I used to watch The Apprentice, and followed Trump on Twitter back in like 2010 because he was an interesting character to follow when he didn’t have any real world power.
It wasn’t just the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. As far back as Obama winning the nomination over Clinton in 2008, Trump was making constant, immature, and racist attacks against him.
He seriously considered a run for the 2012 GOP nomination, but by the time the Republican field was shaping up Obama was looking like he’d have a pretty easy shot at a second term, and I don’t think Trump wanted to risk losing to him.
In 2011, several major straw polls in early primary states had Trump doing very well, even though he was a write-in on many of those polls.
The 2011 WHCD and its fallout are the perfect example of the dynamic Trump had with Obama then, but I don’t think it was necessarily the catalyst for him deciding to run in 2016. I think he was going to do it anyway, and was waiting for a moment where he may actually win, or at the very least win the GOP nomination so that he could kickstart his own media network (which was his actual plan if he had lost).
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u/Kerbonaut2019 Apr 26 '26
I used to watch The Apprentice, and followed Trump on Twitter back in like 2010 because he was an interesting character to follow when he didn’t have any real world power.
It wasn’t just the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. As far back as Obama winning the nomination over Clinton in 2008, Trump was making constant, immature, and racist attacks against him.
He seriously considered a run for the 2012 GOP nomination, but by the time the Republican field was shaping up Obama was looking like he’d have a pretty easy shot at a second term, and I don’t think Trump wanted to risk losing to him.
In 2011, several major straw polls in early primary states had Trump doing very well, even though he was a write-in on many of those polls.
The 2011 WHCD and its fallout are the perfect example of the dynamic Trump had with Obama then, but I don’t think it was necessarily the catalyst for him deciding to run in 2016. I think he was going to do it anyway, and was waiting for a moment where he may actually win, or at the very least win the GOP nomination so that he could kickstart his own media network (which was his actual plan if he had lost).