Does anyone know the real Donald Trump?

Just wanted to pull a few old news articles and ask if this guy sounds anything like the guy who just won the Electoral College.

November 9, 1999
Web posted at: 6:24 p.m. EST (2324 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Billionaire businessman Donald Trump has a plan to pay off the national debt, grant a middle class a tax cut, and keep Social Security afloat: tax rich people like himself.

Trump, a prospective candidate for the Reform Party presidential nomination, is proposing a one-time "net worth tax" on individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more.

By Trump's calculations, his proposed 14.25 percent levy on such net worth would raise $5.7 trillion and wipe out the debt in one full swoop.

...

"By my calculations, 1 percent of Americans, who control 90 percent of the wealth in this country, would be affected by my plan," Trump said.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/11/09/trump.rich/index.html?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS

***

In 1999, during his short-lived 2000 Reform Party presidential bid, Trump told CNN's Larry King: "If you can’t take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it’s all over. ... I believe in universal healthcare."

And in his 2000 book "The America We Deserve," Trump made a strong pitch for universal health care. As to how the country might achieve universal coverage, Trump focused on a Canadian-style, single-payer plan.

So, Trump has supported single payer in the past.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2015/sep/11/reid-ribble/donald-trump-wants-replace-obamacare-single-payer-/?utm_source=followedapp.com

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RUSSERT: Partial birth abortion. Eliminating of abortion in the third trimester. Big issue in Washington. Would President Trump ban partial birth abortion?

TRUMP: Well, look, I’m very pro-choice…and again, it may be a little bit of a New York background, because there is some different attitude in different parts of the country, and you know, I was raised in New York, and grew up and work and everything else in New York City.

RUSSERT: But you would not ban it.

TRUMP: No…I am pro-choice in every respect as far as it goes, but I just hate it.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/2651/heres-video-proof-trumps-cynical-phony-new-york-ben-shapiro

***

Republican front-runner Donald Trump said Friday that he wished a Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis, was not jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but he added that the Supreme Court has ruled and it is "the law of the land."

"You have to go with it. The decision's been made, and that is the law of the land," the real estate mogul said Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Trump declined to weigh in on the issue Thursday -- stating during a press conference he wasn't very familiar with the issue -- but said Friday that Davis should have let her deputies in the office certify the marriages. Davis's attorney said Friday that she has no intention to resign.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/04/politics/donald-trump-gay-marriage-kentucky-clerk-kim-davis/

***

Trump, whose candidacy is backed by the National Rifle Association, said he concurred with Clinton that people on airline terrorist watch lists should not be able to buy guns.

“I agree with you, when a person is on a watch list or a no-fly list,” Trump told Clinton, who had just called for such a prohibition. “I have the endorsement of the NRA, which I’m very proud of, these are very, very good people, and they are protecting the Second Amendment. But I think we have to look very strongly at no fly-lists and watch lists.”

It’s the only time the Republican presidential nominee has advocated gun control.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-gun-control_us_57eb08ace4b082aad9b7d046

***

Sometimes all it takes to change an opponent’s mind is to put a face on the issue and that’s just what immigration advocates did when they met with multimillionaire Donald Trump last week to talk about immigration reform. After some undocumented activists told him their stories, the man who just a few weeks ago said the the Senate immigration bill “could be a death wish” for Republicans, softened his stance, reportedly telling the immigrants “you’ve convinced me,” according to NBC Latino last week.

Trump, who has a history of making extravagant claims like advocating an European-only immigration approach, reached his conclusion only after a group of young, undocumented activists respectfully pressed him to reconsider his opposition to immigration reform. They told Trump that a solution was necessary for the millions of undocumented immigrants living in America. Trump responded that they had convinced him, according to one of the activists, Jose Machado.

https://thinkprogress.org/undocumented-immigrants-persuade-donald-trump-on-immigration-reform-b9c2210de409#.vknjh4v8o

***

In a previously unreported exchange from 2008, Donald Trump threw his support behind then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s bid for the Democratic nomination, calling her “fantastic.”

BuzzFeed News found a transcript of the exchange online and was able to obtain video of it after asking Media Matters, which has archived old Fox News shows.

In the January 2008 interview, Trump is asked by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto which presidential candidate he prefers. Trump said that he didn’t want to reveal who he was supporting because he wanted them to win.

Cavuto interjected, saying, “But you gave money when Hillary Clinton was running for Senate, right?”

“Well, I support Hillary,” said Trump. “I think she’s fantastic."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/trump-in-2008-interview-i-support-hillary-i-think-shes-fanta?utm_term=.sx4VZ7dy#.ifM70gR5

***

And of course, there was Trump's 2005 wedding:

I keep telling you, he's changeable. He will go with the best advice he hears at the time. This guy needs shaping and if he could be shaped by the right people, he could make some positive changes.

On the other hand!

Changeable can be flaky. It can be disconcerting and it can make people not trust you.

But on the third hand.... changeable people are more prone to try a different approach.
We are discussing his personality here and I can see him as clear as day. He wants to change stuff cos what's there isn't working - so he threw ideas out and because they caught on, he ran with them.
He will change his mind on lots of issues, you watch.

Also as I've said to you before, I actually don't think he's as heartless as he appears. He came out humbly and accepted his win, he wasn't gloating or pumped up - there appeared to be little ego, surprisingly.  
He's got a big mouth, it will be his downfall and it will be his plus point when you least expect it.

I'm going for the human approach here, I'm taking a man down to his basic level.
It's what I see.

I know I don't need to say this to you, but I'm putting it out there: just because I can see the potential of parts of his personality doesn't mean I necessarily like him.

Must admit Eds, I was equally surprised. He has been 100x more positive in his manner post election. It just has to hold, though I expect if it does he will clash monstrously with the GOP- and that could get ugly lol

I would like to see some of Trump's admirers here react to this.

Trump is in the same position as George Zimmerman.  In order to win, he has made everyone hate him.

This next four years is gonna be a lotta fun.  Every news story will be a scandal.  Every executive decision will be fraught with questions about his investments (remember, he never revealed his taxes).  Every attempt to gather allies will be met with failure.  The media will be gifted with a wealth of goodies.

♫ ♪ And she'll have fun, fun, fun...til her daddy takes her T-Bird away. ♫

This is the Basis of my Conspiracy
That Trump ran to help Hillary get elected
historically Trump has been left Wing and Pro-Clinton
he already had the Public persona of an asshole so it was no brand damage to him
But he tapped in to deep seated resentment for the establishment
so no matter what he said they stuck to and voted for him

veya_victaous wrote:This is the Basis of my Conspiracy
That Trump ran to help Hillary get elected
historically Trump has been left Wing and Pro-Clinton
he already had the Public persona of an asshole so it was no brand damage to him
But he tapped in to deep seated resentment for the establishment
so no matter what he said they stuck to and voted for him

I'm inclined to agree with you. Trump was hand-picked for a reason.

We'll know in a moment. If he picks the same man as Obama for Supreme Court, and blows off all his campaign promises, then he is towing the mark for Hillary.

If he picks a conservative for the Court, it blows your theory to hell.

Not Quite because I propose he never planned to win
he just wanted to take the primary then crash in the election
he looked like he did multiple times,
But the Hill-shepherds  didn't care and voted for him anyway

So now he has to work out what to do. and we have seen him back track several policies and will keep Obamacare. but as others have said the base he has tapped into has the potential to be violent, so he must take care to be seen to have deceived them.

Although if he does go full conservative for the supreme court it will blow my theory out of the water

veya_victaous wrote:Not Quite because I propose he never planned to win
he just wanted to take the primary then crash in the election
he looked like he did multiple times,
But the Hill-shepherds  didn't care and voted for him anyway

So now he has to work out what to do. and we have seen him back track several policies and will keep Obamacare. but as others have said the base he has tapped into has the potential to be violent, so he must take care to be seen to have deceived them.

It is what it is...even if he came to some secret accord with Hillary, it amounts to nothing if he cannot issue the coup de grâce.  

We know three years ago he was a registered Democrat.  He invited the Clintons to his wedding. It's easy to believe he's a flip-flopper. That would be the counter-theory to any surmise of a collusion with Hillary. He is intellectually shallow and easily swayed.

I do feel there has been an evolution of Donald since around 2005-06, but if it's not a conscious conspiracy--if it's just a passive transformation--it's not...well, not a conspiracy theory. I think it's more plausible that he just fell under the influence of the Alt right crowd, and that started his big birther push and his Alt right musings, rather than any collusion with Hillary.

You may be right, Quill. At the very least, I think time will soon tell that the right didn't actually get the victory they thought they were getting.

We're seeing a lot of narratives being built around this election, everything from "it was Comey's fault" to "working class Mid-West whites turned on Clinton." I think there's some truth to all of them, but they don't paint the whole picture because so many people have so many different ideas about both of the candidates in this election. We're dealing with fractured perceptions of reality here.

I live near a lot of rich people, and I know them and I know they were pulling for Trump. So it wasn't just the disenfranchised working-class white vote that got it for him -- though I'm sure that played a large role.

I really don't think anyone could accurately predict what's in store at this point, because of what you say -- Trump is mercurial and bound to do nearly anything. What I can predict with some confidence is a) he's going to do things that enormously piss off both the left and the right and b) American politics has changed forever on both sides. The Democratic Party will have to do a lot to convince struggling white voters that it's on their side as much as it is with any other struggling group, and Republicans will have to go beyond dog-whistle racism and actually show they can benefit the disenfranchised.

Ben wrote:The Democratic Party will have to do a lot to convince struggling white voters that it's on their side as much as it is with any other struggling group, and Republicans will have to go beyond dog-whistle racism and actually show they can benefit the disenfranchised.

Who are these struggling white voters and what are they struggling for?  We lost the jobs in the rust belt states back in the 1990’s, and those people have moved on.  Adjectives that describe one period are not relevant twenty years later.

Nationwide, our unemployment hovers around a respectable 4.5%.  The Dow is healthy, employers are crying for employees, with signs up all over town.  Even the US Postal Service has a big banner it’s raised on all Post Offices across America, begging people to apply for lucrative jobs.

This 'struggling America' crap is just another lie that RW’rs put out there because it suits their faux depiction.  I continue to be a fact-based person, and no matter how many times you tell me the king has no clothes, I will check for myself.  America isn't struggling; America is in one of its high times, amid the peaks and valleys that I have seen in my lifetimes.  These are salad days, if anything.

I think if we are going to look for anything troubling America these days, we have to look for grievances that occur during good times.  All of this noise about poor struggling workers is just an attempt to liken this to a downtrodden, proletariat struggle.  

So what happens during good times?  People have a lot of time on their hands, they have resources and they are feeling big in the chest.  If we are going to look for answers, we need to start on the other side of the ledger.  This is no struggle; it's an affirmative power grab.

^^^No Mexican chopped peppers and chillies in the sandwich???

We'll save those for the pizza topping then.

"Does anyone know the real Donald Trump?"

Hard to tell. He's a shape-shifting flip flopper.

@Jules
Trumps Sandwiches are completely without Mexican toppings, he deported all the Mexican toppings to the salad bar.
 
BUT in typical Trump Constructions style
The Sandwich is Made by underpaid Mexicans

Hahaha  Veya  

And these > >    are my fave smileys too, I'm always using them.