“[paraphrase] It's a possibility — I'll make a decision at some time pretty soon, if the Republican Party unifies behind me.”
· Interviews and a meeting with New York Republican lawmakers
· ×2
Trump strung along New York Republicans recruiting him to challenge Governor Andrew Cuomo, setting a condition — party unity behind him — that he controlled the goalposts for. He never ran. Rob Astorino became the Republican nominee and lost to Cuomo in November 2014. The episode followed the same tease-then-decline pattern as 2000, 2011 and 2012.
“If Barack Obama opens up and gives his college records and applications, and if he gives his passport applications and records, I will give to a charity of his choice ... a check immediately for five million dollars.”
· Video posted to Trump's Twitter account, billed all week as a "major announcement"
· ×2
Deadline Oct 31, 2012 · 13 years, 10 months overdue
Trump had spent the week teasing an election "bombshell" that would be "very big" and "possibly bad for the President." The announcement turned out to be a publicity stunt: a conditional charity offer with a one-week deadline. Obama ignored it, the October 31, 2012 deadline passed, no money was ever paid, and the stunt produced nothing. Trump has never substantiated any claim about Obama's college or passport records.
“I will not be running for president, as much as I'd like to. ... Ultimately, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.”
For four months in 2011 Trump topped some Republican primary polls, told interviewers he was "serious" and repeatedly promised a decision by June. He announced he would not run at NBC's advertiser upfront on May 16, 2011, in the same breath as announcing another season of Celebrity Apprentice. CNN's write-up the same day was headlined "Was he ever serious? How Trump strung the country along, again."
“Maybe I'm going to do the tax returns when Obama does his birth certificate. ... I may tie my tax returns into Obama's birth certificate.”
· ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos
Obama released his long-form birth certificate six days later, on April 27, 2011. Trump did not release his tax returns, saying instead they would come out "at the appropriate time." Fifteen years later he has still never voluntarily released a full return; six years of returns became public only when the House Ways and Means Committee forced their release in December 2022.
“I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding.”
· NBC 'Today' show interview with Meredith Vieira
· ×3
Deadline Apr 21, 2011 · 15 years, 5 months overdue
Trump said he had dispatched private investigators to Honolulu who were about to reveal shocking findings about Barack Obama's birth certificate. Obama released his long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, and no findings were ever produced. Hawaii's state registrar said he had no record of Trump or any representative requesting the records, and in 2021 Michael Cohen said on MSNBC that Trump had simply made the investigators up.
“We must have universal healthcare. ... I'm a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. ... We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan.”
· Trump's book "The America We Deserve"
· ×2
Trump praised Canada's single-payer system in print in 2000 and told CNN in 1999 he believed health care was "an entitlement" from birth. By 2011 he had abandoned the position, and as president he spent 2017 trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement, called single-payer a "curse" in September 2017, and in 2024 said he had only "concepts of a plan." Universal coverage never came.
“[paraphrase] A one-time 14.25 percent tax on the net worth of Americans worth more than $10 million would raise $5.7 trillion and pay off the entire national debt.”
· Reform Party presidential campaign proposal / Trump's policy rollout
The arithmetic did not work: Trump's estimate of $50 trillion in total American wealth and the share held by the top 1 percent were both badly wrong, by trillions of dollars. Trump abandoned the campaign in February 2000 and never proposed a wealth tax again. As president he did the opposite, signing the 2017 tax law that cut rates on high earners and estates, and the national debt rose sharply on his watch.
“[paraphrase] Trump announced a presidential exploratory committee on Larry King Live, said he could win, and campaigned in Florida, California and Minnesota — then quit.”
· CNN's Larry King Live
· ×4
Trump hired Roger Stone to run the exploratory committee, gave interviews as a candidate, and qualified for two Reform Party primaries. After Jesse Ventura — his loudest backer — left the party in February 2000, Trump ended the campaign on the February 14, 2000 broadcast of NBC's Today. He never expanded past the exploratory phase. It set the template for the 2011, 2012 and 2014 teases that followed.