Trump Tower

On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump descended a golden escalator in Trump Tower and into political history. The press corps snickered. The consultant class rolled its eyes. Late-night comedians feasted on the spectacle. Most people thought it was a joke. What they missed – and still miss – is that Trump didn’t invent the anger that powered his campaign. He simply noticed it first. The pundits focused on Trump’s bombast. But voters were focused on something else entirely: someone, finally, was saying out loud what they’d been thinking for years. Take China. In 2015, Trump said, “They’re ripping us off.” It wasn’t elegant. But it was true.

Imagine the excitement at the top of the Trump campaign: finally, the Russians were coming through! A ‘well-connected’ lawyer was on her way from the Kremlin with the dirt on Hillary. Donald Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort assembled to meet her in a conference room at Trump Tower. All three were there together, in the middle of the campaign, because of an email from a British music publicist called Rob Goldstone. He had written to Don Jr: ‘The Crown Prosecutor of Russia [has] offered to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information, but is part of Russia and its Government’s support for Mr.