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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
The Whole Story With Anderson Cooper: Fight for the White House: Where Trump Stands. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired September 07, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:58:49]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to THE WHOLE STORY. I'm Anderson Cooper.
On the campaign trail, former president Donald Trump has touted his experience and achievements from his first term in office and has vowed to continue with what he started if he's elected again. But where does he actually stand on some of the key issues for voters in this election? CNN's Abby Phillip takes us through what the Trump White House did when it came to the economy and reproductive rights, as well as immigration, foreign policy and the state of democracy. And she looks at what he and his allies have promised to continue or change if elected to another term in November.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: NAFTA has been a disaster for the United States, a complete and total disaster.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It was April 2017, three months into Donald Trump's presidency, and he wanted to withdraw the United States from NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
JOSH DAWSEY, POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: He would say repeatedly, in the Oval Office, to everyone who would listen, they're ripping us off. They take advantage of America. We're suckers and losers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's been very, very bad for our companies and for our workers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAWSEY: He heard lots of concerns, when he was out campaigning, from blue-collar supporters of his, who thought NAFTA had taken jobs from America.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Trump wanted to announce a withdrawal, on his 100th day in office. SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: A huge freak-out occurred, when this became known, inside the White House, and various advisers rushed over to stop this.
JIM TANKERSLEY, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC POLICY REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Almost all economists think of trade, to varying degrees, as a potential way, to make both sides winners. That if you, in your country, are really great at making cars, and I, in my country, am really great at making airplanes, then it would make sense for me to make all the airplanes, and you to make all the cars.
Trump views NAFTA as a deal, in which the United States is getting ripped off by Mexico and ripped off by Canada.
PHILLIP (on camera): What would have been the consequences if Trump pulled the United States out of NAFTA?
GLASSER: This is one of the largest, if not the largest, trade pact in the world.
MARC LOTTER, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: One of the things that I think people misread, about Donald Trump, so often, is a lot of the times these big statements like that are negotiating tactics. If the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico fear that America will unilaterally pull out of NAFTA, it makes them much more willing to come to the negotiating table.
GLASSER: His supporters will say he's looking for leverage. But it's a form of playing Russian roulette, with the world's economic security.
PHILLIP (on camera): What was the reaction to that pledge, inside of Mexico?
CHRIS LANDAU, FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO MEXICO: I think the Mexicans were concerned about that. It's been an agreement that was in place for about 25, 30 years.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico was more than $1 trillion a year. And NAFTA had lifted tariffs between the three countries for more than two decades. A sudden withdrawal would upend global and domestic politics, and rattle financial markets.
PHILLIP (on camera): Trump actually had one of his top aides, Rob Porter, draft a letter, to get out of NAFTA that he would sign, presumptively.
GLASSER: Paperwork was prepared inside the White House.
TANKERSLEY: Gary Cohn, who was his National Economic Council Director, took a bunch of different steps, including famously hiding some papers, some documents from Trump, that if he had signed them, would have pulled the United States out of NAFTA, right away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, I was going to terminate NAFTA as of two or three days from now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): On his 98th day in office, and after nearly two years of assailing NAFTA, a last-minute late-night phone call with Mexico's President, and Canada's Prime Minister, convinced Trump to stand down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They called me and they said, rather than terminating NAFTA, could you please renegotiate?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): That same week, desperate to announce a big win, during his first 100 days, Trump shifted focus, and rushed to release an outline of a tax bill.
TANKERSLEY: They need a win. And if there's one thing that every Republican, even under this administration, can agree on, it's we need to cut taxes.
PHILLIP (voice-over): The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed that December, giving Trump his first major legislative victory.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I consider this very much a bill for the middle-class and a bill for jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): The bill reduced the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, lowered income taxes for individuals, for the next eight years, and doubled the child tax credit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Thank you, everyone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TANKERSLEY: They made huge changes to the tax code. They had a real unifying theory, which was, if we cut taxes for corporations, we are going to unleash an investment boom in the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: That makes America competitive again, so we can bring back that simple but beautiful phrase. You've heard it before. Made in the USA.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TANKERSLEY: They were sure there was going to be more job growth, specifically in areas like manufacturing, and they were sure that that was going to lead to big wage increases for Americans.
The most important thing that the tax cuts did, for Trump, in his time in office was they gave people more money to spend, right away, and there was this short-term stimulative effect to the economy. That's the big win for Trump.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Trump would score another economic win, two years later.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I promised to renegotiate NAFTA. And today, we have kept that promise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LANDAU: What President Trump was concerned about was to make sure that the agreement was not unfair and was not basically penalizing American workers.
[22:05:07]
TANKERSLEY: He does cut a new trade deal. But it's not a complete fundamental overhaul. It's mostly the same thing with new branding and some new components.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Branding has always been central to Trump's strategy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If I'm given another four years, I will be the best. I think I'll be the best. Nobody has ever created an economy like us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): And he's hoping it will win him a second term in the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID URBAN, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Not only is it a great slogan. But it just makes sense to be able to protect those people, who make, you know, bulk of their income comes from tips.
PHILLIP (on camera): Do you expect him to pursue tax cuts, as policy, if he is reelected?
MAGGIE HABERMAN, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That is one thing that he says that I think people should take him at his word on.
PHILLIP (on camera): What does he really want to accomplish, policy- wise, maybe other than tax cuts?
HABERMAN: He's talked about sweeping increases in tariffs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I will impose an across-the-board tariff on foreign-made goods.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HABERMAN: There have been warnings from economists that if you do that, and you pursue these tax cuts, you are creating these settings for price spikes, which could then become inflationary. His folks have insisted that that is not true.
PHILLIP (voice-over): But what's true hasn't always been important, to Trump. And his economic legacy as president is up for debate.
PHILLIP (on camera): His description of how successful the tax cuts were, they were not as good for the economy as he claims. At some point, does he understand that?
HABERMAN: If he understands it, he doesn't care. He likes the way what he says sounds better.
TANKERSLEY: Trump has always been a very good salesman. He was able to convince Americans that he just had special powers, when it came to economic growth, that were not reflected in economic performance. Trump is not the best American president of our lifetime. He had a good economy. But the full scope of Trump's economic management, when you include the pandemic, he's nowhere close.
DAWSEY: People could look at the tax cuts and say, we saw positive outcomes of him. I think his critics would say they were not good policy, for the country.
TANKERSLEY: Most Americans got a tax cut. But most of the Trump tax cuts went to the highest-earning Americans.
He said he did the biggest tax cut of all time. He didn't. He was going to bring back millions of American manufacturing jobs that had been sent overseas. He did not.
Trump campaigned on a promise, not just that he would balance the federal budget, but that also he would pay off the entire national debt, which he came nowhere close to doing.
I don't think there's any evidence to support the idea the Trump economy was the greatest economy in history. And it's probably not the greatest economy in most Americans' living memory.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Coming up.
GLASSER: Donald Trump said when he was president that he would sign a national abortion ban. What he's done is try, for political reasons, not to emphasize that, in this 2024 campaign.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:12:07]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has died at the age of 87.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): September 2020.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We love you, Minnesota. You're great.
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): When news broke of Justice Ginsburg's passing, Donald Trump was rallying crowds in northern Minnesota.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR, FORMER CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It was this surreal moment, where the President of the United States is on stage, and has no idea that this seismic event has just occurred.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She just died? Wow.
("BLUE JEAN BABY" PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Almost two hours later, Trump would find out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I didn't know that. You're telling me now for the first time.
("BLUE JEAN BABY" PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND)
TRUMP: She led an amazing life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: "Blue Jean Baby" is playing in the background, and he kind of takes on the solemn tone about her passing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm actually sad to hear that.
("BLUE JEAN BABY" PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND) (END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: But clearly, and almost instantaneously, his aides inside the West Wing, and Republicans on Capitol Hill, were gearing up for what they knew would be a fight, to get a new Supreme Court Justice nominated and confirmed.
PHILLIP (voice-over): A fight because Ginsburg's passing was so consequential.
MARY ZIEGLER, PROFESSOR, UC DAVIS SCHOOL OF LAW: It had seemed clear that Chief Justice John Roberts had openly expressed his belief that precedent bound the court to move slowly. And that made it seem unlikely that Roberts would vote to overturn Roe, at least in the near-term.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Unlikely with the slim conservative majority on the court of five to four. But replacing Ginsburg would give Trump an insurance policy.
ZIEGLER: If one of the conservative justices got cold feet, about overturning Roe, you wouldn't need that person. In other words, you had six justices, not five.
SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: I believe it was maybe eight days after her death, he nominated Amy Coney Barrett. We fast-tracked that nomination.
PHILLIP (on camera): How important was it to Trump to be able to put another Supreme Court Justice, on that court, and do it quickly?
MATTHEWS: Yes, it was of the utmost importance. It was something that he knew would be part of his legacy in reshaping the Supreme Court.
PHILLIP (on camera): Was Trump involved in this process much?
COLLINS: Trump was definitely involved. He wanted to put a woman on the Supreme Court. I think he thought it would help him more in the election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Today, it is my honor to nominate one of our nation's most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the Supreme Court. Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: And had this grand announcement at the White House in the Rose Garden. That was kind of the event that we identified as the--
PHILLIP (on camera): The super-spreader event. MATTHEWS: The super-spreader event.
PHILLIP (on camera): COVID.
[22:15:02]
ALEXIS MCGILL JOHNSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PLANNED PARENTHOOD ACTION FUND: My flashback memory of their extreme joy, their giddiness, almost, in the face of what they knew they would be able to accomplish.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Ending Roe was a promise that Candidate Trump made, during his presidential campaign, in 2016, a promise to conservatives that if they got behind him, he'd do something no other president had been able to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I am pro-life, and I will be appointing pro-life judges.
This is everybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): A significant contrast to the position Donald Trump took decades earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm very pro-choice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HABERMAN: This is a businessman from New York, which is a pretty progressive city. He has always been more conservative than a lot of the people that he socialized with. But abortion was not one of those issues.
One of the first things he did, in 2011, when he was thinking about running for president that cycle, and he went to go speak to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald.
TRUMP: I'm pro-life.
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAWSEY: When he ran in 2016, he understood that overturning Roe v. Wade was a core conservative priority. So, he agreed to put a list of judges out, before the election, who were conservative.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I am going to give a list of either five or 10 judges that I will pick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAWSEY: To show, you may not trust me on this issue, but here's what I would do, if I was president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I will guarantee that those are going to be the first judges that I put up for nomination, if I win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOTTER: That tells me that, yes, I can trust you with my vote, because on the issues that matter most to me, I can tell that these people are going to hopefully rule, as we would want them to.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The president- elect of the United States of America, Donald Trump.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Conservatives did trust him with their vote in 2016. And Trump gave them what they wanted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Today, I am keeping another promise to the American people, by nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Starting with Neil Gorsuch, just weeks after taking office.
Then Brett Kavanaugh, in 2018.
And finishing off with Amy Coney Barrett, just a week before Election Day.
MCGILL JOHNSON: We were looking, in that moment, at the cementing of a super-majority of conservative justices, with great fear, because we knew the potential would move very quickly to overturn Roe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.
(PROTESTERS chanting "Abortion is OK")
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm here because I'm absolutely ecstatic that Roe has been overturned, and that there are going to be babies' lives saved from this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
URBAN: President Trump's appointments to the court are probably his lasting legacy. It's going to long outlive Donald Trump. It's going to long outlive his memory. Because a lot of the justices, the appointed judges, are fairly young.
LOTTER: From a historical standpoint, it will obviously rank up there.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Rank up there as one of Trump's most consequential legacies. A huge win for Trump and his conservative base.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated. And I did it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): But the reversal of Roe would become a loss at the ballot box, blunting the expected red wave, in the 2022 midterms, and being very unpopular with voters as Trump approaches 2024.
COLLINS: He doesn't know how to talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Hello, everybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Does he tout it? Does he distance himself from it? He seems to choose a mixture of both.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it, from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GLASSER: Donald Trump thinks that he's been given a sort of a neat pass, out of the debate, by saying, Well, we're just going to send it back to the states, and that's going to solve everything, essentially, so then, I'm going to throw up my hands and I don't have to worry about this anymore. PHILLIP (voice-over): But many believe the issue will be back, on President Trump's agenda, in a second term, especially given his running mate's past support, of a national abortion ban.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOTTER: The President has been very clear he would not sign a national abortion ban, that he does support IVF, he does support fertility treatments, and he supports the exceptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother.
GLASSER: Donald Trump said, when he was president, that he would sign a national abortion ban, if Congress passed one and sent it to his desk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I strongly supported the House of Representatives' Pain-Capable bill, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:20:09]
GLASSER: What he's done is try, for political reasons, not to emphasize that, in this 2024 campaign. But I don't think there's really any doubt.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CROWD chanting "USA")
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCGILL JOHNSON: I believe he is saying what is politically convenient to get elected. So, I'm not sure why I would start to believe him, right now.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Coming up. Immigration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We are going to build a wall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:25:23]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: When Mexico sends its people. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GLASSER: If you look at Trump's history, as a political figure, it begins with the demonization of immigrants. And it's been a through line forever more.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They're sending prisoners, murderers, drug dealers, mental patients and terrorists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GLASSER: He believes that this kind of demonization of immigrants, and his use of this issue, is the reason that he became the president in 2016.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: A Trump administration will also secure and defend the borders of the United States.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And yes, we will build a great wall. And yes, Mexico will pay for the wall. They're going to pay for the wall.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): From the start of Trump's presidency, immigration would be at the forefront.
DAWSEY: He viewed it as his core political promise. I mean, he wanted every element of the American government to get these numbers down.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Seven days after taking office, Trump issued a series of executive orders, banning citizens, from majority-Muslim countries, from entering the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm establishing new vetting measures, to keep radical Islamic terrorists, out of the United States of America. We don't want them here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): And he closed the border to all refugees from around the world.
DAWSEY: It was a shock-and-awe campaign to show the way things have been done in this country, from day one, we are doing them totally differently.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Effective immediately, what does this mean? It's like, just like Saddam Hussein's decisions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAWSEY: And it was extraordinarily chaotic. It was all rolled out, if I remember correctly, on a Friday night, and it created absolute havoc.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My kids left school. So one whole year will be?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
URBAN: The travel ban, I think, was initially instituted, because some of these countries weren't vetting people clearly, and strongly enough, to get in our country.
PHILLIP (voice-over): The ban faced months of legal challenges. But a revised version was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.
But Trump's fixation, for the next four years, remained on the southern border.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Illegal immigrants and drugs are pouring into our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAITLIN DICKERSON, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: He feels like the Border Patrol needs to make immigration much more unpleasant, painful, in order to discourage people from trying to do it.
PHILLIP (voice-over): In May 2018, the Trump administration implemented what they called the zero-tolerance policy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SESSIONS, FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you.
If you don't want your child to be separated, then don't bring them across the border illegally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: The five U.S. Attorneys stationed along the southwest border have really big concerns, about what's going to happen to the children, who are separated from their parents, so that these prosecutions can take place.
PHILLIP (on camera): And what was the answer that they were given?
DICKERSON: Jeff Sessions doesn't answer their question. What he does say is we need to take away children.
URBAN: If you're a parent, and you're driving a car while you're intoxicated, when the police show up, to take you away, they take your kid away. They take your kid, and put them in Child Protective Services. You break the law, you're going to be separated from your family.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Over the next several weeks, as many as 2,000 children would be separated from their parents.
DICKERSON: Children were put into caged enclosures. These were meant to be temporary facilities, where children can only remain, for 72 hours maximum.
But the government became so overwhelmed, with so many new immigration cases that children remained stuck. The ones, who were old enough to understand what was happening would cry, would scream, would beg for help.
DAWSEY: The stories that were coming out were harrowing.
DICKERSON: Parents and children literally being pulled, limb from limb from one another, with children grabbing onto anything that they could.
The next step was for children to be transferred into the custody of the Health and Human Services department, which was not prepared to take on, as many as it had to. You had facilities with staff, who were not prepared, or trained, in how to handle traumatized children, and how to respond to them.
DAWSEY: I remember going to McAllen, Texas, to a garage-type facility with chain fences around, hundreds and hundreds of single men. There was not room for them to lie down. It smelled horrifically. It was pretty dreadful.
[22:30:10]
I went in the room with Mike Pence, who was the Vice President at the time, and you could tell Pence was shocked at what he had seen too.
PHILLIP (on camera): Was the chaos, and frankly, the suffering of these families, was that the point?
GLASSER: They wanted to send a message. They sought that family separation would prove to be a very powerful deterrent. The cruelty is the point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHILD: Mommy.
CHILD: Dad.
CHILD (through translator): At least can I go with my aunt? I want her to come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): The cries of children who had just been separated from their parents heard on leaked audio, from inside a facility, six weeks after the policy took effect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CROWD chanting "Set the children free")
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAWSEY: This is not the kind of thing we want in the country that we live in, right? I think a lot of people felt that way. There was just an incredible backlash against the Trump presidency.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Former first lady, Laura Bush, she writes this in part. "This zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAWSEY: There were people begging him day in and day out to call it off. Some Republican senators were begging the White House to call it off. President's own family members were saying, someone has got to give.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Two days after that leak, Trump abruptly ended the separations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to keep the families together. I didn't like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Determined to deliver on his campaign promises, Trump turned his attention to the border wall.
DAWSEY: It was sort of a symbol of his presidency, in his mind. Big construction project. You can touch it. You can feel it, see it. And he first said Mexico was going to pay for it. Mexico obviously did not pay for the wall.
GLASSER: He simply decided to take the money, from the Pentagon, and to reprogram it, in order to build portions of his promised border wall.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Under Trump's watch, nearly 500 miles of border wall was built, but not nearly as much as he hoped, and still claims.
CHAD WOLF, FORMER ACTING HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Building 452 miles of an effective border wall system, the roads, the lighting, the fiber optic cables, gave Border Patrol officials a new capability that they didn't have.
DAWSEY: Trump probably accomplished more of changing how people see immigration, changing what people want the country to do on immigration than any politician we've seen in a while.
PHILLIP (voice-over): And according to recent polling, the majority of Americans today support the idea of a border wall.
URBAN: We have a crisis in America on immigration. We haven't dealt with the issue of comprehensive immigration reform, for years and years. Every administration kicks it down the road because it's so difficult to do.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Congress actually tried to pass a bipartisan border deal, earlier this year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The motion is not agreed to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): But Trump helped torpedo it, so he could campaign on the issue, this fall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: On day one, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in the history of our country.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: I mean, it's disgusting and -- but it's not the first time that he's used Hitler-esque language. And I think that the types of policies that he would pursue would be much more harsh and extreme, when it comes to the border and immigration.
WOLF: People that don't have any legal right to remain here, need to be removed from the country. Deporting individuals from any country is a fundamental part of any functioning country's immigration system.
PHILLIP (on camera): This idea of mass arrests, Trump is very committed to that, as part of an immigration policy, if he's reelected. Does the Trump campaign see it as realistic?
HABERMAN: They do. I mean, remember, this is a singular calling card of his main policy adviser, Stephen Miller. These kinds of crackdowns could end up just making life so miserable, for so many undocumented immigrants that they either leave or choose not to come in the first place.
PHILLIP (on camera): The detention camps to round up immigrants and deport them. How important is that visual?
HABERMAN: Part of the idea of that is a deterrence angle and a toughness angle. The visual is very important.
DAWSEY: He is promising sort of an immigration agenda, we've never really seen from a United States President, at that magnitude.
DICKERSON: He sees that drilling down on immigration enforcement is a way to win elections. And so, he's willing to do it to no end.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If I'm president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): When Trump says he's going to just snap his fingers, and all these problems are going away. Is there any policy behind that?
HABERMAN: It's just Trump, and bluster, and salesmanship, and nothing else.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:39:40]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: North Korea, best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury, like the world has never seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GLASSER: Donald Trump's first year and a half of his presidency was dominated by this sort of nuclear saber rattling, with Kim Jong Un.
PHILLIP (voice-over): The public battle of words between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): And one of the world's most reclusive dictators reached a dangerous peak, on New Year's Day, in 2018.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIM JONG UN, SUPREME LEADER OF NORTH KOREA: (FOREIGN LANGUAGE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Kim Jong Un warned that he had a nuclear button on his desk, and all of the U.S. mainland was within range.
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I think about Donald Trump. He likes to be alpha-man. He wants to be tough. And somebody is challenging him, he challenges back.
PHILLIP (voice-over): That same evening, Trump sent a tweet that shook the White House and the world. "I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works."
PHILLIP (on camera): How big of a concern was it among Trump's aides that there could be a nuclear confrontation on the horizon?
COLLINS: I think it depends on who you asked. But one thing they knew was they were dealing with two unpredictable leaders.
LOTTER: Donald Trump was sending a very strong signal, you're not going to mess with the U.S.
PHILLIP (on camera): Is it strategy? Or is it bluster?
LOTTER: I think it was strategy. There were actually meetings, and there were actually discussions, about how we can start to move together.
DAWSEY: The previous U.S. policy had been to not meet with Kim Jong Un. Trump flipped that totally on its head.
PHILLIP (voice-over): For the Hermit Nation, it was a long-sought goal.
For Trump, he became the first sitting U.S. president to enter North Korea. It was just one of three face-to-face meetings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This is a historic moment, the fact that we're meeting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): A history-making moment, but not a breakthrough. North Korea's nuclear buildup has only continued, and so did the warm relationship between the two leaders. DAWSEY: Kim Jong Un did write Trump multiple love letters. And Trump's mind, he would often be in the Oval Office, and he would call out his assistant, can you bring in the love letters? Because he would want to show visitors, look at these things that I have from Kim Jong Un.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Praising adversaries and pushing allies became a recurring theme for Trump's presidency.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRY S. TRUMAN, 33RD U.S. PRESIDENT: We are joined by a common heritage of democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, founded in part by the United States, in 1949, was Trump's top target.
GLASSER: Donald Trump's world view was that America's allies, rather than being assets, were ripping us off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOTTER: Donald Trump looked at so many of these things. When you make a commitment to say, with NATO, spend 2 percent of your gross national product on the military, then I expect you to live up to that deal.
DAWSEY: What Trump would do, instead of cultivating allies and trying to bring everyone together, was he would threaten and cajole and bully these countries.
PHILLIP (voice-over): It worked. Military spending from NATO countries increased, but that did little to calm raw nerves in Europe.
GLASSER: His very first visit to a NATO summit, all he really needed to do was to say the one sentence. The United States absolutely remains committed to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. Which is the mutual defense of our allies.
PHILLIP (on camera): It was in the draft of the speech.
GLASSER: It was in the draft of the speech.
PHILLIP (on camera): But he did not say it.
GLASSER: But he did not say it.
PHILLIP (voice-over): A handful of words left unsaid.
Then, an image seen around the world. Trump pushing aside the leader of NATO's newest member state, Montenegro.
GLASSER: It's like the visual representation of how Donald Trump saw his presidency, and also how he saw our allies, just as people to be shoved aside.
PHILLIP (voice-over): In 2018, Trump came close to pulling out of NATO entirely.
GLASSER: People do not fully appreciate how close the entire Alliance came to unraveling.
PHILLIP (voice-over): With America's alliances seemingly on the brink, Trump prepared for a monumental meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
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TRUMP: There was no collusion at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: And we watched him side with, with Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies, and when a U.S.-led investigation found that Russia did indeed meddle in the election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: It shows the relationship between the two of them, and how Trump was willing to take an authoritarian leader, who meddled on U.S. elections, at his word.
[22:45:05]
GLASSER: He saw both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, as his main peers, on the world stage, and offered each of them a level of flattery and personal compliment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You are a very special man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Trump heaped praise on Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My feeling toward you is an incredibly warm one. As we said, there is great chemistry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): He used tariffs to launch a trade war with China, in 2018.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: China has been taking advantage of the United States for many years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
EVAN OSNOS, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Those tariffs were paid by Americans, paid by American companies, and ultimately by American consumers. The Trump trade war probably cost Americans about 300,000 jobs. Probably cost the economy somewhere north of $40 billion.
HABERMAN: I think it's worth bearing in mind that President Biden kept some of these tariffs in place. But I think that there are reasons why economists have concerns about continuing down that path, on a greater scale.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Trump insists that if he's elected president again, he would, quote, fundamentally reevaluate NATO's purpose.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If they're not going to pay, we're not going to protect, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
URBAN: I don't think Trump will walk away from NATO. I think it is a bargaining chip. I think it's a position of strength to negotiate from.
PHILLIP (voice-over): But if Russia attacked U.S. allies, who don't spend enough on military defense?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Two wars, burning hot in Gaza and Ukraine, would also be on Trump's agenda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If I'm president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OSNOS: If you ask people in Ukraine, they say that everything that we have fought for, the blood and treasure that has been expended, to try to protect ourselves, would all be for nothing. Putin would win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The war caused by the attack on Israel would have never happened if I was president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): He is intrigued, maybe fixated on this idea of peace in the Middle East.
HABERMAN: Yes, he does.
PHILLIP (voice-over): He got the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
HABERMAN: And the Abraham Accords, to be fair to him, were a big deal. They actually were a significant accomplishment. But it was not Mid- East peace.
PHILLIP (on camera): When Trump says he's going to just snap his fingers and all these problems are going away. Is there any policy behind that? Or is that just Trump and the force of his personality?
HABERMAN: It's just Trump, and bluster, and salesmanship, and nothing else. That's it.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't think you're going to have another election in this country, if we don't win this election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:52:29]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Inauguration day in America.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today's transfer of power is unprecedented.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): As Joe Biden was preparing to be sworn in, Donald Trump was preparing to move out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Hopefully it's not a long-term goodbye. We will see each other again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
URBAN: President Trump felt, and lots of others in America felt, that he got ripped off, that he was cheated.
HABERMAN: Trump, I think, was having a weeks-long tantrum about losing the election, and I don't think there was so much of a thought about what the future would look like, in terms of his legacy and being known for not being the person who adhered to customs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President has now decided to snub the Bidens.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It's been a 152 years since a president of the United States refused to attend the inauguration of his successor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: I think he just would not give Biden that moment. He knew that he had lost the election. He had publicly acknowledged it to people, based on my reporting. And I think the moment of actually handing over the reins of power, to Joe Biden, was something that he would not bring himself to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, thank you very much, President Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
URBAN: President Obama probably didn't like President Trump very much. But he showed up and said, Hey, listen, you're now the steward of our country.
I think President Trump owed that to America.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Instead, an unusual and unprecedented final farewell speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Have a good life. We will see you soon. Thank you. Thank you very much.
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HABERMAN: There was nothing like what we normally see in an election, and in a transfer of power. And that is going to be part of Donald Trump's legacy, in history.
PHILLIP (on camera): We've never had a sitting president refuse to acknowledge that he was not reelected, and be reluctant to pass the baton, peacefully, even cordially, to the person who replaced him. That's never happened. LOTTER: I think a lot of times that we view some of these traditions. And at some point someone is going to be the first to change that tradition and move on.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Traditions and norms that Donald Trump pushed back on, since the very beginning of his presidency, starting with the Justice Department.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: General Flynn, the way he was treated, very, very unfair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FBI: When the President started asking then-Director Comey, to actually drop investigations and stop pursuing lines of inquiry against people he liked.
[22:55:07]
PHILLIP (on camera): It almost seemed like Trump understood that there were these guardrails. But he either didn't care about them or intentionally wanted to blow past them.
MCCABE: He didn't really care that what he was doing was essentially undermining the ability of the DOJ and the FBI, to continue functioning in a way that the American people could be proud of.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Presidents have largely left FBI directors alone, to avoid the appearance of political interference. But instead, Trump fired Comey.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He's a showboat. He's a grandstander.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Attacked his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not doing enough, to end the investigation into Russian interference, in the 2016 election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SESSIONS: I recused myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): And eventually fired him too.
HABERMAN: That, in the post-Watergate era, just violates what the norm has been after Richard Nixon left office, and what has been adhered to by Presidents for a very, very long time. Trump saw no reason to have any distance between himself and the Justice Department.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Trump went to war, publicly and privately, against career public servants who stood in his way.
DAWSEY: You have Trump allies who're saying they believe the Department of Justice should be reporting to the White House, so the White House should tell the Department of Justice what to do.
LOTTER: What we have seen now recently is that unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, who don't change with administrations. They stay the same, they are the ones that are actually calling the shots. And in many cases, as we saw with President Trump, actively working against the elected President of the United States, because they happen to disagree with him.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Disagreeing when Trump went after his political opponents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CROWD chanting "Lock her up")
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HABERMAN: He then wanted Hillary Clinton investigated. He wanted James Comey investigated. He wanted John Kerry investigated. So actually, he already has a history of this, and I expect that that would continue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
TRUMP: Except for day one.
He says, You're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, No, no, no, other than day one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): As President, Trump chafed at restrictions on his executive powers, and openly admired foreign authoritarians who had no such limits.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think we're going to do tremendous things for both China and for the United States. And it is a very, very great honor to be with you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NAFTALI: It would be unthinkable, before Donald Trump, for an American president to show hero worship of foreign dictators.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: A lot of friendships have been made. And this has been, in particular, a great friendship.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OSNOS: He says they're strong, they're tough, and he says quite clearly that that's somebody, who I want to get to know. Often, it's very striking because he will describe them as friends of mine. You don't hear other presidents talking about authoritarian leaders that way.
PHILLIP (voice-over): It would all reach a dangerous and historic crescendo in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Frankly, we did win this election.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: The election was totally rigged.
This was a massive fraud.
That was a rigged election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOTTER: We're in a position where we are in a pitched battle, right now, with some fundamental differences, in terms of the direction of our country. And there are many times when we need to make our opposition known.
PHILLIP (on camera): You don't think it mattered whether Trump lied about whether he lost the last election which he lost, fair and square? That doesn't matter?
LOTTER: Look, there have been people questioning our elections, and our election results, going back for 25, 30 years now.
HABERMAN: I think it's a rationalization. There hasn't been an election, where one party's supporters stormed the Capitol, during the Electoral College certification of the election. So, this is just fundamentally different.
The extent of his challenges, the length of them, the projection of falsehoods about widespread fraud that were just never substantiated. That is different than what we have seen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't think you're going to have another election in this country, if we don't win this election.
("GOD BLESS THE USA" PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): And he is laying the groundwork to undermine an election again if he loses.
GLASSER: Donald Trump has told us from the very beginning of his time in politics that he would not respect the results of any election, in which he was not the winner.
PHILLIP (voice-over): Trump is unquestionably a political survivor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This is what the end result is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): He is the first president to be impeached twice. The only president to be convicted of 34 felonies and charged with 54 more. And just one of two former presidents who were shot and survived shocking assassination attempts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What happened--
(GUNFIRE)
TRUMP: I had God on my side.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Donald Trump has survived it all, to now run again for an office he refuses to admit he once lost.
