President-elect Donald J. Trump surged past his GOP primary competitors and crushed Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton on his way to a landslide electoral victory on Nov. 8. As the year rounds out, Breitbart News has compiled 10 of the top moments from the campaign trail in which Trump was at his peak.
1.) “You’re Going To Get So Tired Of Winning”
A consistent theme of Donald Trump’s populist machine campaign was “winning.” The billionaire businessman and real estate magnate has spent a lifetime doing so, and has made sure people know his storied history of being a winner even when the chips are down.
Trump said at one campaign rally towards the end of the primaries, in Albany, New York:
You’re going to be so proud of your country if I get in. You’re going to be so proud of your president and I don’t care about that but you are going to be so proud of your country because we’re going to turn it around and we’re going to start winning again. We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at every level. We’re going to win economically, and we’re going to win with the economy. We’re going to win with military. We’re going to win with healthcare and for our veterans. We’re going to win with every single facet. We’re going to win so much you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say ‘please, please it’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore. Mr. President, it’s too much!’ And I’ll say ‘no, it isn’t, we have to keep winning! We have to win more! We’re going to win more!’
Trump would go on to win his home state of New York just days later with nearly 60 percent, shocking the world by taking 89 of the state’s 95 delegates and essentially securing the GOP nomination–which he would officially wrap up two weeks later in Indiana.
This Albany rally isn’t the first time that Trump used that phrase, though. He used it in Ohio back in March:
Back in 2015, at the Stop Iran Deal Rally on Capitol Hill on Sept. 9, Trump used a similar phrase–that if he won, people may get “bored” with winning.
And here Trump is using the line in Oklahoma:
2.) “The Wall Just Got 10 Feet Higher”
When Mexico’s leaders said that under no circumstances will they pay for the wall that Trump will build on the U.S.-Mexican border–as Trump insists that Mexico will pay for it–Trump announced to a Tampa rally that his comment in response was that: “The Wall Just Got 10 Feet higher.”
“We are so tired of being pushed around by these other countries like we’re a bunch of dummies,” Trump said. “Not going to happen anymore. Not going to happen. Not going to happen.”
3.) “Only Rosie O’Donnell”
Anti-Trump Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly–who had been trying to tank his candidacy from the get-go–came at him viciously in the first GOP primary debate in Cleveland, accusing him of making disparaging remarks towards women. After reading off a series of comments Trump allegedly made, Trump joked in response that he said those things about “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”
That moment sealed Kelly’s fate as having given up journalism for anti-Trump activism, and made her no longer the hero many Fox News viewers once thought she was. It also set the two–Trump and Kelly–on a collision-course through the rest of 2015 and 2016, which even led to Trump canceling his appearance at the last primary debate in Des Moines, Iowa, before the caucuses, which Kelly was supposed to co-moderate.
4.) Trump Steaks, Wine, Water, Magazine and Airlines
After Mitt Romney, the failed GOP nominee from 2012 who couldn’t beat now-outgoing Democratic president Barack Obama, attacked his brands during a speech in the GOP primaries in 2016, Trump held a press conference following his victories in both Michigan and Mississippi in which he touted his products. It is worth noting that Romney wasn’t strong enough to run himself against Trump in 2016, and wouldn’t even endorse a single one of his opponents.
5.) Trump Holds Panel With Clinton Accusers Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Kathy Shelton Before St. Louis Debate
In one of the boldest political moves in history, Trump–under fire from the release of the Access Hollywood tape on which he made vulgar remarks about women–called a special panel together of a number of accusers against both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick have each leveled a variety of charges against Bill Clinton. Shelton, who was allegedly raped when she was 12-years-old, saw Hillary Clinton defend her rapist.
A media personality attempted to harass Trump at the event, shouting questions at him beforehand and again at the end yelling, “Mr. Trump, have you touched women without their consent?”
While Trump kept his cool and didn’t engage the media personality’s outlandish questions, Jones did speak up in response: ““Why don’t you go ask Bill Clinton that? Why don’t y’all go ask Bill Clinton that? Go ahead—ask Hillary as well.”
The entire room applauded Jones for standing up to the media personality and to the Clintons.
6.) Trump to Inner City Detroit with Dr. Ben Carson
After he became the nominee and the general election campaign was well under way, Trump faced blistering criticisms from the media over GOP failures in minority communities from previous election cycles. He traveled to inner city Detroit with his former opponent turned ally Dr. Ben Carson–who is going to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the Trump administration–to speak to the Great Faith Ministries International church.
The event–to which Breitbart News accompanied Trump from New York City and back–was a smashing success. The local black community in Detroit loved Trump, and the parishioners were all-too-happy to see him.
It was here that Trump, who had already presented himself as the candidate of change, became the candidate of hope as well. “Our nation is too divided. We talk past each other, not to each other, and those who seek office do not do enough to step into the community and learn what is going on,” Trump told the church-goers from the podium. “They don’t know. They have no clue. I’m here today to learn. So that we can together remedy injustice, in any form. And so that we can also remedy economics so that the African-American community can benefit economically through jobs and income and so many other different ways.”
Later in the day, he visited Dr. Carson’s boyhood home in Detroit.
Trump would go on to win not only the state of Michigan–which hasn’t gone for a Republican president since the 1980s–but more of the black vote than his failed predecessor, Romney.
“While black voters overwhelmingly supported Clinton, Trump lost by a narrower margin than his predecessor,” USA Today admitted on the day after election day. “Trump won 8% of the black vote, compared with 6% of the black vote earned by Romney in 2012.”
7.) Trump Meets With Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto
Back on Aug. 31, 2016, Trump traveled to Mexico City to meet with Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto–and they both came out to hold a joint press conference after their meeting.
It was one of the most surreal moments of the campaign because Trump won the GOP nomination by campaigning for tough immigration enforcement–including the building of a wall along the border that he repeatedly said Mexico will pay for, and the deportation of millions of Mexicans who illegally immigrated into America, as well illegal aliens from other nations–but here he was being as diplomatic as can be with Mexico’s president.
And not only that, but later that night Trump traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, to give an immigration policy address in which he specifically not only doubled down on every one of his hardline immigration policies but spelled out exactly what he is going to do as president when it comes to restoring sanity to U.S. immigration policy.
8.) REVOLUTION!
In New Hampshire after his first primary win in February 2016–at a time when nobody in the establishment thought any of this was possible–Trump came out to the Beatles hit song “Revolution” to give his victory speech.
He did the same thing the night before in Manchester at his final rally before his first electoral win.
As Breitbart News reported at the time, the Beatles song perfectly encapsulates what voting for Trump for president represents: Revolution!
9.) Trump Crushes Lindsey Graham, Gives Out Senator’s Cell Phone Number
Perhaps one of the funniest moments of Donald Trump’s rise to power came when he gave out South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham’s personal cell phone number after the liberal Republican who supports amnesty for illegal aliens attacked him.
Graham responded by making a cheesy video demonstrating how to destroy a cell phone:
Trump would go on to actually win the election. Graham dropped out before people started voting.
10.) Low Energy Jeb Bush
Trump bashed Bush–the original GOP frontrunner for president, whom the donor class had coalesced behind despite his utter failure to win over any real voters–relentlessly throughout the campaign. More on that later in future lists, but this one wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Trump ripping Bush as “low energy.”
Here are a few examples, out of many: