Donald Trump

[Work in progress]

About

Donald Trump is an American entrepreneur, television personality and author known for hosting the NBC reality show The Apprentice and being an outspoken political conservative.

Online History

Birther Movement

While billionaire Donald Trump was attempting to make a bid for the republican nomination for president in March 2011, he began looking into the validity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate^[2], stating that the “Certification of Live Birth” the White House released did not bear a signature of authenticity.^[5] He also claimed that the release of Obama’s birth certificate was because of his involvement in the process.^[4] He continued to question Obama’s birth certificate throughout 2012, tweeting^[3] on August 6th, 2012 that the produced certificate was a fraud.

An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that <a href="https://twitter.com/barackobama">barackobama</a>'s birth certificate is a fraud.</p>— Donald J. Trump (realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012

On October 22nd, 2012, Trump asserted he would be making a “very big” revelation about the president within two days.^[6] On the 24th, Trump released a video (shown below, left) stating he would donate $5 million dollars to the charity of the President’s choice if he provided his college applications and records as well as his passport records by October 31st to the billionaire’s satisfaction. Many news sources including CBS News^[7], Business Insider^[8] and the Huffington Post^[9] claimed the announcement fell flat of his Twitter hype. In response, satirical news host Stephen Colbert made a counter offer to Trump, saying he would donate $1 million to the charity of his choice if he would allow Colbert to “dip his balls his in mouth.”^[10] The same night, Obama responded on The Tonight Show^[11], joking that his feud with Trump dated back to when they were growing up together in Kenya (shown below, right).

2012 Presidential Election Reaction

Following the 2012 United States Presidential Election, Trump published several angry tweets about Barack Obama’s election for a second term as President of the United States.

Twitter Chain

On February 25th, 2013, Trump published a tweet promoting his reality television show The Apprentice. Immediately after, Twitter user Mark Gurman tweeted a link to Trump’s promotion with the word “Wow.” After Arizona student Erik Schmidt tweeted a link to Gurman’s tweet with the word “Wow,” a trend was created in which other Twitter users began tweeting links to tweets prefaced with “Wow.” On February 28th, the Twitter worm was traced back by the tech news blog The Verge.^[1]

Shark Tank is a dead Friday night filler compared to the Apprentice which has been number one show for week in the T. V. ratings!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2013