Is this where the love of Trump began? In 2012?

[ificandream]

Just happened to be rumbling around in my early posts here and came across this link from 2012. Is this where it all started? And Statesman of the Year? For what ... birtherism?

Donald Trump Receiving ‘Statesman Of The Year’ Award From GOP Group

[malaise]

1. Link not found

Please repost it

[Jim__]

3. Not sure if this is the same link he used, but this gets you to one version

here

[malaise]

4. Was it for calling Obama a foreigner?

Thanks for the link

[Jim__]

2. Your link doesn't work for me. I found one to mediaite:

here. Not sure if that's the one you used.

[ificandream]

6. That was the one. I edited my post. Thanks.

[dalton99a]

5. March 23, 2011 on "The View"

(CNN) - Real estate mogul Donald Trump called on President Barack Obama Wednesday to produce his birth certificate and prove he was born in the United States.

"I want him to show his birth certificate. I want him to show his birth certificate," Trump said on ABC's "The View." "There's something on that birth certificate that he doesn't like."

The potential 2012 presidential candidate said Obama was "probably" born in the U.S., but repeated questions he raised last week about the president's childhood.

"If you go back to my first grade, my kindergarten, people remember me. Nobody from those early years remembers him," Trump said. "If you're going to be president of the United States, it says very profoundly you have to be born in this country."

[Runningdawg]

7. The love of Trump began in '89 when he endeared every racist in this country

with his hatered and lust for blood over the CP5. The big boys saw potential and wasted no time grooming him to be their village idiot.

[ificandream]

10. That's probably true somewhat, but the Republicans didn't embrace him fully then.

And he didn't embrace R's fully back then, either. He claimed to be a Democrat at times. From Wikipedia:

In a 2004 interview, Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat", explaining: "It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now, it shouldn't be that way. But if you go back, I mean it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats...But certainly we had some very good economies under Democrats, as well as Republicans. But we've had some pretty bad disaster under the Republicans."[5] In a July 2015 interview, Trump said that he has a broad range of political positions and that "I identify with some things as a Democrat."[4]

[Runningdawg]

19. Trump would identify as a rock if he thought he had anything to gain from it.

[cilla4progress]

8. He is their

drunken monkey god.

[PJMcK]

9. The "love of Trump" began with himself

That is all.

[ShazamIam]

11. The Kochnetwork hired Trump & Arpaio for the Birther extravaganza. That is why it is so

ridiculous for the Kochs to claim they don't like Mr. Trump,they are who got him elected and are at the heart of the Russian treason. It is all about trying to set up a global energy extortion ring via control of the planet's energy sources.

[UTUSN]

12. When does an award from a GOP Group in a Florida city count as meaning anything, haha! - Fitting

Fitting that "Sarasota is a city south of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast that was once the winter home of the Ringling Brothers Circus."

But Drumpf is so pathologically *needy* for adulation that any kind from any source, no matter how small or meaningless is like CRACK to him.

[ificandream]

14. Well, I'm saying that this Florida thing was an organized thing and somewhat official.

But I suppose, from the answers here, there were several clues.

[UTUSN]

16. I tried to be clear with my crack about his neediness that I wasn't aiming at you!

[Generic Brad]

13. I had family members craving him once "The Apprentice" started

Trump mania actually started with “Art of the Deal” with my brother. Other family members started wanting him as President during the first season of his show. The craziness and poor judgement has been out there a long time

[Hekate]

15. He was always a self-promoter, always. The Apprentice brought him national attention...

Since I despise “reality tv” I didn’t watch, but plenty of others bought in to his act.

Beyond that — as a self-promoter, if he didn’t win an award, he made one up to give to himself. He cheats at golf. If you can’t tolerate that, you shouldn’t ever play with him. At every golf course he opens, he makes sure he is the first player, and he gives himself an award for being “The Winnah and Still Champeen,” as the old movies used to say.

Even from the other side of the country I knew he was horrible — Doonesbury has been on to him since early days, and I read Doonesbury as a chronicler of our times.

Still, how did this evil clown get so far…

[dwayneb]

17. Jeff Zucker was responsible for Trump/The Apprentice

We have Zucker to thank for promoting Trump

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/segments/jeff-zucker-apprentice-and-president

And then, using his rise as a cult leader to reinvent CNN. Zucker knew that constant, unrelenting coverage of Trump would bring viewers, and it did.

[a kennedy]

18. "Statesman of the year". Well let me just hurl right here.

🤮 🤮 🤮