On June 16, 2015, businessman Donald Trump gave a speech that launched his 2016 presidential campaign. The speech received both acclaim and criticism, and the campaign ultimately culminated in his victory in the 2016 United States presidential election.
At the time, very few thought that Trump was a viable challenger for the presidency. He had been speculated to enter the campaign, but his chances of winning were generally dismissed.
The speech went viral for Trump's false portrayal of illegal immigrants from Mexico and other countries:
Trump's false portrayal, widely perceived as racist, led to much media coverage from people opposed to the characterization. The quantity of free media thus acquired far outweighed the attention paid to his primary opponents, and within weeks he led polls for the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, a lead he would never relinquish.
Contents of the speech
Trump formally announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015, with a campaign rally and speech at the Trump Tower in New York City. In the moments before the announcement, he came down a golden escalator at Trump Tower, which has since become a metonym for the announcement. In his speech, he drew attention to domestic issues, such as illegal immigration, offshoring of American jobs, the U.S. national debt, and Islamic terrorism. His campaign slogan was announced as "Make America Great Again". He declared that he would self-fund his presidential campaign and would refuse any money from donors and lobbyists. The British gambling company Ladbrokes offered 150/1 odds of him winning the presidency. The campaign hired a casting company to supply paid actors to attend the event.
Following the announcement, most attention focused on Trump's comments on illegal immigration: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with [them]. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." The comments were interpreted and reported in various ways. The statement was controversial and led several businesses and organizations, including NBC, Macy's, Univision, and NASCAR, to cut ties with him. Reactions from other presidential candidates were mixed, with some Republican candidates disagreeing with the tone of the remarks but supporting the idea that illegal immigration was an important campaign issue, while other Republican candidates as well as the leading Democratic candidates condemned the remarks and policy stances as offensive or inflammatory.
Trump stood by his comments despite public backlash, saying he intended them to be aimed solely at the government of Mexico for sending criminals over the border into the United States and that he did not intend his comments to refer to immigrants themselves. Fact checkers found no evidence that the government of Mexico was sending anyone, criminal or otherwise, across the border.
War in Iraq
After spending some time speaking about trade and illegal immigration, Trump launched into criticism of the 2003–11 Iraq war.
Attacking the Iraq war would become a critical way for Trump to differentiate himself from his Republican competitors. While he offered support to the Iraq war prior to its launch in spring 2003 and for several months afterwards, he was criticizing the handling of the war by 2004, a sharp contrast with other Republican candidates still supporting the invasion even in 2015. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly and falsely denied ever having supported the war, setting a contrast with his eventual opponent in the general election Hillary Clinton, who could not deny having cast a vote in the United States Senate supporting the war.
Contrasting himself with Obama
Presaging his eventual campaign slogan, Trump promised to Make America Great Again, contrasting himself with the current president, Barack Obama, whom Trump had criticized extremely harshly at times prior to (and later during) the latter's campaign in 2015-2016. Although Obama was not running in the 2016 election and was at the time still relatively popular, Trump compared what he considered the disappointing failure of Obama's "Hope" message and presented himself as an alternative who would actually bring about hope.
Paid audience members One week after Trump's announcement, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that at least some of the audience were paid actors, pointing to an email sent by New York political consulting group Gotham Government Relations and Communications offering $50 for background actors to attend the event. The email stated that "we are looking to cast people for the event to wear t-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement. We understand this is not a traditional 'background job,' but we believe acting comes in all forms and this is inclusive of that school of thought."
Trump's then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski initially denied the allegation, but in 2021 confirmed that audience members were paid $50 per person to attend. Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen admitted to hiring Gotham Government Relations but denied paying for audience attendees. David Schwartz, a partner at Gotham Government Relations, said "the reality is we hired 50 people, some of whom were part-time actors I found out later on."
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