Solemnly swear. Narrator the moments that shaped them. I wont let you down. I wont. Let it be said we refused to let this journey end. That future is our destiny. Narrator the president s they would become. I, Barack Hussein obama, do solemnly swear. We have to heal the divides in our country. I am your voice. Narrator and now on frontline. That the end of this chapter of american darkness began here. Narrator the choice 2020. Frontline is made possible by contbutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org. The Ford Foundation working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide at fordfoundation. Org Additional Support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. E park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. And by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. Overnight, growing national unrest. Narrator with the nation in crisis. Mobs sowing chaos in cities across the nation. Narrator . This is the story of two candidates forged in their own crises. Political pundits said there was no way it could be done if the city would gather around with us. Narrator . Personal tragedies. An Automobile Accident killed the wife and baby daughter of biden. Narrator . Public controversies. Trumps newspaper ads contribute to the citys racial polarization. Narrator . Challenges that shaped them. Anita hill comes to washington. The donald is facing an incredible cash crisis. I cant breathe i cant breathe narrator . And show how they would lead a country now in crisis. Together, we are taking back our country. Narrator the choice 2020. In a battle for the soul of america. Narrator trump vs. Biden. America wants to know welcome to america wants to know. Im ernie anastas, and this is the. In 1992, i hosted a special show in new york where viewers asked a lot of questions about their favorite celebrities. Many, of course, were interested in donald trump, and growing up in queens. Young boy i managed to catch up with donalds parents, mary and fred trump, and asked them, what was donalds favorite game as a child . He played monopoly. Yes, indeed. He liked to play. He played with his brother. Uhhuh. He played with robert, but more than monopoly, he played with building blocks. Ooh. Always with building blocks. Narrator but Donald Trumps childhood was much more complicated. Early on, a family crisis, his mother seriously ill. When he was twoandahalf, my grandmother got very ill. Donald, who was at a very, very critical point in his development as a child, was essentially abandoned by her. He may not entirely trust women. He finds it difficult, if not impossible, to connect with them on any deep level, because i dont believe he ever was able to with her. When you ask him about how she showed her love, he has nothing to say. The complexity of that relationship, i think, plays out through all of his relationships with women throughout his life. With one wife after another. Theres a, an inability to reach any recognizable level of intimacy. Narrator young donald had his own crisis finding his place in a family dominated by his fath, ed, a stern and demanding Real Estate Developer. I strongly suspect that he had a relationship with his father that accounts for a lot of what he became. And his father was a very brutal guy. He was a tough, harddriving guy who had very, very little emotional intelligence, to use todays terms. Donalds fathers overall message to his children was and it was a very different message to the boys than to the girls to the boys, was, compete, win, be a killer. Do what you have to to win. Narrator inside the family, a harsh game of apprentice who would take over freds empire . The first in line wasnt donald, it was his older brother freddy. My father was sensitive, he was kind and generous, he liked hanging out with his friends who adored him, and, maybe worst of all, although its hard to say, he had interests outside of the Family Business. My grandfather understood none of that. Narrator their father said freddy wasnt a killer. He wanted to fly airplanes for a living. Donald thought that was crazy. He could not understand why fred did not go into the Family Business and be a builder like their father was. But fred wanted to be a pilot, and donald looked at that and said, well, thats sort of like being a bus driver. Why would you want to be a pilot . Narrator donald watched as freddy was cast out. My dad couldnt do anything right, and my grandfather made his life miserable. He was frustrated, and he began to realize that he, it wasnt going anywhere. Narrator his life ended early in alcoholism and poor health. Through the years, donald would take a much different path. He wanted to avoid my fathers fate of, you know, abuse and humiliation at the hands of his father. He took that lesson to heart. Narrator he was determined to live up to his fathers ideal be a killer. trumpet fanfare plays ha narrator but he was also tempestuous, impulsive. And at 13, his father sent him to military school. students chanting he must have said, this kids going to grow up in a tough world, really tough world. If i want him to succeed, hes going to have to be tough. He talks about it as almost this rite of passage. He said to me that when he arrived at the military academy, for the first time in his life, someone slapped him in the face when he got out of line. Narrator it would be a fiveyear lesson in how to be a bully. Donald trump yelled at his classmates. He pushed them around. He even used a broomstick as a weapon against classmates who didnt listen to him when he told them what to do. All of us were part of this culture of, you beat on kids when they didnt do the right thing. You got hit. You may have gotten slammed against the wall. You were put in, in. You got put artificially into fights. Uh. He became a leader of the cadets. He became one of the student leaders who had a numb of kids under him in the dormitories, and he ruled the dormitory life with an iron fist. Narrator inside that brutal world, donald had found his place. His mothetold me that he was never homesick. He loved it. He loved all that stuff because it was also really competitive. Other kids didnt really like him all that much. He wasnt that popular because he was so competitive. He was always looking for the edge. But it was, it was an narrator with his fatherin. And mother by his side, donald graduated. Hed become a killer, learned the power of bullying to get ahead a method hed carry into the future. military students chanting beeping on countdown stammering hope to p. Teach p. E. Two s. stuttering on s uh, s. Sisters. Well, my. Father is very strict. Among the many causes of retarded speech are low intelligence, hearing loss, emotional conflicts, poor methods of the teaching of talking by the parents, brain injury, and many others. For example, a child may stutter as he comes out of the early stages of retarded speech. Narrator joey bidens crisis was stuttering. He came of age in a, another time, in which people. stuttering softly . Werent as open about disorders or disabilities or setbacks. stuttering when the common. Prescription was. Buck up. Deal with it. Narrator dealing with it a roughandtumble childhood in delaware, his father a car salesman fallen on hard times. For little joey, catholic school. Nuns. He had an assignment he had to memorize. He had to stand up and deliver it in the classroom. Narrator the words were in front of him sir Walter Raleigh was a gentleman. When joe read it, it went. claps out rhythm sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man. Say that again . Mmm. Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man. And this went on three times. He said gentle man instead of gentleman. And. The nun said. imitating nun mr. Bbbbbiden, whats that word . And this is a person in a. Position of authority, this is a person whos meant to protect you. It was so embarrassing and so enraging that biden walked out of the room, he walked out of the school. He walked all the wahome. car motor starts narrator joeys mom, jean, marched him back to the school to confront his teacher. The sister starts telling her how disrespectful joe is, and my mother, stop. She said, just tell me, did you make fun of my son . Well, i. Sister, did you make fun of my son . Well. And my mother said, well, ill answer it for you. You sure in hell did. And if you ever, ever, ever do that again, im going to come back and im going to knock your bonnet right off your head. Do we understand each other . Stuttering is a fear problem. The person feels fear, shame, guilt, tension. Hes always worried about what might happen. He might get into a situation, not be able to say his name, or the telephone rings and he cant answer it. I was surprised at how often this subject came up during my time with him. It helped me understand that so much of who he is comes back to that. That people are ready to make fun of him. That people will laugh. Narrator bullied, harassed, ridiculed, he was hellbent on beating the stutter. Biden would stand in front of his bedroom mirror holding a flashlight to his face, and he would recite yeats and emerson. Narrator he kept pushing against the stutter, the bullies and it paid off. People liked to be around him, he really had a presence. You knew him when he walked in. He was a little taller than most, and in very good shape. He was a star Football Player on their team. Narrator joey biden found another way to fight back politics. In high school, hes president of his senior class. Honestly, thats when he gets a taste for it. The stutter is still part of him during his senior year in high school, where he has to introduce his family at the, at graduation, and he has to stand up there and not stutter, and say this publicly. And he does it. We want joe we want joe narrator in the crisis of stuttering, a life method persevere. Just push through. More medical research to confer to conquer devastating diseases like cancer, and. Not the end in, um, um, in themselves. The uaw took ex credible cuts in their future. Many people would say bidens stutter is among his most visible weaknesses, if not number one. But its also a source of his strength. Its also. The main source of his grit and his. Determination to just be there, competing. This is the cbs evening news with walter cronkite. Good evening. For seven months, new york city has teetered on the brink of financial disaster. Another piece of new york fell by the curbside today for who knows how long. Narrator by the 1970s, new york city was in crisis. As part of the struggle to keep the city from going bankrupt. New york city suddenly comes apart. The city, for the first time, was losing population, as well as jobs. And losing its economic base. siren wailing new york was in tatters then, but there were opportunities everywhere you looked. The new rk city of the early 1970s was made for someone like donald trump. Narrator in that crisis, 25yearold donald trump saw a chance for pernal gain. He was struggling to make a name for himself, break out of his fathers shadow. Donald, from a very young age, wanted to exceed his father and go into manhattan and be the success that his father hadnt been in terms of notoriety and fame. Why . Whats going on . Narrator trump took his shot. It started with a Rundown Hotel near Grand Central station. The Old Commodore Hotel was in such sorry shape that it ha boardedup windows, it had rodents all over the place. It was one of the markers of new yorks sorry decline. And trump saw this as a grand opportunity. In new york city, the rate of unemployment is much higher than it is. Narrator it was an enormous gamble, but with the city on the brink. And so the city continues to stagger beneath the weight of its multiplying fiscal problems. Narrator trump believed new york was desperate enough to pay him to transfo the hotel. If the city would gather around with us, we can produce, with a lease, guaranteed by the state of new york, a new york city lease. Narrator but he was new to manhattan. He needed a guide. He found roy cohn. Roy, who was a roughandtumble fixer democrat, power within the Democratic Power structure in new york city, close friend of mayor abe beame, close friend of carmine desapio, the boss of the Manhattan Democratic Party i think he was, like, donalds ambassador to the world of manhattan. Narrator cohn had been disgraced for leading mccarthyera witch hunts, but trump saw him as a killer. Roy cultivated an image as a bulldog. Nothing, nothing would stop him from tarring opponents or even doing illegal things. His pride and joy was bullying people and bribing people and making deals behind the scenes. He was a fixer. He was a connector. Roy cohn was the kind of mast of the dark arts. He was the person who helped shape trumps approach to life. What he learned from roy cohn was never apologize, always attack. Attack the character of your opponents, that theyre somehow malicious, that theyre somehow doing the devils deed here. And, and let the public know that. That was roy cohn. Narrator cohn knew just how to get the tax breaks trump needed to build his hotel. Roy cohn, because of his unique positioning within new york city at that time, was able to pull certain strings, to get tax breaks. Narrator new york taxpayers would be on the hook for more than 400 million. He is able to set up this deal, which the state bills as a special new program, but isnt a special new program. It is just a giveaway to donald trump, a tax giveaway. Its been a long, hard fight. How do you feel . Well, im very happy, and i think the city of new york is going to be very happy. Narrator he transformed the commodore hotel. With cohns help, trump had thrived in crisis, used it to his advantage. The mayor and the governor of new york were among those on hand for the ribboncutting ceremony. He got it done. He got it done by bulling his way through, by pretending to have more backers than he really had, by pretending that he was actually putting large sums of money into it when he really wasnt. Uh, and the con worked. He got the money, he got the permits. He got it done. You use deception, you use intimidation. You use all of the tactics that you can find. It is a utterly transactional sense of the world. And whats in it for me . Is kind othe founding credo. One of the things that donald learned from school of dad and school of roy was that almost everybody has their price. Whatever. It might not necessarily be dollars, although it often is. It might be some vulnerability that wont be revealed. But roy said that almost everyone, theres a pressure point. Narrator it would become trumps playbook exploit crisis, in business, in life, in politics. Kennedy, kennedy, kennedy, kennedy, kennedy, kennedy, kennedy for me narrator joe biden also had a role model irish, catholic, goodlooking. Joe emulated what he could. Kennedy was drawn to politics, biden was drawn to politics. Jack had a photogenic wife and children. Joe had a photogenic wife and children. The kennedys had a family compound at annis port. The bidens would have a family compound in wilmington, delaware. Joe biden was always fascinat by the kennedy mystique. He really saw himself as a natural heir to that tradition. Im joe biden and im a candidate for the United States senate. Politicians have done such a job on the people that the people dont believe them anymore, and id like a shot at changing that. Narrator but wilmington was no hyannis port. We, the bidens, we had no money. We had no power or influence. We didnt know anybody who was a big name who could help us. Hi, how are you . Hi, how are you . Joe bidens my name. Narrator like the crisis over his stutter, his political start was a struggle. Behind in the polls, facing a powerful opponent United States senator cale boggs, an ally of president richard nixon. Joe biden asked me about getting involved in his campaign. I started off by telling him at theres no way you can win. Cale boggs was the candidate for the senate. Hed been a twoterm congressman. Twoterm governor. Twoterm senator. He was beloved around the state. So i said that he couldnt win. Audacious is a good term to apply to biden back then. This is a guy who wasnt yet old enough to hold the seat. Narrator it was a time of crisis in the country. The vietnam war had divided americans. Opposition to the war in vietnam has set off demonstrations in several major cities. Narrator . Igniting social unrest. In delaware, racial tensions boiled over. The National Guard was called out in several cities to put down riots. One of these cities was wilmington, delaware. Narrator black residents were angry. Joe biden saw an opportuty to draw on his personal experience with race back when he was 19, working at an innercity pool. He was a lifeguard. He was one of the two white guys. He was a tall, slim, uh. Younglooking, goodlooking, elvis presleylooking kind of guy. Thats how he got to know some of the guys who were in the gangs. He just seemed to have a natural instinct for getting to know people, getting to understand them, but not being afraid to be around them. We became friends. We became friends. I was a very troubled child. Okay . Leader of a gang, no food at home, electric cut off, no soap sometime no soap and water to take a bath, no hot water. Narrator joe and ricky he likes to be called mouse forged a lifetime friendship after beating a shared demon they both stuttered. Understand, back there for black, black folks back those days, when you stuttered, you was retarded or you was, or youre something was mentally wrong with you. Id start with. So he basically told me, go to the mirror, look at yourself, pronounce your words. Go and put your voice on tape. Well, my words did change. I started reading the papers from the back from the back to the forth, back and forth. Narrator mouse introduced joe all around the neighborhood. Over the years, biden kept in touch, building relationships in the black community that would pay off. He would go through this personalizing with people. I never really heard him say, im going to change the community. Im going to deal with employment. Im going to deal with. You know, the typical politician mess that you hear. I always tell people, be wary of any politician who tells you hes going to create jobs. Hes lying to you. Some people are in politics because theyre i