It was almost exactly two years ago that Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president, and the GOP frontrunner’s meteoric rise had the country riveted to a single message: That Donald Trump was going to beat the Democrats and take the White House.
The election year proved to be a moment of reckoning for Trump.
In early March, Democrats were poised to take control of the Senate, and Trump’s candidacy seemed on life support.
And then came Trump’s stunning loss in the November election, in which Trump’s vote total fell from about 9 million to less than 5 million.
For the past two years, Trump has been on the defensive.
His campaign and administration have been engulfed in scandals, from the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, to a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump’s most visible political problem has been the way he handled the fallout from his 2016 loss.
While he has largely acknowledged the loss and apologized, he has been reluctant to say that the election results were tainted.
Trump has not done enough to distance himself from his campaign, and his public statements about the results have been frequently vague and confusing.
In the midst of his ongoing crisis, Trump, at times, seemed to be more willing to give in to the Democrats.
In early April, he said that he was not blaming himself.
“I don’t blame myself for losing, I’m not blaming the voters for not liking me, but I will say this, it’s not my fault, it doesn’t happen,” he said at a rally in Iowa.
“It’s not the fault of the American people.”
A few days later, he blamed the election on the media.
“You don’t have to believe me, I have a real problem with the media,” he told CNN.
“They have a fake news media, they don’t even know if it’s real or not.
And the people that are telling the fake news about me, it really doesn’t make sense.”
In late May, Trump suggested that he would accept the election outcome.
“Well, I would probably take it in the direction that I would take it, I don’t know,” he tweeted.
“And then I’ll see what happens.”
In the days before Election Day, Trump’s campaign was on life-support.
But then he tweeted that he could not accept the results.
Trump also tweeted that it was time for the election to be “rigged.”
A week after the election, Trump issued an ultimatum to Republicans in Congress.
He demanded that they oppose a deal that would repeal the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” and called on them to vote against the legislation.
“We can’t let this country become a big, bad country that’s in debt, that’s not paying its bills, that doesn’t have the ability to pay its bills,” Trump said.
“The people are paying the price.”
In a press conference after his defeat, Trump reiterated his promise to “defund” the federal government.
He also told the American public that he intended to “take care of” the “Obamacrats” and “the Democrats.”
On Tuesday, he doubled down on his vow to “make America great again.”
He urged the public to support him because he will do everything in his power to make sure that “we don’t become a country that doesn