he ran

and talked to him
throughout the race.

He absolutely ran to win it.

And he also said,
we'll see how it goes.

The usual political motivators

that attend to people
running for president

did not apply to Donald Trump:

money, fame, position,
bankability, power.

He had all that.

He had a great life in New
York City. He's Donald Trump!

- Think about the opening
of "The Apprentice".

["The Apprentice" theme music]

♪ Money money money money

It's Donald Trump in a
helicopter narrating the scene

as he approaches the
island of Manhattan

and talks about what
a big deal he is.

- New money, boorishness,
is quintessentially American

From the Gold Rush, this
idea of striking it rich

and celebrating it.

There's no restraint.

Trump lives like a rap star.

- He is a master marketer
who had a celebrity resonance

with the American people

as a successful businessman
and a strong leader.

[stark music]

- This establishes for America

that Donald Trump really is
the mogul he claims to be.

Now, I say claims to be

because he isn't the
mogul he claims to be.

He's not nearly as
rich as he says he is.

But it doesn't matter.

This is a thing that he
intuits, but he also knows.

He knows that the truth is
really beside the point.

It's what are you selling,
and can you sell it,

and will people buy it?

In every case he
was selling himself,

and that is the best preparation
possible for a politician.

[overlapping shouts]

- If you're a kind
of narcissist,

where as long as your
name's being mentioned

it really doesn't matter
if it's good or bad,

if that's good for
your marketing campaign

and building a larger brand.

- Three weeks, when I started,

I thought he was probably
born in this country,

and now I really have a much
bigger doubt than I did before.

- But based on what?
- And you know what?

His grandmother in Kenya
said he was born in Kenya,

and she was there and
witnessed the birth, okay?

- I think he clearly saw
how the criticism of Obama

got him traction as red meat
for the Republican base.

- And I just say very simply,

why doesn't he show
his birth certificate?

Perhaps it's gonna say Hawaii.

Perhaps it's gonna say Kenya.

- Are you a birther, Donald?

- Something on that
birth certificate

- Oh my God!
- Oh, that's a terrible thing!

- If you really don't like
what President Obama did,

there certainly can be an
underlying racial resentment.

[crowds shouting]

The idea that his presence
was disproportionately good

for non-white people, and thus
your status as a white person

may be endangered
or in jeopardy.

- He tapped into that group.

Yeah, there are more things,
but race was a major issue,

and people will say
it's not, but it was.

He started chanting and,

and the rhetoric was
shrill about race.

- When Mexico sends its people,

they're not sending their best.

They're bringing drugs,
they're bringing crime,

they're rapists.

And some, I assume,
are good people.

- Remember, after Mitt
Romney lost in 2012,

most of the Republican
establishment thought

it was because he
alienated Hispanic voters

with self-deportation.

Kellyanne was one of
a very small group

of Republican professionals

who thought it was
actually the opposite,

who thought that you could
take a populist message

against immigration,
not more liberal,

but more conservative
on immigration,

and you could get not just
Republican primary voters

but a lot of blue-collar,
white, working-class voters,

particularly in the Rust
Belt, the upper Midwest.

- I will build a great, great
wall on our southern border,

and I will have Mexico
pay for that wall.

Mark my words.

[woman cheering]

- Are you concerned about
alienating the Hispanic vote

by saying that Mexico
is not our friend

and we're building a wall?

- If it's good for me or bad
for me, I don't think of that.

I think of saying
the right thing.

And people have to be
alerted to the fact

that we are getting some
really bad characters

coming into this country.

- How can you succeed when
you say things like that?

- Well, you can't-

Again, Gayle, if
the question is,

how can you become president,

you can't by saying
things like that.

- Are you racist?

- I am the least racist
person that you have ever met.

- He was fearless.

When Donald Trump
denounces Mexicans,

and people are outraged,

and he loses the PGA
Championship from

does he back down?

No.

He doubles down.

- Donald J. Trump is
calling for a total

and complete shutdown of Muslims
entering the United States

until our country's
representatives

can figure out what
the hell is going on.

[audience cheering]

- It is, in fact, the case

that you have a big chunk
of racists in this country.

But, worse than that, you
have a big chunk of people

for whom racism is
not a disqualifier.

And Trump understood that.

- [Audience] Build that
wall, build that wall!

- Build that wall, build
that wall, build that wall,

build that wall, build
that wall, build that wall,

build that wall,
build that wall!

[intense music]

- He realized this
wasn't about ideology.

It was about who
was the angriest.

It was about who was the
angriest at Obama, specifically,

and who could embody that
anger the most authentically.

And so it didn't
matter that he wasn't

a conventional conservative
on all kinds of metrics.

What the base was really
looking for was just,

who could be the most
opposed to Barack Obama?

- Were it not for the
transformative love

of Jesus Christ?

- What makes our country
exceptional? Faith and freedom.

It's no exaggeration to say

we're at the most critical
point in our nation's history.

- The greatest nation
the world has ever known.

- I see a great
country on the verge

of its greatest century.

- A new, American century.
Thank you, God bless you.

[crowd cheering]

God bless the United States.

- Donald Trump was blessed

with the biggest field in
modern Republican history.

[intriguing electronic music]

- Oh, there's no
doubt in my mind

that the Trump
campaign was delighted

by the fact that there were
so many other candidates.

- This was possibly the
most qualified group

of Republican
candidates in history.

- Every single one
of them who ran

thought there was
at least some chance

that they could get
lightning in a bottle

and win this thing.

- Ted Cruz is my man.

He fits the bill.

- They thought that you
go out, you get your base,

you're gonna fight
this out in the states.

Jeb Bush is gonna
get X constituency,

Rubio's gonna to get
this constituency,

and so forth and so on.

[crowd cheering]

- They were prepared and
responsible and ready to lead.

They were not prepared to play
the lowest common denominator

every day to maximize attention.

- So, along comes Donald Trump.

And what Donald Trump
understood is that-

- Republicans were not looking
for the smartest candidate

or the most
sophisticated candidate.

They were looking for a gut
puncher, a street fighter.

[crowd shouting]

- Rubio, total lightweight.

And little mouth on
him. Bing, bing, bing.

- A con artist will never
get control of this party!

- Jeb Bush is a
low energy person.

- I think Donald Trump is
trying to insult his way

to the presidency, and
it's not gonna work.

- Do you believe Senator Ted
Cruz is a natural-born citizen?

- I don't know, to be honest.

- Donald Trump
alleges that my dad

was involved in
assassinating JFK.

- And he's like this,
"And we will... [gasping]

I need water. Help
me, I need water!"

- This man is a
pathological liar.

- And he knew that
all he had to do

was seem different from
the typical Republican,

and he would naturally
draw the public's interest.

[audience laughing]

Unbelievable.

- [Reporter] Trump's latest
poll numbers matching

his larger-than-life
personality.

In a reversal from when
he entered the race,

Republicans increasingly
believe Trump has staying power.

But the question remains, can
Trump turn his poll numbers

into actual votes?

- Because his name
ID was so high,

because he was such a
spectacle from day one

that, in a giant field,

his name bumped to
the top of polling,

and then it sort of
feeds off of itself,

because, once he's the leader,

oh, maybe I'm maybe
I'm for the leader too.

Yeah, sure, that sounds
interesting. Donald Trump.

[stark music]

- In reality television, the
villain is always the star.

All the way back
to American idol.

You know, Simon, he was rude
and mean. He's the star.

That's a trope in reality TV.

[crowd shouting]

- Who would you rather
have negotiate with Iran?

Trump or Jeb?

- [Audience] Trump!

- But here's the
problem with Rubio.

When you sweat that much.

[audience laughing]

"Hello. Hello.

Can I have some water?"

And Putin's sitting there,

"What the hell kinda
stuff is this?"

This is not exactly a
poker player, folks.

Not exactly a poker player.

She said, "I never expect to
hear that from you again."

She said, "He's a
pussy." That's terrible.

[audience yelling]

Terrible.

- He had this reality
TV experience,

which I contend people
watch for the humor.

It's not jokes, but they just
laugh at what's happening.

I think that, with
Trump's candidacy,

that the news became comedy.

- This is a TV star
who knew how to work

the medium of television.

And because most of the
Republican candidates

were cowed into thinking they
shouldn't expose themselves

too much, Trump sucked
up all the airtime.

- Why don't you
turn your camera?

Show 'em how many people
come to these rallies.

Turn 'em! Go ahead, turn 'em!

[audience booing]

Go ahead!

[audience cheering]

Brutal.

- Immediately thought
that Donald Trump

had climbed over the wall from
the world of entertainment

into the world of politics.

That's not what he did.

He pulled the world of
politics over the wall

into the world of entertainment.

I'm Mike Huckabee. I'm
delighted to be on this stage.

- I'm Jeb Bush, and
I believe America's

on the verge of its
greatest century.

- I'm Ted Cruz.

I'm the son of an
Irish-Italian mom.

- My wife, Jeanette, and
I are the proud parent.

We've been married 17 years,

and we're the proud
parents of four children.

- I'm Donald Trump. I wrote
"The Art of the Deal."

I say, not in a
braggadocious way,

I've made billions and
billions of dollars

dealing with people
all over the world.

- The thing that makes
Trump the most unique

is not any one element
of his personality,

his skillset, his history.

It's the lethal
combination of them.

I've referred to this
as a talent stack,

or, in this specific case,

you could call it
a persuasion stack.

It's a bunch of skills that,

if you put them together,

you would say each of
these individual skills

is not the best I've ever seen,

but almost nobody
has this combination.

[audience applauding]

[soft electronic music]

- Donald Trump took center
stage in that first debate

in early August, 2015 and
never lost center stage.

- Positioned on the stage by
how they stand in the polls.

In the center of
the stage tonight,

businessman Donald Trump.

[audience cheering]

- When Donald Trump
raised his hand and said

that I might not support
the nominee, oh, I just...

- Can I see hands?

Who is unwilling tonight
to pledge your support

to the eventual nominee
of the Republican Party?

[audience booing]

Mr. Trump.

- People aren't watching
these primary debates

to really learn
about the candidate.

It's a show. It's a TV show.

[audience applauding]

- Mr. Trump...

- He was in this
situation with Megyn Kelly

that I don't think anybody
could have escaped from

If they were a standard
politician with a

- You've called women you
don't like fat pigs, dogs,

slobs, and disgusting animals.

[audience laughing]

Your Twitter account
lists several-

- Only Rosie O'Donnell.

[audience laughing]

- [Moderator] No, it wasn't.

- The Trump method is
not to deny everything.

It's to own a little piece
of the terrible thing.

- Everyone on stage
with him that night

got the memo too late

that we were playing
a different game.

- You had serious
policy debates in 1960.

56 short years later,

you don't have serious
policy debates anymore,

because the phone changed
everything, right?

Because what happened is
the phone shortened up

everybody's attention span.

Trump understood
that, "I'm in this

and I'm out of this
thing in 30 seconds.

That's gonna show up on
everybody's media page.

That's gonna show up on
soundbites in the news

and I'm going to beat the guy
controlling the narrative.

They're not."

- We don't need a weak person

being President of the
United States, okay?

We don't need that.

[audience booing]

We don't need that.

Nasty guy.

Now I know why he doesn't
have one endorsement

from any of his colleagues.

- All right, John,
I get to respond.

- [Moderator] Senator
Cruz, pick from the buffet.

- Rand Paul shouldn't
even be on this stage.

He's number 11. He's
got 1% in the polls.

- I don't know.
- You're not beating Hillary.

- Well, then, if I can't...

Hey, if I can't,
if can't beat her

you're really gonna
get killed, aren't you?

[audience shouting]

So let me ask you this,

'cause you're really
getting beaten badly.

I know you're embarrassed.

I know you're embarrassed,
but keep fighting.

Keep swinging, men.
Swing for the fences.

Let me just tell you.
Let me just tell you..

- I mean, they were all
ready for each other,

but they weren't ready for him.

Okay, he was like the
human wrecking ball.

He was the Howard Stern of
presidential candidates.

He was the first smash-mouth,
shock jock candidate.

So he came in there
with his tongue.

He used them as boxing fists.

He was just boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

- Quiet.

- And he's knocking
'em left and right,

and they couldn't handle it.

[audience booing]

- That's all of his donors and
special interests out there.

[Jeb laughing]

So...

[audience booing]

Two days ago he said he
would take his pants off

and moon everybody,
and that's fine.

Nobody reports that.

He gets up and says that.

- Jeb's crowd, as you know,
right down the street.

They're sleeping!
They're sleeping now.

- There's a lot of technique
in the linguistic kill shot,

as I call it.

- He's very low energy.

I'm not used to that
kind of a person.

- If you looked at a Jeb
Bush before the nickname,

you probably thought what I did

which was, hey,
this Jeb Bush guy

looks like a real cool,
calm, even-headed leader.

- But the moment that Trump
said he was low-energy,

you couldn't unsee it.

- Please clap.

[audience applauding]

- Simple fact is,
Donald, you cannot take-

- More energy
tonight. I like that.

- And then he got
to "Lying Ted".

Well, look at him.
He looks shifty

- And he cleverly made it

Lyin' with an
apostrophe, not a G.

- L-Y-I-N-apostrophe Lyin' Ted!

- And by the time he
did "Little Marco"...

- Little Marco, Little Marco.

[audience laughing]

- I knew this stuff works.

- It was the idea that Trump
was assigning people names.

That conveys a
sort of authority.

- Don't worry about it,
Little Marco, I will.

- All right, well
let's hear, Big...

- Don't worry about it, Little-

Don't worry about
it, Little Marco.

- [Moderator] Gentlemen!

Sometimes the only way
to deal with a bully

is to knock him on his ass.

- He's always calling
me Little Marco.

And I'll admit, the guy,
he's taller than me.

He's like 6'2", which is
why I don't understand

why his hands are the size
of someone who's 5'2".

Have you seen his hands?
They're like this.

And you know what they say
about men with small hands...

[audience gasping]

- Everyone criticizes Rubio for
going dirty on Trump, right?

Oh, he messed up his brand,
and that was never his brand.

It was exactly that...
It was cringe-worthy.

- He hit my hands. Nobody
has ever hit my hands.

I've never heard of this one.

Look at those hands.
Are they small hands?

[audience laughing]

And he referred to my hands,

if they're small, something
else must be small.

I guarantee you there's no
problem. I guarantee it.

[audience laughing]

- You have young children.

Do you regret where
this has gone?

- Look, I...

I regret the way that campaign
has become, absolutely,

because Donald Trump,
for the last year,

has made it one of the
most vulgar spectacles

in American political history.

[overlapping shouts]

- Trump ran through the
Republican field like a buzzsaw.

- The Bush dynasty is done.

There were Republicans
who were rising stars,

whether you're talking
about a Chris Christie

or a Marco Rubio, a Rick
Perry, who are done,

done in American life.

And then it got
to the Democrats.

- Part of Hillary's whole
strategy in the primaries

was to elevate
Trump to make sure

that the media
took him seriously.

- Now, some transformation
has happened,

and Republicans, whether they
support Donald Trump or not,

seem to think that he
really is their best chance

of winning the general
election next November.

- Anne, which
Republican candidate

has the best chance at
winning the general election?

- Of the declared ones,
right now Donald Trump.

[audience laughing]

- There was a feeling of
like the Clinton campaign

felt like this is great.

He'll destroy the
Republican Party

and make it impossible
for a Republican to win.

- Donald Trump's continue
ascent in the Republican Party

could mean the end of the
Republican Party as we know it,

that George W. Bush
could be the last

elected Republican president.

- The RNC apparatus...

eventually panicked...

at the idea of Donald
Trump being the nominee,

and they started to be more
aggressive behind the scenes

to try to derail it.

If we Republicans choose
Donald Trump as our nominee,

the prospects for a safe
and prosperous future

are greatly diminished.

- You can see how loyal he is.

He was begging for
my endorsement.

I could've said, "Mitt,
drop to your knees."

He would have dropped to
his knees. He was begging!

- We've confirmed
that both presidents

George W. Bush and his
father George H.W. Bush

will stay silent and
not endorse anyone.

- He's a race baiting,
xenophobic, religious bigot.

He doesn't represent my party.

- They wanted him
to write checks.

They viewed him as a donor.

They did not view him
as a serious candidate.

They viewed him as a
threat to everything

that the RNC had
been working for.

And what the RNC didn't realize

is that the American people
could really have cared less

what their point of view was.

- CNN projects that Donald Trump

will be the winner of the New
Hampshire Republican Primary.

- Oh, wow!

Wow, wow, wow.

- [Reporter] Donald
Trump is the winner

of the Nevada Caucuses.

- We won with young.
We won with old.

We won with highly educated.
We won with poorly educated.

I love the poorly educated.

- [Reporter] A 22-point
margin in Alabama,

14-point victory in
Tennessee and Georgia.

- Yeah, baby!

- [Reporter] Very big
nights for Donald Trump.

- They got destroyed.

Donald Trump, all
five states called

relatively early in the night.

- People thought that
Conservative values voters

were gonna care more
about personal morality

than political and
policy alignment.

And at the end of
the day, it turns out

they don't care that much
about personal morality

for their leaders.

[audience cheering]

- He exposes the fact
that it's not about ideas.

It's about emotions.

This is not about
actually ideology.

It's, oh, you know,
he talks like me,

he thinks like me, in some
cases he hates like me.

They felt like the
two major parties

had failed the country in
the most fundamental ways,

and they simply
weren't listening,

and they wanted
to find the person

who could personify
their anguish

about the country's future.

[crowd cheering]

- [Audience] Bernie,
Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!

- Well, look, nobody saw
Bernie Sanders coming,

least of all the Hillary
Clinton campaign.

And even Bernie Sanders
himself was surprised

by how much traction he got.

- [Announcer] Senator
Bernie Sanders!

[audience cheering]

- What this campaign
is about is creating

a political
revolution in America.

[audience cheering]

- CNN projects
that Bernie Sanders

will win the Wisconsin
Democratic Presidential Primary,

beating Hillary Clinton.

A big, big win for
Bernie Sanders.

He won five of the
last six states.

- We've now won, I
guess, nine states.

And a lot more are yet to come.

I think Bernie Sanders was...

said a lot about
weaknesses in her candidacy

that he gave her
such a hard run.

- Her campaign refused
to take seriously

that there had been an
insurgency in her party,

and a 149 year old
socialist from Vermont

who nobody ever heard of got
47% of the vote against her.

She went to Michigan and
got beat to a bloody pulp

by Bernie Sanders.

That lets you know that
there's a problem for you

in the industrial heartland.

- The fact that he
was able to pull off

that incredible
upset showed people

that there is still a
very vocal constituency

in the Democratic base.

- What we see is
a populism rising,

but a populism that is formed

by a lack of economic gain

and movement in the
middle of the economy.

- A very large swath of the
country has felt left out

by the economic miracle
that's taken place

over the last 30 years.

[soft music]

In the process of globalization,

there's been rising living
standards all over the world,

but the American middle-class

and American lower middle-class
missed out on this.

- In the United States
of America today,

there is massive injustice

in terms of income
and wealth inequality.

- When you have no
real wage growth,

when 67% doesn't have
$1,000 dollars in savings,

when all the economic
gains accrue at the top,

that will ultimately
destabilize politics.

- Remember, 76% of Americans

do not have a four
year college degree.

More than two
thirds of Americans

have never been
to college at all.

So, what you're excluding
is the vast majority

of the country from
the possibility of

of the upper middle class.

- Those people were angry.

- [Audience] Bernie
Sanders! [clapping]

Bernie Sanders!

- [Audience] Trump, Trump,
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump!

- Boo!

- Things he's saying I've
been saying for years.

When he wins, we all win.

[soft music]

- He tapped into a vein
of the American mindset

that believed that the
American dream was aspirational

but no longer achievable.

- I'm tired of the
politicians in Washington.

I'm tired of the way
the country's being run.

And I want some change.

I want somebody new, and the
man knows what he's doing.

- If you want a candidate

who's gonna help
create a government

which for all of us
and not just the 1%...

- The jobs, incomes, and
security of the American worker

will always be my
first priority.

- And this guy is saying,

I'm not gonna ship
your job jobs overseas.

I'm not going to
trade with people

who will undermine our economy.

I'm not gonna let
people into the country

who will jeopardize
your security.

That's what they're looking for.

- I am going to be...

the greatest jobs president...

that God ever created.

Remember that.

[audience cheering]

- I think a lot of
people go, "Oh my gosh!

Look at this Trump, he's
upending everything!"

And this is some disease that
just popped out of nowhere

in the American polity.

And it's like, no,
he's actually a symptom

of the fact that many
people have felt alienated

for a long time, have felt
disappointed in their vehicles

for reaching
Congress, in Congress,

in this entire sort of system.

- Our system is rigged.

The system is corrupt.

The system is broken.

[somber music]

- They were waiting for
someone who just would grab

the people of Washington,
the leeches and the lawyers

and the lobbyists
and all of them,

just grab them by the neck
and say get the fuck out.

- We are going to
drain the swamp.

It is time to drain the
swamp in Washington, D.C.

We're draining the swamp.

[audience cheering]

- [Interviewer] Some
people have told us

that Trump voters were dumb
and that he manipulated them.

- It is a mistake to
say, or to believe,

that people who voted for
Donald Trump are stupid,

just like it's a mistake to say

that they're sexist or
racist or xenophobic.

It is fair to say, though,
that they were duped.

Because if you're
looking for a champion,

if you've been squeezed as
a member of the middle-class

for a Rust Belt city,
a billionaire populist

who lives on Fifth Avenue
is not gonna be your savior.

Now, to Donald Trump's credit,

he was able to
connect with them.

- And I'll tell you what.

The big business in this
country, and I'm a part of it,

but I decided-

I'd been on the other side.
You do know that, right?

I understand the other side.

- In some way,
it's possible that,

because he owned
being the rich guy

who was going to help
everybody do better,

it, in a way, circumvented
the criticisms

that he's just some rich guy.

- Large numbers of
Americans have thought

for a very long period of time

that, if we can only get
a businessman in there,

someone who understood business,

we could make the government
run like a business.

Which is kind of a
funny point of view

when you think of all of
the senators and governors

who were businessmen,
who were elected

and generally have been
a disastrous politician.

[helicopter whirring]

- He was out there giving
helicopter rides to children,

spending tons of
money showing anything

but humble beginnings.

but that's who his persona was,

and that made him
seem authentic.

- So he wore a suit where
other people don't wear suits.

He stayed looking presidential
in every situation.

[overlapping shouts]

- Mr. Trump now has security

equal to the President
of the United States.

- We commonly refer to
our activity as the show,

and the reason being is
because it was a show.

If you think about the
optics, the black vehicles,

the limousines, the
agents that jump out

with sunglasses and earpieces,

there's a sense of
importance and gravitas

that comes with the show.

And Donald Trump had
that almost one year

in advance of the election.

- And he made sure that,
when he landed his plane,

that it looked a lot
like Air Force One.

That there would be plenty
of camera time for that.

- The American people would
have been disappointed

if he had appeared
at any airport

in any other jet.

The black and gold and
red Trump color scheme,

and the giant block
letters of gold, Trump,

are things that people
respond to now emotionally.

It's not just that they're
amused and riveted by it.

They like it.

- They admire Donald
Trump the same way

they once admired Elvis.

They see a man who's living
large, who's enjoying life,

Who's doing what they
would probably do

if they were worth
billions of dollars.

- Trump is the guy that the
working class man would be

If he won the lottery.

There's something about Trump's
wealth, the gold-platedness,

the eating a bucket of
KFC on his airplane.

[soft electronic music]

- He's one powerful person

who's gonna stand
up and stand between

the regular folks and the
elite and say, "I'm with them."

- He has money.

He's supporting this
campaign from his own money.

He believes in this.

- I'm here for Donald Trump

because he loves America
and he loves Texans.

- And veterans.

- Yes! Yes!

- We need jobs and
we need more jobs.

I mean, it's getting bad,
but it's gonna get better,

'cause he's gonna
be our president.

- He wants to eliminate
some of the corruption

that's in the government.

And there's a lot of
corruption in this government

at the present time.

- If you were afraid that your
child was being indoctrinated

in high school or college,
Trump had a message for you.

If you were angry about
the cultural signals

that Hollywood was sending,
he had a message for you.

And if you were...

resentful that the media
wasn't telling the whole story,

boy, did he have
a message for you.

And it became Trump versus
this cultural elite.

[grave electronic music]

- If you look at a Trump rally,
you see the joyful faces,

people laughing,
people having fun.

- He was electrifying audiences

of 10 to 20 to 30,000 people.

- I would go early
to the events.

They would be lined
up around the block,

into the second block,
into the third block.

Never seen anything like it.

- They would show up in
labyrinth, snake-like lines

to go to a rally just
to say they were there

when he was there and
be part of his movement.

[stark music]

- [Audience] We want
Trump! We want Trump!

We want Trump!

[audience cheering]

We want Trump!

- When you start to
draw 10,000 people,

15, 20,000, in Trump's
case 30,000 people...

and they're all
cheering your name...

And you're Donald Trump...

It's better than Oxycontin.

I mean, it is the most
addictive thing in life,

even more than private jets.

Just...

[audience cheering]

- Unbelievable!

Thank you!

Ah, that's so beautiful.

- Donald Trump is very,
very hard to understand

if you come at him through the
lens of an educated person.

I went to a number
of his rallies

in New Hampshire and
in South Carolina.

And I would listen
to Trump's speeches,

and it seemed to me as if
he was changing thoughts

in the middle of a sentence,

not just in the middle
of the paragraph.

There were so many
unfinished thoughts

and so many imprecise wordings.

I thought, my gosh, what does
this guy even talking about?

- Did you read about Starbucks?

No more "Merry
Christmas" on Starbucks.

Then you say, sorry,
we're leaving.

You go out, you double
up the sanctions.

By the time your plane lands

at one of our decrepit
airports, they're all decrepit.

This was said to me by one of
the great musical geniuses.

I won't tell you his name.

I don't want to get in trouble.

But he said, "Donald, you're
the greatest in the world.

You're the only one
that can fill an arena

without a guitar,"
meaning without music.

I don't want Oreos
made in Mexico!

[audience booing]

Right?

- It's baffling to me...

why people would say that he...

that Trump gets anyone
in the Rust Belt,

any middle-class person.

Not only...

Yes, does he literally live in
a gold tower in New York City

and a mansion in Beverly Hills,
on a golf course in Florida

I never saw a speech
of Donald Trump's

where he addressed the
needs of the working class.

I never saw a single
speech of Donald Trump's

where he talked about anything
but himself and his enemies.

- And yet, when I talked
to the people in the crowd,

I found that he was
resonating with them.

- We're gonna win so much,

you may even get
tired of winning!

And you'll say, "Please, please!

It's too much winning!

We can't take it anymore!

Mr. President, it's too much!"

And I'll say, "No, it isn't!

We have to keep winning!

We have to win more!

We're gonna win more!"

- You can mock it.

You can say you
don't agree with it.

You can say it wasn't
sophisticated enough.

But you can't say
he didn't have it.

He knew exactly what he
wanted to tell people.

- People came to the rallies

because they had no idea
what he was gonna say.

They had no ideas whether
there were gonna be fights.

You didn't know.

- His campaign
violence gone viral.

Those are the big
questions this week

after the ugliest two days

of a dangerously angry
White House race.

- Oh, we have a protester.

We have a protester.

[audience booing]

I love the old days.

You know what they used
to do to guys like that

when they were in
a place like this?

They'd be carried out
on a stretcher, folks.

[audience cheering]

Ah, it's true.

Get 'em outta here!

Get 'em out!

Out, out, out!

Bye! Go home to mommy.

- [Reporter] Do you regret
saying any of those things

about punching protesters,

sending them out on stretchers?

- No, I don't regret it at all.

- Racist go home!
- Build that wall!

- Racist go home!
- Build that wall!

- Is there anything more
fun than a Trump rally?

- [Audience] No!

- The ancient Romans
said that the electorate

was motivated by
bread and circuses.

So the idea that
giving people a show

is not unique to
21st century America

or 21st century world.

But Trump Is good at it. He's
good at provoking people.

He's good at getting
a rise out of people

in whatever medium.

ISIS...

is honoring...

President Obama.

[audience booing]

He is the founder of ISIS.

He's the founder of ISIS.

- Trump has launched
a new line of attacks

trying to link the
Obama administration

to the founding of ISIS.

- Founding ISIS would be,
I mean, that's treason.

- I know what you meant.

You meant that he created the
vacuum, he lost the peace.

- No, I meant he's
the founder of ISIS.

He was the founder of ISIS.

Absolutely.

- Every night I had
to sit on set...

cable news, and listen
to people explaining

how Trump is moments away
from self-destructing,

how the most recent thing
he's done is so terrible

and he'll never survive it.

- And I think what
Trump understood better

than really anybody is the
truth of being in the media.

There's not a liberal
or a conservative bias

as much as there's
a conflict bias,

and Donald Trump
provided daily conflict.

- You gotta see this guy,
"I don't know what I said!

[mumbling]

I don't remember!"

- That reporter he is talking
about is Serge Kovaleski,

who now works for
the New York Times.

- Do you believe in punishment
for abortion, yes or no?

As a principle.

- The answer is that...

there has to be some
form of punishment.

- For the woman?

- Yeah.

- Have you even read the
United States Constitution?

- If you look at his wife,
she was standing there.

She had nothing to say.

She probably, maybe
she wasn't allowed

to have anything to say.

You tell me.

- That's a famous Mussolini
quote. You retweeted it.

Do you like the quote?

Did you know it was Mussolini?

- It's okay to know
it's Mussolini.

Look, Mussolini was Mussolini.

I'm gonna bomb the
shit out of 'em!

[audience cheering]

It's true.

I don't care.

They give us the most
dishonest reporting,

and that's the way it is, folks.

That's the way it is, and
we just get used to it.

- Whenever Trump would
appear on television,

the ratings would go up.

- Man, who would have
expected the ride

we're all having right now.

It may not be good for America,
but it's damn good for CBS.

That's all I got to say.

[audience laughing]

- So they had this endless
appetite for Trump,

because they had an endless
appetite for ratings.

[audience cheering]

- Trump's a racist!

[audience laughing]

- Yeah, I mean, it's
symbiotic, right?

And everyone should admit

that this is a symbiotic
relationship that...

he rates...

we cover him 'cause he rates.

You could just put
a camera on him

and guarantee that it was gonna
be entertaining in some way.

- Because he's a
controlled car crash.

And once in a while
he'll hit the guard rail

doing 75 miles an hour and
sparks will come off the car,

and you're like, okay,
where's this thing gonna go?

I gotta watch this thing.

- At first, he would do
an interview with anybody.

He was calling in to TV stations

and radio stations
left and right.

- I'm joined now on the phone
from New York by Donald Trump.

- On the phone, Donald Trump.

- Donald Trump on the phone

- We have a phone
call from somebody.

- Good morning, darling.

- Nobody had ever
seen that before.

Usually you have walls and
walls of media handlers

between a candidate
and the media system.

What's on the Facebook page?

What's on the Twitter page?

Who's he talking to when?

Trump just kept accelerating
his share of the media market.

[cameras snapping]

- It was partly it
was Trump's celebrity

and the expectation that he
would say something outrageous.

- It may be.

Again, I don't have the data,

but I'm just gonna make a guess

that Donald Trump was the
most televised candidate

in the history of candidates.

- He's someone that
commands media attention

and television oxygen.

And actually, what
happened is everyone,

in the liberal
media in particular,

continued to underestimate him.

- I think there is a large
segment of the population

in the United States that
wants to blame somebody,

and the media becomes
an easy target.

- But I do think that there
were things done for him,

like photos of the empty
podium, waiting for the presser,

because it was guaranteed
conflict, good TV.

- Front-runner Donald
Trump expected to speak

at a campaign rally.

- So we're just expecting him.

- [Reporter] We're
awaiting his remarks.

- [Reporter] Still waiting
for that Donald Trump.

- Any minute now.

- All the news coverage
just got sucked up

and focused on him,
because he continued to be

the most interesting story.

You can't even remember

what the other
candidates were about.

- But the media is
not the one that told

all of his competitors
not to do interviews.

They were running an old
game and an old playbook.

Trump, to his credit,
understood that new media world.

And he took advantage of it.
There's no question about it.

- That led to just an
unconscionable amount

of free media coverage

that we could sort of
quantify in dollars.

It would be a really,
really high number.

- You know, people say that
he got a billion dollars

in free media in the primary,

but a lot of that was negative.

A lot of that would have been
considered not a campaign ad

for his campaign but
for his opponents.

- I supported him. He
lost, he let us down.

But, you know, he lost.

So I never liked him
as much after that

'cause I don't like losers.

[audience laughing]

But Frank, Frank,

let me get to it.
- He's a war hero.

He hit me.
- He's a war hero.

You hear me say, "But
he's a war hero."

I couldn't believe it.

He's a war hero. And
I said it like that.

- He's not a war hero.

- He's a war hero.

- He's a war hero-

- Five and a half years.

- He's a war hero
'cause he was captured.

I like people that
weren't captured, okay?

I hate to tell you.

- And I thought to
myself at that moment

the gentleman who is
sitting across from you

is in the process of
lighting himself on fire.

- Oh, that was my first moment

where I naively was like,
well, this guy's done.

[laughs]

- Supposedly, that's
something that the right

does not tolerate.

You cannot go after
members of the military.

- You know, I'm just speechless.

'cause I just can't
believe such reckless words

out of a person's mouth.

- He did 10 things,
from the announcement

through the first vote in Iowa,

10 things that would have
killed any other candidate.

And each time, he
just got stronger.

- This is going to be a
nightmare of a campaign.

If he insists on being so
uncivil and so disrespectful,

but you better get ready for it.

- They say I have the
most loyal people.

Did you ever see that?

Where I could stand in
the middle of Fifth Avenue

and shoot somebody, and I
wouldn't lose any voters, okay?

It's incredible.

[audience laughing]

- You're encouraged to
be modest, to be humble,

not to show off,
not to be brash,

not to say provocative
things, to be very careful,

to tip toe around the
niceties of language.

Trump just ignored
all the playbook.

Trump just went, "No,
actually, I'm gonna be me.

For better or for worse,
I'm gonna to be authentic."

- And that was tremendously
attractive to an audience,

and I think a country, that
is perhaps rightly tired

of politicians who seem bound

by what they considered
political correctness

in not saying those things.

[audience cheering]

- What happens with Trump

is that he uses the same
method over and over again

until it fails.

And in the primaries, he
discovered that it didn't fail.

- An outsider who read the
mood of Republican voters

better than anyone
now controls a party

that fought him every
step of the way.

This evening, his last
opponent dropped out,

ensuring that Donald Trump

will be the party's first
nominee since Eisenhower

to run with no
political experience.

- I saw an organization
that was the most pathetic

of anything I've ever
seen in American politics.

His polling operation was weak.

His grassroots was
almost non-existent.

They refused to spend
money for advertising.

All the elements of what you
spend or invest in the campaign

were not happening.

- We hit the 1237, right? 1237.

- [Reporter] Trump celebrated
the victory tonight

with McDonald's.

- Here I am, watching
Hillary fight,

and she can't close the deal.

And that should be such
an easy deal to close.

It could be we're gonna
run against Crazy Bernie.

That could be big.

[audience booing]

Could be Crazy Bernie.

He's a crazy man, but that's
okay. We like crazy people.

- Certainly, great
politicians master new media.

Right, so, FDR was
the king of radio.

JFK used TV.

Obama used the internet
and nascent social networks

very well, but
Trump and Twitter,

it was a particularly
powerful, toxic combination.

- Well, I think Twitter is
a unique kind of network

in that it brings
together a social network

and a broadcast network.

[intriguing electronic music]

You have millions of followers,

you're effectively
a broadcaster.

And these two modes interact.

Sometimes a tweet goes viral,

where eventually millions or
tens of millions of people

will see that one message.

- It was his
understanding of Twitter

and how to make that
entire platform his,

in a way that creates direct
intimacy with his supporters.

It was unbelievable,
what he was doing.

And I recognized
that immediately.

It was like I was
sitting there going...

almost reverential,
like, "Oh my gosh!"

- It was Mr. Trump himself

who drove that social
media platform train

by directly communicating
with the people,

and the media had to cover
the candidates' tweets.

- Matt, I want to put up that
tweet again this morning,

of course tweeting,
"I love Hispanics."

- I want you to look at this
graphic of one of his tweets.

I'm sure that you
have seen this.

A star that is the shape
of the Star of David.

- Donald Trump very
successfully used

not only Twitter as a
tool in and of itself

but Twitter as a tool
to disrupt legacy media.

- I would be on a live TV
set, and I'd be mid-sentence,

they'd be like, "Hold on,
Kellyanne, breaking news."

And I'd say, "Oh, God
forbid, what happened?"

And they'd say, "Your
boss, your candidate

just tweeted the following..."

And I'd look at it, and they'd
ask me to comment on it.

But he literally would
make news instantaneously.

- And maybe a lot of that
innermost decision-making

and kind of tuning of messaging

was happening by the
man himself, and...

and the speed and the agility
that you need to surf...

a near real-time medium,
which is what Twitter is,

that might be a huge
strategic advantage.

- I just can't think
of a worse candidate

in the Twitter era.

I mean, Hillary isn't like
a bite-sized candidate

who would just fire off things
without thinking about them.

And to her credit,
a lot of people

would like a president who puts
a lot of thought into things

before they release
them to the world.

There would be a whole team
to approve a simple tweet.

Ultimately that...

I think that people
saw that and could tell

a lack of spontaneity
or genuine emotion.

- I am honored to
be here amongst you

on behalf of what really
made this country great,

working people, men and women.

- The new currency...

that's rare and needed in
politics is no longer money.

It's attention. It's
name recognition.

That is the new currency.

And Hillary Clinton and Donald
Trump had oodles of that.

The difference is
how they used it.

[stark electronic music]

Hillary Clinton tried to
stay out of the spotlight,

away from interviews,
and just rest on the fact

that she had the biggest
brand in American politics.

- [Reporter]
Secretary Clinton...

we haven't heard
from you in a month.

- Yeah, maybe when I finished
talking to the people here.

How's that?

- She tried to walk in a parade.
To cordon off the press...

They were put in this
moving rope line.

- This is the worst
visual metaphor.

Before you could say she's
not talking to reporters,

but you can't cover not talking.

You can show this image over
and over again, and it's awful.

- Her press strategy was
essentially to ignore us.

She felt like the front runner

and didn't think that she
necessarily needed to talk

to the gaggle of reporters

who traveled with her
everywhere, covering

- I am so happy to have
all of you with me!

- [Reporter] Have you missed us?

- I've been just
waiting for this moment!

- The relationship between
the Clinton campaign

and the press is just
hostile on both sides.

And it's early for that.

- She gave very few interviews.

She did almost no print
interviews that I'm aware of

before the general election.

- The criticism is directed at
the Clinton campaign on this.

We're trying to wrap
her in bubble wrap

this entire campaign

and not let her actually
associate with real people.

- Nobody wanted any kind
of moment to go wrong

and go viral and look bad.

And so I think there
was an extreme caution

that prohibited her from
having more of those moments

that could have
ultimately helped her.

- We saw a systematic
difference between members

of the what we call Trump
tribe and Clinton tribe.

just more retweets, more tweets,
more replies, more activity

per account from the Trump
tribe versus the Clinton tribe.

And so we describe
that as a passion gap.

And at some point, you know,
someone on our team said,

"It's almost like there's
a public awakening."

We're seeing something happening

in the nature of the
conversation where...

Donald Trump seems like a
far more serious possibility

than the polling numbers or
anything else would indicate.

- I think that the key
is that Donald Trump's

defiant authenticity resonated,

and that's something I
think all politicians

can learn from.

That doesn't mean simply play

to the lowest common
denominator every day,

But it does mean,
for God's sakes,

be yourself and talk like
a goddamn human being.

- What's what's something that
you always carry with you?

- Hot sauce.

- Really?

- Yeah. Yeah.

- Really?

- Are you getting in
formation right now?

[laughing]

- Hot sauce?

- Hot sauce in my bag swag?

- Hot sauce.

- Really?
- Yes!

- Now, listen, I
want you to know

people are gonna
see this and say,

"Okay, she's pandering
to black people."

[laughing]

- Okay.

Is it working?

[laughing]

- Don't forget what a terrible
campaign Hillary Clinton ran.

Her campaign, to this day,

nobody can remember
a thing about it.

- [Interviewer] A
quick soundcheck.

What was written on Donald
Trump's baseball cap?

- "Make America great again".

- Make America great again.
- Make America great again.

- Oh, make America great again?

- [Interviewer] What was
Hillary's campaign slogan?

- I'm still trying
to figure it out.

- Ready for Hillary?

I don't know.

- I don't remember.

- Together?

Forward together?

- I don't know.

- Oh, I don't actually know
what it said on her plane.

What was her slogan?

- And she had "stronger
together", whatever that means.

- On one point,
being this well-known

made it hard for her campaign
to craft a narrative,

but it also made it
just hard for Hillary.

I mean, she's lived in this
cloistered, rarefied world

for a very long time.

And so, to emerge
from that world

and try to really
connect to voters

suffering in these steel
towns where Trumpism took hold

I think was very difficult.

The sounds so old school,

but we wouldn't see
any Hillary yard signs.

You saw a ton of
Trump yard signs.

[anxious music]

- I never got the sense that
they had really captured

the energy of people out there,

connected with them in that way.

Often you get a sense
that a candidate

will fight for every inch, and
she just never exuded that.

- It was all bullshit.

It was all sloganeering.

- I'm just chilling
in Cedar Rapids.

I try to figure
out how we get them

to have Pokemon Go-to-the-polls.

[audience laughing]

[audience cheering]

- I think just viscerally

she missed the anger that had
taken root in the electorate.

- Secretary Clinton does
represent the establishment.

I represent, I hope,
ordinary Americans

and, by the way who are
not all that enamored

with the establishment.

- It's always been the case,
going back to 2008, even,

that Hillary Clinton just
wasn't an inspirational figure,

whether it was her
speaking ability,

whether it was her record,

whether it was the
way she saw the world.

It was an issue
that her campaign

was in complete denial about.

They thought it was
Bernie who convinced

a lot of left-leaning
people not to like Hillary.

But in fact, this
was just a fact

that Sanders and his
campaign saw and exploited.

It was a preexisting
condition for Hillary

that people just
didn't really like her.

[anxious music]

- We have won, at this point,
45% of pledge delegates.

But we have only earned
7% of superdelegates.

[crowd booing]

So in other words, the
way the system works

is you have
establishment candidates

who win virtually all
of the superdelegates.

- NBC News is now
declaring Hillary Clinton

the presumptive
Democratic nominee.

[group cheering]

[crowd cheering]

- At the Democratic Convention,
I went down to the protests,

the Bernie or Bust protests.

[protestors shouting]

Kids from all over the country,

people in their teens and 20s,

who said the Democratic Party
has lost me for a generation,

I don't have something
to believe in

if Bernie is not on
top of the ticket.

- [Protestors] We
won't vote for Hillary!

- [Reporter] Many Sanders
backers just aren't willing

to shift their loyalties

from the U.S. Senator's
progressive platform.

- I mean, that was
a tense convention.

- Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine

want to build an economy
that works for everyone...

[crowd booing]

not just the people at the top.

[crowd booing]

[crowd shouting]

- If I didn't know any
better, I would have thought

I was at Bernie Sanders'
convention last night.

It rose to the rafters.

[crowd booing]

- There was a sense that the DNC

had kind of tilted the
table in her favor,

there hadn't really
been a fair contest

between Hillary and Bernie.

- There's no
question to my mind,

and I think no question to
any objective observer's mind,

that the DNC was
supporting Hillary Clinton

and was in opposition
to our campaign.

- Rigged! Rigged!

Remember hashtag rigged?

How offensive to
say it was rigged.

How dare you say that our
democracy could be rigged?

How dare you say that?

And, it was rigged.

- I actually think Hillary
and some of her top advisors

are more angry at Bernie Sanders
than they are Donald Trump.

They thought that he gave her
sort of a lukewarm endorsement

when he finally
got around to it.

- And I move that Hillary
Clinton be selected

as the nominee of
the Democratic Party

for President of
the United States

[audience cheering]

- Senator Sanders has moved
in the spirit of unity

to suspend the rules.

- Bernie Sanders lit
the place on fire.

I mean, he came out of
nowhere and God bless him.

Bernie was an Independent.

He agreed to run in
Democratic primaries,

but he was an Independent.

And of course there are
going to be associations

and friendships and loyalty
built up to somebody

who's been a Democrat
their whole life.

- That's why you're
an insurgent.

You're an insurgent because
there's a status quo

establishment in the party,

and there's an
establishment candidate.

- And so, my friends, it is
with humility, determination,

and boundless confidence
in America's promise

that I accept your nomination

For President of
the United States

[audience cheering]

- I do think that she
matched up with the mood

of the electorate
particularly badly.

A lot of people felt
the system was rigged,

and the Clintons, for
many people, and fairly,

were a symbol of
a rigged system.

- And so, you put
all that together,

you have a real big
problem for Hillary Clinton

going into that election
with a divided party

and an arrogant campaign

that believed it
could not be defeated.

[uneasy music]

♪ We are the
champions my friends ♪

[crowd cheering]

- Even Trump may have
underestimated Trump.

I knew he wanted to
be the great disruptor

who would attract more eyeballs

and create this reality show.

I knew he wanted to do
that. That was clear.

But did he want to
stay the whole way

and make it into a
general election?

Because if he did, he
was gonna be there.

- Friends...

delegates...

and fellow Americans...

I humbly...

and gratefully accept
your nomination

for the presidency
of the United States.

[audience cheering]

- I suspect that Donald Trump

did not decide he really
wanted to be president

until he turned to
face Hillary Clinton.

- This is the legacy
of Hillary Clinton:

death, destruction,
terrorism, and weakness

[audience cheering]

- It was gonna be one of
the more negative campaigns

in the history of the country.

Why?

Because I might be able
to get you to stay home

instead of voting
for Hillary Clinton.

- Hillary Clinton was
a perfect foil for him.

She embodied, or could
be made to embody,

everything that he
said he was against.

And some of this was
just Trump's gut.

And some of this is Steve
Bannon and Kellyanne Conway

and others building an
actual, coherent worldview

around Trump's gut.

- I always knew Hillary Clinton
could lose the election,

which is one way of
answering the question

of when I thought Donald
Trump could win the election.

- [Reporter] Down the
stretch they come.

We've been talking
about Hillary Clinton

opening up that lead.

- [Reporter] He
struggles with women.

He struggles with minorities.

- [Reporter] Mr.
Trump, with the support

of 2% of African
American voters.

- By the time I came on board,
we were down in the polls.

I said we're way behind,
the window's closing,

but it's still open.

We're way behind.

And he said, oh, the polls.

And I said, I looked at the
polls, and she's winning,

but she doesn't
have to. You can.

- She had a lot more paths
to victory than he did.

- He can win Florida, he
can win North Carolina,

and he can win Ohio
and still be short.

That's important.

He can win Arizona and still
be short. He can win Utah.

- And then, even then,
he's gotta go and get

maybe it's a Michigan
or a Wisconsin

to put him over the top.

- A normal Republican can
not take your terms, frankly,

I hate to say this,
cannot think in terms

of bringing in Michigan.

- He represented a
great push forward

in our demonstrable
quest to bust through

Hillary Clinton's
very real blue wall,

beginning with
the upper Midwest.

So, Michigan, Wisconsin,
Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

- They've taken our jobs
out of Pennsylvania.

We're gonna be bringing 'em
back, folks. Believe me.

[audience cheering]

We're bringing 'em back.

- This is industrial.
This is blue collar.

There are a lot of towns

that have been hurt
by globalization.

- We talked a lot about the
white working-class vote,

particularly white
working-class men

in those Rust Belt states.

Hillary is notably
weak with these voters,

losing them by as much
as two-to-one or more,

10 to 15 points weaker
than Barack Obama

with white, working-class men.

- We were competing in states

that Obama-Biden
had carried twice.

But had also elected a
Republican statewide as senator

and/or governor in the interim,

and where Hillary Clinton
had never gotten to 50%

and stayed there for very long.

- Hillary Clinton just
didn't go to these states.

She was hanging out
in places like Arizona

and Texas, inexplicably.

- When your allies are
putting a lot of effort

into red states right
now, Arizona, Utah,

you're doing this even though
it's still neck-and-neck

in a lot of the traditional
battleground states,

Ohio and Iowa, Florida.

Are you guys getting
over-confident?

- There's a special opportunity

that popped up late in Arizona.

It is possible to win it.

- Arizona has not, 12 of the
past 13 presidential elections,

has not voted for a Democrat.

And so you saw this
extreme confidence

on the part of the campaign
that they could expand the map,

that they could
bring in new voters

in places like
Arizona and Georgia

that are sort of going purple.

- While Donald Trump
is up in these states,

saying I'm gonna make
America great again.

[somber music]

- In August, after she
had a 10-point lead

after her convention, after
a successful convention,

she basically disappeared in
the Hamptons to fundraise.

Her campaign would get
very defensive about this:

we need money, we need a lot
of money to go against Trump.

But every single day,
Trump was doing rallies.

[jet whooshing]

[stark electronic music]

Then she re-emerged Labor
Day, and she was sick,

and she just had sort
of a string of bad luck.

- I think that was a very
troubling moment for her.

That was her worst
weekend in many ways.

September 11th, very
early in the morning,

she had her spill.

[tense music]

- She's supposed to fight all
of these different things,

and she can't make it
15 feet to her car.

Give me a break.
Give me a break.

[audience cheering]

- Thank God she was
okay health-wise.

But the worst thing for
her was two days earlier,

when she was caught on tape.

You know, to just be
grossly generalistic,

you could put half
of Trump's supporters

into what I call the
basket of deplorables.

- Hillary Clinton
on Friday evening,

"basket of deplorables"
already entered

into the annals
of campaign flubs.

- They are not a
basket of anything.

They are Americans and
they deserve your respect.

- [Narrator] People
like you, you and you...

Deplorable.

You know what's deplorable?

Hillary Clinton
viciously demonizing

hardworking people like you.

- It as a reflection perfectly
of what the coastal elites

in the United States
feel about the people

trapped in the
working-class counties

and cities of the country

that have been decimated
by globalization.

- And it was like, wow, we
thought you thought that of us,

and now we know for sure.

[upbeat music]

[audience cheering]

- She is a really
gifted debater,

maybe one of the best
debaters we've seen

on a stage in a long time.

- Why won't he release
his tax returns?

And I think there may
be a couple of reasons.

First, maybe he's not as
rich as he says he is.

Second, maybe he's not as
charitable as he claims to be.

- We're gonna come up with
three or four clever things

that were gonna hit
Trump with tonight,

and you'll say them in
the following sequence.

- I call it Trumped
up trickle down,

because that's exactly
what it would be.

- And she was picking out
her outfit to look perfect.

- He's showing up with
a tie down to his ankle.

Give me the microphone.
I'm ready to go.

- I don't believe that
Hillary has the stamina.

- [Moderator] Let's
let her respond.

- Woo! Okay!

[audience laughing]

- He stood there,
waiting to be exposed.

- As soon as he travels
to 112 countries

and negotiates a peace
deal, a cease fire,

or even spends 11 hours

testifying in front of a
congressional committee,

he can talk to me about stamina.

- But Hillary invested a lot,

instead of doing rallies
that 20,000 people

on an amazing night would see,

how about we just bunker down
and invest in these debates?

- And I just left Detroit,
and I just left Philadelphia,

and I just, you
know, you've seen me,

I've been all over the place.

You decided to stay
home, and that's okay.

- I think Donald
just criticized me

for preparing for this debate.

And yes, I did.

And you know what
else I prepared for?

I prepared to be President.

And I think that's a good thing.

[audience applauding]

- I think the consensus was
that she won all of them.

- Did anybody see that
debate last night?

[audience cheering]

[somber music]

Oh!

Yes!

One down, two to go.

- I want a word or phrase

to describe Donald Trump's
performance tonight.

- Strong start, weak finish.

- Missed opportunities.

- Bombastic.

- Not presidential.

- Sloppy.

- I want a word or
phrase to describe

Hillary Clinton's performance.

- Prepared.

- Firm.

- Powerful.

- I think she had one
of the best debate preps

that I have seen in
the last 25 years.

- I think she came
across more presidential.

- It seemed, for all the world,

like something of a victory lap.

- Yeah, and I think
Hillary Clinton

deserves a victory
lap this morning.

[crowd cheering]

- One history
professor, meanwhile,

says that Donald Trump will be

the next leader of our country.

- Professor Allan Lichtman
from American University,

good enough to join us now.

- I delivered my
Trump prediction

in a Washington Post
interview in September, 2016,

and people wondered if
I had gotten too old

and lost my sanity.

My system forgets the
pundits, forgets the polls,

does not look at the day-to-day
events of the campaign.

I don't look at debates.
I don't look at ads.

I don't look at campaign tricks.

And I predict
elections in advance.

In other words, I put
myself on the line

and have been doing so
successfully since 1984.

And for 32 years, everyone has
asked me the same question:

Couldn't there be
an October surprise?

Couldn't there be
something so extraordinary

that it could turn
around your prediction?

And there never has
been an October surprise

that's doomed a candidate.

Everybody talks about it,
but it's never happened.

[gentle vocal music]

- I just start kissing
them. It's like a magnet.

You just kiss.

[laughing]

I don't even wait.

And when you're a star,
they let you do it.

You can do anything.

- Whatever you want.

- Grab 'em by the pussy.

[laughing]

You can do anything.

- My assumption from the
bus is that he was done.

- A recording of Donald Trump,

made more than a decade
ago, has surfaced.

It is lewd, it is vulgar,
and we caution you,

you won't want young
children to hear it.

- Every single Republican

is going to have to
answer the question,

what did you do the
day you saw the tape

of this man boasting about
grabbing a woman's pussy?

Period!

- All right. We'll be-

Will you please stop
saying that word?

My daughter is listening.

[overlapping shouts]

Don't tell me you're
offended when I say pussy,

but you're not offended
when Donald Trump says it

- Exactly.
- I am very offended.

- What was your response
when you first heard it?

- Horrible remarks.

They're remarks you
certainly don't want to hear

from anyone, much less a
presidential candidate.

- This was a powerful individual
speaking freely and openly

about sexually
predatory behavior.

- I saw it, and I said
the election is over.

There's no way you
come back from this.

Folks are gonna stay home.

- This race is over

Tomorrow morning, the
money will dry up,

the Republicans
will start to hide.

[anxious music]

- One top Republican said to me,

we're gonna to see the
fastest cut and run

in American political history.

- I'm not sure of the Republican
party's gonna survive.

- The fundraisers, the donors,
they're all walking away.

- I'm out. I can no longer
endorse Donald Donald Trump.

- I think Donald Trump
should step aside,

which I've been asked
many times today.

Yes, I do.

- I passed and a TV...

that literally said Trump's
female campaign manager

expected to quit.

You know, she's got
four young children.

She's a devout Catholic.
There's no way she can stay.

- How she stood up
there and defended him

when nobody else was
willing to do so.

- This is suggesting
sexual assault, and-

- That's a very
unfortunate phrase,

and people really
should stop using that.

- Why?

- Because I know him
better, and I know better.

- But it's what he said.

- He did not say the
word sexual assault.

- No.

- And I remember
watching her, thinking,

A, that's a very courageous
thing for a woman to be doing;

secondly, it was
really helping him.

It managed to take the
sting out of the tail.

- Nobody was saying,
oh, it's nothing.

- [Reporter] This was
locker room banter,

I apologize for it.

- Mr. Trump apologized for it.

He spoke about it.

- I've never said
I'm a perfect person

nor pretended to be
someone that I'm not.

I've said some foolish things,
but there's a big difference

between the words and
actions of other people.

Bill Clinton has
actually abused women.

- And I felt it was
really important

for us to talk about what he
would do for you as president,

transport you away from this
moment and into his presidency

and the promises he was making.

And I did famously say there's
a big difference to voters,

and indeed all Americans,

between what offends you
and what affects you,

and voters were
making that choice.

- All men do it,
and women do it.

- Honestly, you
gotta stick with him.

Hillary's no better.

I mean, she's just
lying through her teeth

left and right,
over and over again.

Here's the thing. He's not
running to be the Pope.

Look at the culture
of our country.

- I don't care! Nobody cares!

- Hillary Clinton said that
the women who make allegations

deserve to be heard,

except the ones who
accused her husband!

- If I remember, October
7th this happens,

October 8th, we have a
meeting in Trump Tower.

He knew people
were going to have

some tough recommendations.

Reince Priebus told
him to drop out,

drop out or stay in and
lose by the most in history.

But, as is Donald J. Trump's
custom, he did it his way.

There was no time for him
to be inauthentic and phony.

And so I think people saw that,

and they probably thought he
would fold in the next debate,

but it almost reinvigorated him.

And then of course, you know

the Clinton accusers
were there as well.

- There you see in the middle
of your screen, Donald Trump,

but from left to
right, Kathleen Willey

Juanita Broaddrick, then
Donald Trump in the middle.

These are women who have
made very strong accusations

against Bill Clinton.

- It was several people's idea.

And...

it was an idea that had been
floated for a while though.

Hillary Clinton, and
really Mark Cuban,

made a big deal that he was
gonna go sit in the front row

and torment Donald Trump.

And so it was like, well,
we'll see you one Mark Cuban,

and we'll raise you four
or five Clinton accusers.

[chuckles]

See how much fun I had?

[dramatic music]

What he's basically saying
is, hey, go fuck yourself.

I'm not going to
be attacked by you,

who's now all of a sudden
the champion of women.

- If you look at a Bill
Clinton, far worse.

Mine are words,
and his was action.

- What he basically says is

both sides are guilty, let's
muddy the contrast here,

even though Hillary Clinton
is in some ways the victim,

obviously, of her
husband's infidelity.

- So you can say any
way you want to say it,

but Bill Clinton was
abusive to women.

Hillary Clinton attacked
those same women

and attacked them viciously.

Four of them are here tonight.

- He gave the right wing
something to hold on to.

And they really-

The only thing uniting
the Republican coalition

isn't Donald Trump; it's
hatred of Hillary Clinton.

[intense music]

[faint chatter]

- And he does have a way,
this is what many people

right of center in this
country like about him,

of not letting
Democrats off the hook

for their bad behavior.

I'd like to know, Anderson,

why aren't you
bringing up the emails?

I'd like to know why aren't you

getting to the emails?
- We brought up the emails.

- No, it hasn't. It hasn't.

And it hasn't been
finished at all.

- Trump had a lot of luck,

in that the FBI was...

very vocal about
their investigation

into Hillary's private server.

- There is evidence that
they were extremely careless

in their handling
of very sensitive,

highly classified information.

- [Reporter] Questions
over a classified email.

- Email account.

- [Reporter] Emails,
in one form or another,

they have been dogging Clinton
throughout this campaign.

- Two years after
she had left office

for it to become clear

that she had been using
this private email

and that she had handed
over 30,000 emails,

and that 31,000, almost 32,000,

had been deleted
in this process.

- She deleted the emails...
She has to go to jail

His narrative of
"Crooked Hillary",

he had this giant data point

of this looming
FBI investigation.

- I didn't think I'd say
this, but I'm going to say it.

And I hate to say
it, but if I win,

I am going to instruct
my Attorney General

to get a special prosecutor
to look into your situation.

- It's just awfully good that
someone with the temperament

of Donald Trump is not in charge
of the law in our country.

- Because you'd be in jail.

- [Moderator] Secretary Clinton-

[audience laughing and cheering]

- The fact that he was
willing to say to her face

on national television,
"You belong in jail,"

is exactly what voters
wanted to hear from him

to know that he was serious.

- [Crowd] Lock her
up! Lock her up!

Lock her up! Lock her up!

- It's all right.

- We're gonna beat her on
November 8th. That's better.

[audience cheering]

- We're gonna beat
her on November 8th.

- Three weeks isn't
typically too early

for the October surprise.

But with our current
short attention spans,

courtesy of social media,
Twitter and other things,

three weeks actually,
I think, was too early.

Instead, there was time for
the Comey letter to come out

and resuscitate all those
concerns about Hillary Clinton.

- They're reopening
the investigation

into crooked Hillary Clinton.

Crooked Hillary. She is crooked.

She is a crooked one.

- A new possible
investigation by the FBI

into Hillary Clinton's emails.

- [Reporter] Just 11
days before the election,

the announcement
creating shock waves.

The FBI reopening
the investigation

into Hillary
Clinton's email use.

- We are 11 days out

from perhaps the most
important national election

of our lifetimes.

So the American
people deserve to get

the full and complete
facts immediately.

- The FBI situation
significantly hurt

- Their outrage today
certainly suggests

that they are
nervous about this.

They are furious that this came
11 days before election day.

- Donald Trump,
meanwhile, and his team

clearly reveling in
this latest plot twist.

- The FBI, after
discovering new email...

The news this morning is...

This is bigger than Watergate.

This is bigger.

- And if you look
at the trend line,

Hillary had peaked shortly
after the three debates,

which she was thought to
have won by most observers.

And then there was
a gradual tightening

all the way up
until election day,

and the Comey letter in the
waning days of the campaign

accelerated that.

The question, though, that
a lot of Democrats had,

why was she ever in a position

where that could
have been decisive?

To most people's minds,

to most of the conventional
political class's thinking,

this is someone she should
have been beating by 20 points.

This was a bigger
issue that she had.

It was a bigger issue

that she was never
able to put Trump away.

[jet whooshing]

- [Air Traffic
Control] One, zero.

Runway two, three
clear for takeoff.

Contact departure is 126.55

Have a nice flight, and thanks
for making ATC great again.

- [Reporter] Tonight,
Donald Trump,

with one last
battleground blitz.

A whirlwind sprint
to the finish.

Eight States in 24 hours

- Part of it was the
reality of budget.

We were understaffed and
under-resourced financially

and had to become creative.

[jet whooshing]

- You have one to
make every dream

you ever dreamed for
your country come true.

[crowd applauding]

Real change also means
restoring honesty to government.

First thing you should
do is get rid of Clinton.

- But our two greatest assets
all through the campaign

were Donald J. Trump
and Michael R. Pence.

And they were willing
to go anywhere.

And they were willing to
go to many stops a day

those last four weeks.

They were doing five, six,
seven stops a day each.

- This is the last
day of our campaign.

Who would have believed it?

They say it's the single
greatest movement,

politically speaking...

[audience cheering]

in the history of this country.

Could you believe that?
Can you believe it?

[audience cheering]

- Coming in, yes,
we do see the lines,

we see the rallies,
we see all the people.

But will they vote?

No, they waited in line in a
tent for two days in the rain

just to have a seat in
a 20,000 person arena,

but they're not going to
show up on election day.

- So it's now officially
Tuesday, November 8th.

[audience cheering]

Did you ever think you'd
be hearing a major speech

at around close to one
o'clock in the morning?

Are we crazy?

[audience cheering]

And we don't need...

We don't need Jay-Z or Beyonce.

We don't need Jon Bon Jovi.

We don't need Lady Gaga.

All we need is great ideas
to make America great again.

That's all we need.
That's all we need.

[audience cheering]

- Hillary's closing
message was very much

about Trump's unfitness
for the presidency.

She thought she could sway
a lot of Republican-leaning,

suburban, white,
college educated women

by pointing out how
how offensive Trump was

to so many people.

- There is a clear
choice in this election.

A choice between
division or unity.

Between strong,
steady leadership

or a loose cannon who could
put everything at risk.

[booing]

Because none of us, none
of us want to wake up

on Wednesday morning and
wish we had done more.

[anxious music]

I think we can all agree
it's been a long campaign.

But tomorrow, you get to
pick our next president.

- Her campaign is not
cocky, but confident.

They believe that victory
is well within their grasp.

She is holding her
election night watch party

in an atrium that
is conveniently

and symbolically equipped,
Gayle, with a glass ceiling.

- We have the
presidency at about 89%

For Hillary Clinton.

- I'm calling it.

Hillary Clinton, the winner
of this presidential election.

- The president's race is over.

- Let's make history together.

I'm Hillary Clinton
and, one last time,

I approve this message.

- The day before the election
I got a call, off the record,

from senior members
of the campaign

who were affiliated
with the RNC.

And they were calling a
bunch of editors in chief,

and they're saying, "Look,
we're gonna lose tomorrow,

but we want you to know
it's not our fault.

We've got the greatest data
operation in human history."

And I said, "Okay, well, how
bad do you think it's gonna be?

You think you're gonna feel...

You think you're gonna
keep the Senate?"

Long beat.

And the operative replied, "We
feel good about the House."

[intense electronic music]

[crowd cheering]

- She wins her
state of Illinois,

New Jersey, and Massachusetts,
another 11 electoral votes,

Maryland, carries the state
of Rhode Island, Delaware.

- Donald Trump has
won the state of Ohio.

No Republican has ever
won the White House

without winning Ohio.

- And we are about
to make a major call.

Donald Trump has won the
state of North Carolina.

This is exactly what
he needed to do.

- Anderson, this
night is turning out

to be a real nail-biter.

[anxious music]

And CNN projects Donald Trump

will carry the state of Florida.

[crowd groaning]

- I wouldn't call
anything encouraging

for Hillary Clinton
at the moment,

to be honest with
you, my friend.

- He will win Wisconsin

with its 10 electoral votes.

He's cracked the
so-called blue wall

that Hillary Clinton
that tried to create.

[somber music]

- [Reporter] Donald Trump has
won the state of Pennsylvania.

- [Reporter] That is
the race, frankly.

There is no path forward
for Hillary Clinton.

[crowd cheering]

- Everybody should head home.

You should get some sleep.

- Hillary Clinton has
called Donald Trump

to concede the race.

- [Reporter] Donald Trump
wins the presidency.

[grim music]

- What happened here
is the more competent

and qualified candidate,
Secretary Clinton,

got 3 million more votes

across the country
than Donald Trump got.

- Look, I don't think-

You can't argue that much
with the Clinton sales pitch.

You could argue could
have been better,

but in the end they
won the popular vote.

This wasn't a race
that they lost

because they didn't
have a message

that could win enough votes.

- And it wasn't
like a nail-biter.

I mean, he lost by
3 million votes.

That is a larger number
than Nixon beat Humphrey.

It's a larger number
than Kennedy beat Nixon.

That is a significant
victory for Hillary.

- Well, hold on a second.
That's not the race.

The race is to zig and
zag through the country

and beat the person in
the electoral college.

And he did that, and
he beat her in places

where Republicans
typically don't win.

- They took Wisconsin,
Michigan, and Pennsylvania

and places like
that for granted,

that they were gonna to win them

without having to
do a whole lot,

without having to put a
big get out the vote effort

on the ground.

- She refused to spend any
money for grassroots turnout

in Michigan, in Indiana,
in Pennsylvania,

because her data dummy
pollsters told her

she had it in the
bag based on polling.

- There's gonna be an
incredible, long, deep,

rigorous autopsy
done on the polling

that pervaded this campaign.

Public polling and the
Clinton campaign zone data,

which obviously was
wrong in a lot of ways.

- The big falsehood was that
her ground game was good.

It actually wasn't.

And she never went to Wisconsin,

which is something we
all should have noticed

in retrospect.

- I think a big
swing in Wisconsin

was Hillary never coming here.

I think she just
assumed that Wisconsin

was gonna go her way,

and that didn't work
out too well for her.

- This is a state that Hillary
Clinton hasn't even visited

since the Democratic
Convention over the summer.

- Wisconsin's always tight,

and what happens in the end
is Democrats always win.

But that was before
Governor Walker

had instituted a
series of reforms

that made the unions
less powerful.

President Obama would
have gone to Wisconsin.

By all kinds of reports, he
wanted to go to Wisconsin,

but the campaign told
him, and his people,

that there's no
reason to go there.

- Do you think it would
have made a difference

if she'd come on your show?

- Hillary?

- Yes

- I do

It's 70,000 votes, and in
those states I am popular,

particularly
Pennsylvania, for example

- If you don't catch the signal

that you've got a big problem
in the industrial heartland

when you can't when your
own primary in Michigan,

if you can't respond
to that on the ground

when people are begging for
help, you're gonna get beat.

At the end of the day,
it is a ground operation

that was not funded
in the heartland

that cost this campaign.

It was political malpractice
of the highest order.

Donald Trump saw that
hole in her plan,

and he went to the heartland,
and he beat her there.

It's her fault.

- Our campaign was
never about one person

or even one election.

It was about the country we love

and about building an America

that's hopeful, inclusive,
and big hearted.

[crowd applauding]

- At some point,
we, the voters...

we have to take
responsibility for this.

And if, yes, it's
been true for a while,

not just in 2016, but it's
been true for a while,

and you put it very well,

that voters are being
treated like an audience.

And...

as long as we keep
responding as an audience...

that's how they're gonna
try to win elections.

The moment we, the voters,

insist on a higher
level of debate,

that's when we'll get one

- [Reporter] Clearly we
have missed something

on the polling side.

How did polling
get this so wrong?

- [Reporter] A lot of those
people were not willing

to say to a pollster they
were willing to vote for him.

- Are they not talking to us?

Are they not interested
in doing surveys?

- That term "hidden Trump
voter", "undercover Trump voter"

was met with international
derision and ridicule.

Thank you, everyone.

And they said on election
day, they'll still be hidden.

Well, that was to explain not
that people were embarrassed

to say they're voting
for Donald Trump,

but they weren't supposed to be.

[crowd cheering]

They're women who
are supposed to vote

for the first woman President
of the United States.

They're hispanics who
were supposed to not like

his immigration policy.

They're young who
were supposed to say

the Democrats are woke.

If you are a union worker
in any of these states

we were talking about earlier,

how in the world can you
vote for Donald Trump?

And so they just
don't want to argue

with people in their
circle of life,

their family, their friends
or their colleagues anymore.

But they came out for him.

- I think the idea that
it's only the dumb people

who would fall for Trump
doesn't stand up to science,

because there are plenty
of brilliant Republicans

who are pro-Trump.

- A lot of rich guys
voted for him, too,

in case you didn't know.

They closed the curtain.

They said, okay,
can't tell anybody.

Trump.

And then they open the curtain.

- He tapped into a
lot of frustration

and people who, at the
last minute, just said,

fuck it, let's take that a risk.

[crowd cheering]

- There was this divided,
fragmented nation,

and really an understanding gap

that we didn't even have a sense

of what was necessarily going on

on the other side of the
communication divide.

And within that "we"

I would include a lot
of our journalists.

- Obviously we missed it, right?

But a lot of people missed it.

- [Reporter]
Everybody missed it.

Just about everybody missed it.

- I don't think that
the mainstream media

was lying about what
was going to happen.

I think we missed the
overarching story,

- And see so many in the
American media today.

And in the last,
I'd say 72 hours

having the self-reflection

and telling themselves they
need to look in the mirror,

that this was not a shock
to millions of Americans,

but it was a shock
in the newsrooms at

at The New York Times, at CNN.

- I actually believe that
what we watched happen

in the 2016 election
was an example

of this very new set of
affordances, if you will,

of the media system.

The gatekeepers of
the old media system

no longer are the gatekeepers.

Once upon a time, we
had audience members

who were each sitting in
their own living rooms,

watching this
television broadcast,

and maybe shouting
back at the TV.

That landscape has
completely changed,

because now we have
audience members

who are all on the internet,

all on different
social media platforms,

connected with one another...

and talking with each other

about new political
possibilities.

When we're now connected
to more of our friends,

and we have the
ability to self-select

and tune into networks of
people who think like we do.

- [Reporter] Facebook is
admitting Russia agents

bought thousands of ads
during the election.

Now the social media giant says

it will turn over
those ads to Congress.

- And now you throw
this into the mix,

where it really sort of
raises questions, again,

about the legitimacy
of his election.

- The clear evidence that
Russia tried to influence

the outcome of the
election is unprecedented.

They were clearly trying to
sow the seeds of confusion

and discord, play to
identity politics.

But they had a favored
candidate. That's

- I do not believe in a
giant global conspiracy

whereby the Trump campaign,

which literally didn't
even know it was winning

at like eight
o'clock that night...

orchestrated this in order
to beat Hillary Clinton.

- But what I definitely
think happened

is that the Russians
were interfering

as much as they could do

in the mindsets of
American people,

through Facebook
through WikiLeaks,

through all sorts of stuff.

The Russians were everywhere,
trying to create noise

around probably Donald
Trump over Hillary Clinton.

Was Donald Trump responsible
for that activity? No.

Did he mind it? I doubt it.

You know, all's fair in
love and election war.

But is the central charge true

that Donald Trump was only there

because of Russian interference?

I just don't buy that at all.

- [Announcer] Ladies and
gentlemen, the president-elect

of the United States,
Donald John Trump.

[audience cheering]

- I think America always gets
the president it deserves.

This is an age
distorted by greed,

distorted by inequality,
distorted by social media.

Why wouldn't we be
offered the chance

to elect a president whose
main skill is self-promotion?

That makes him the
ultimate American.

- A guy like Trump
was inevitable.

You're calling it the
accidental presidency.

It may be an accident that
Trump is the president,

but it is not an accident
that someone well-known,

outside of politics
would suddenly rise.

- We can no longer assume
that what we've known

for the last 50 years has
any relevance or resonance.

We can't tell that anymore,
because the public has changed.

Politics has changed.

- You can't go back now.

You can't have boring,
robotic leaders anymore.

The rise of populism
around the world,

driven a lot by people
like Donald Trump,

is because people have
had a reaction, I think,

to robotic politics.

And I think, in America,
Trump tapped into

the same sentiment
about Washington

and said that
Washington is broken,

it's paralyzed,
it's not working.

- He offered, as
the demagogue does,

easy answers to
complex questions.

We live in this era where
we're being disrupted...

by globalization, by technology
revolution, by automation.

How does Donald Trump win?

How does he not win?

- We're still talking
about the 2016 election

because it's still the case

that no one has wrapped
their head around it.

And the president
is no exception.

He won't shut up about
the 2016 election either.

We're still trying to figure
out what the heck happened

and whether it's a fluke.

To me, that's why we
keep covering politics,

because we don't know.

What I'm trying to figure out,

what I'm trying to cover is...

has our political
framework changed?

Has it been destroyed?

Has Trump realigned the way that

the American electorate works?

Or was it just a
really weird fluke

that took advantage
of the imbalance

between the popular vote
and the electoral college,

the Russians, Jim Comey

a fractured Republican field,
a divided Republican party?

Was there just this really
specific set of circumstances

that allowed something
really unusual to happen?

[soft music]

- We're going to
face many challenges.

But this is truly an
exciting time to be alive.

[audience cheering]

The script is not yet written.

We do not know what the
page will read tomorrow.

But for the first time
in a long, long time,

what we do know
is that the pages

will be authored by each and
every one of you, and you.

[audience cheering]

[intriguing electronic music]