🚨NEW: Chuck Todd credits TRUMP with being *unprecedented* historical figure in his lifetime🚨
“You might say he’ll just be a chapter in the history books, but I’d argue he’ll be a long chapter. He’ll be longer than most modern presidents because Trump didn’t just change his party; he changed the job, he changed the expectations, and he’s changed the culture. And that’s probably the biggest impact he’s made. In fact, Donald Trump’s impact on American politics and society is unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
“June 16th, the ten-year anniversary of Donald Trump descending down that escalator in Trump Tower. And let’s just say, it’s been a transformational ten years for the Republican Party, for American politics, for Washington D.C., for the global world order. It’s not been small. In fact, there was a moment in my recent NewsFeud conversation with Steve Bannon—by the way, a free version of it is up on YouTube if you want to check it out—where he turned to me looking for some affirmation about an issue, and he asked, ‘You can see we are living in the age of Trump?’ And I didn’t hesitate because he’s right. I said, ‘Yes, because we are.'”
“In fact, it’s been ten years since Donald Trump, right, since he descended down those escalator. Ten years since a reality TV host, a real estate promoter entered the political bloodstream. And whatever you want to call the moment—performance art, populist revolt, ego trip—it has turned into something far more enduring. One fluky win in the Electoral College could have been chalked up as an accident of history. And in fact, if he had only won in ‘16 and never come back, that is how he would have been seen—an accident of history, more like Jimmy Carter or somebody like that.”
“But what’s followed, the staying power of Trump—the man, the movement, and now the comeback—it’s not an accident. It looks like we’re in the middle of a realignment. We’re not talking about a blip, we’re talking about a decade, which means we’re probably going to be talking about a generation. You might say he’ll just be a chapter in the history books, but I’d argue he’ll be a long chapter. He’s already going to be a longer chapter than Grover Cleveland, the last guy to serve non-consecutive terms as president. He’ll be longer than most modern presidents because Trump didn’t just change his party, he changed the job, he changed the expectations, and he’s changed the culture. And that’s probably the biggest impact he’s made. In fact, Donald Trump’s impact on American politics and society is unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. It’s greater than Obama—something I would not have conceded three years ago. It’s greater than Clinton, it’s greater even than Reagan. You probably have to go back to FDR to find an American president who so thoroughly did a couple of things: he redefined the boundaries of the presidency and the shape of the national psyche. We haven’t had another president do that since then.”
