He came out and made his president ial announcement speech. He said this thing that was very provocative about mexican immigrants, comparing some of them to rapists. It set the tone for his campaign. It did not stop him. He catapulted him into the lead, which he held for the year. The kind of defines the kind of controversy. It was the perfect paradigm. Mark it was so unorthodox. He talked about his personal wealth. In it was defining. Many people said, that is it, he is not going anywhere. Again and again, trump has defined peoples expectations as how you behave as a president ial candidate. And what you can do and still thrive. John the first thing that he keyed in on was immigration. For the restrictionist wing of the Republican Party it was the first thing that kept them interested in donald trump. Nobody knew what trumps views on immigration work until then. The other way it is defining, mark he had that issue for a while. He has the ability to find defining issues and write them hard. What does he need to do . John he needs to win the iowa caucuses. There is a chance that if he does that, he would be unstoppable. Mark he needs to turn this roman unorthodox campaign to see if he can do the orthodox saying of turning out voters. Marco rubios moment was when he decided to focus on delegate accumulation as well as winning early states. Put a lot of money into spending in iowa, New Hampshire, but also down south. In the states where they are going to vote in they have built march, a strong operation with lots of supporters and volunteers. That has position him to be as likely as anybody, with the possible exception of donald trump, to be the party nominee. John there was the focus of doing all of these things and focusing on a laserlike way on iowa. Where all of the time that he spent and all of the retail politicking that he did has yielded him important endorsements from evangelical leaders in iowa. He has not been able to consolidate the evangelical block. Mark he needs to be able to withstand pressure because he has been under a lot. John right now the, ted cruz is the front runner. John if he holds that, you are right. Even though he has a 50state strategy, they could all fall apart if he does not win in iowa. I think that rubio has his defining moments off of the main on the main stage. Mark i said defining moment . John you pick the moment where he was prescient about what was happening in syria. He gave a great speech about Foreign Policy at the reagan library. Everybody was impressed when they saw it. It was the first moment that the Young Marco Rubio became somebody in the eyes of some Republican Voters that looked like somebody that was president. Mark if you cannot win a state in the first four, his theory will be sorely tested at best. Chris christie in 2015 and what he needs to do . John i think the defining moment is a negative one. When he failed to convince the establishment that he was not damaged goods. His absence at the moment. He never had a moment where he was thought of the way he was thought of again back before bridge gate. John if Chris Christie is the republican nominee, the moment i will peg is when he gave that speech about drug addiction and drug use and drug recovery. Talking in a very emotional way that caught fire on facebook. It made people remember what an incredibly powerful political performer he can be. If he is not the nominee, it will be the day when he messed up on bridge gate. Mark he needs to win New Hampshire. A guy whose fortunes have fallen, ben carson, his defining moment, what does he need to do . John carson, the negative, i will pick one among many negative moments. He is talking about the chinese and syria. There were many moments on Foreign Policy and he seemed to be somebody that did not understand the world. The moments of terror and terrorism arrived and became a dominant issue late this year, this guy, i do not think he can be your nominee. Mark he needs to shock the world in iowa. He needs to finish a strong second and surge past donald trump or ted cruz. John it will be very hard. Jeb bush, the front runner coming in. No longer the front runner. By any means. What does he need to do . Mark the defining moment was when he could not handle questions about his brother and the iraq war. He did not understand politics modern news cycle. It brought to board the legacy the bushes. John everyones pressure was on him. Everybody was focused in the same way. You should have been prepared to give a good answer with your brother and iraq. You had to be prepared to do well in that debate. We saw jeb do better in las vegas. He came out so flat and got creamed by marco rubio. For a lot of establishment arians, they said that we need to look somewhere else. Mark he needs his super pac to spend money in a way that helps him instead of makes them go down. Carly fiorina, the thing that she needs to do is to fight her back into the dialogue. I would say the same about john kasich. John no defining moment has been the problem for john kasich. Mark he needs to find a rationale in New Hampshire. He needs to make the case that he is a different kind of republican. Do not shy away from it. John been a year of outsider candidates, a guy who talks a great length on the Armed Services committee in the house. Now it is time for the democrats. The obvious place to start is with Hillary Clinton. Her defining moment and what she needs to do. Mark the week where she did very well at the benghazi and where joe biden decided not to run. Those were arguably the best runs that any candidate has had in their careers. Shes got to win iowa and New Hampshire. The republicans have a long nomination fight. Maybe a mega fight. John as long as she wins iowa, she is fine. Bernie, it will be called Home Field Advantage if he wins New Hampshire. If she loses both, she is in trouble. If she wins one of the two mark i am not so sure that people will discount a New Hampshire win as much as we do. If he wins iowa narrowly, she wins. Bernie sanders, what is his best moment of the year . John every single time he stood in front of a crowd. Mark that is not a moment. John there was not one in particular. Lets say the first one. It might have been in wisconsin. Maybe one of those in texas. Other people said, wow, there is an obamalike quality in him. He is inspiring incredible enthusiasm. Mark the first debate he did not prepare. If he had had a strong first debate and put her on the and rattled her. She is part of the same run with the benghazi hearing and biden. If he had had a strong debate, that would have been good for him. But it really deflated his campaign. John for him, what he needs to do, i do not mean to suggest that he needs to go negative on Hillary Clinton. He must drive home the existing real policy differences between the two of them. Where he is more in line with the Democratic Party than she is. Hes got to drive those home in a ferocious way. Mark doing it without repetition or selfconsciousness. Or concern that he is sounding too negative. John i am still waiting for him to show just as much humanity to the voters as he does when he is on the set. There is martin omalley, does he have a defining moment . Mark his announcement speech. It was one of the a best announcement speech is. His introducers were incredibly wellchosen. It was the first time that he had a little bit of contrast with Hillary Clinton. In part because it was so good. But it also illustrates the complete conundrum of martin omalley. By virtue of his resume and because he is from a different generation, he should be doing better than 5 . 1 , 2 . It has not taken off at all. John i do not find that at all perplexing. Democrats love those two. Mark i am surprised that he is not at 1011 percent. John the defining moment was when we set in that first focus sat in that first focus group in New Hampshire and none of the democrats knew who he was. Mark we will take a spin through mr. Trumps headquarters. And talk politics with seth meyers. Mark it is the most wonderful time of the year. We will talk about what all the candidates can do to increase their chances. We will talk about the unique s ness of the iowa caucuses. Mark in past cycles, the major candidates have had many more days on the ground. A lot more visits to different parts of the state. The rules of the caucuses are roughly the same. They have democratized them a little bit. This is an institution like no other. Other states have caucuses. But other states have caucuses that are influential in the process. John no one understands what a difficult challenge it is in terms of organization. Do not have a day of voting. You have to get people to come to an event, stand there for three hours on a cold night in february. It is so different. That is true of all caucuses. It is especially true in iowa. It might be 10 degrees on february 1. It is a totally unique experience in american democracy. I agree with you. It will be interesting to see how much effort there will be on the republican side. Democrats have been doing more in terms of organization. Mark because participation is really narrow, you cannot get a babysitter that day, the weather is bad, because participation is so low, those small number of people have such a huge influence. No one expects it to be anywhere close to 200,000 people voting. When you are out with the candidates and you have seven people at the event and they get excited. You might think that is weird. Well, that is seven people. John they are a very Homogenous Group of people. I love iowa. But it is a lily white state. , it does not look like the rest of america. On the republican side, much older voters. On the democratic side, much more educated voters than average. The fact that those things are true somebody like bernie , sanders might not do well in the iowa caucus. He is a chance if the he has a better chance if it were in california. Mark who on the republican side is in the best is issued to win . John ted cruz is in the best position to win the iowa caucuses. The only other person that looks like a significant threat is trump. They had that organization there. Whether they can meet the challenges that we described in terms of what to do on caucus night, not clear at all. Mark the two guys that worked very hard in iowa, Rick Santorum and mike huckabee, they have won in the past, they are nowhere. Amazing, because lots of people voted for them. Historically in the caucuses, if you vote for someone and they run again, you retain a fair amount of people. I remember going with joe biden 20 years after he ran the first time. John who is best positioned in the caucuses on the democratic side . Mark Hillary Clinton is. I do not know if it means that much. It is hard to figure out who is going to turn out. I interacted with the sanders operation in iowa. , is very engaged. The clinton people have done a very smart job of marrying up some iowa folks that moved there and are living off the land. They are spending a lot of money, not too much money. I think the clinton operation is justifiably praised. John they have taken the obama smarts and a lot of the obama people. And build a genuine field organization. Bernie sanders, if he gets hot, he could be the candidate that would draw a lot of new people to the process and could shock the world. He could surprise the conventional wisdom of the day and when those caucuses. Mark we will look back at some of the highlights of the year including going into the trump headquarters. Mark with 2015 drawing to a close, john and i thought it was a good time to look act this look back on the adventures of the summer. Here he we got an exclusive look at Donald Trumps office here in gotham city. Hi, how are you . Have you worked on a president ial campaign before . No. I graduated from nyu. I have worked on some smaller campaigns. Governor campaigns, but nothing like this. I coordinate things. I make sure everyone has everything they need. Scheduling requests. I help with press secretary stuff. Just basically make sure everything is running on track. Mark where did you first meet mr. Trump . When i first started working. Mark what was that like . A little nerveracking, but he was incredibly nice. Mark this is where Trumps Campaign manager works. He is from New Hampshire. He has got a nice, dont tread on me do your job. , john corey, this is where you work. This is the Campaign Managers office. You have worked on how many campaigns roughly . 40. The balcony, it does not get any better than this. We get a balcony to enjoy the nice weather. Mark fifth avenue, near central park. Is this where you will stay . This is the headquarters . This is it, 100 . We have room to grow. We have Additional Space in the building if we want it. We paid fair market value, just as if we were renting to anyone else. That is what that sec requires. Mark not cheap, but you have a campaign. R for the we run the Campaign Like everybody. We run the Campaign Like a business. We make sure when we spend money, we get a return on our investment. We do not waste money. We dont have highpriced consultants. John it is a little bit more like the filet mignon. Mark pizza is here. Lets get in there, we have got to see this. Every campaign has pizzas. They get all the mail. They answer 80 of the cause calls right here. These are some of the things people have sent in in the last 30 to 45 days. It gets packed up. That is todays mail that has come in so far. Mark how many do you get a day . We have 3 to 4 a day. Mark does everybody get a response . Pizza is a big part of every campaign. What have you got on there . Looks pretty good. I am doing a lot of scheduling and making phone calls. Mark have you ever worked on a campaign before . I have. I have worked on city council. I think that trump has a different view of politics that i really like. I was a Political Science major, i know a lot about politics. How politics in america actually goes and i want to make a difference. I actually believe mr. Trump can do it. Mark your office is on fifth avenue. This looks like a campaign. We could be anywhere on a campaign. That is what i like about it. I think its more about making America Great again. Mark i am not saying you should lose your job, but that woman is awesome. Amazing. Mark great. Every sentence ended with, make America Great again. Pizza, make America Great again. Trump belts custom belts, make , America Great again. The flag was made to, do not trade on trump. People send you a flag and ask if youll put it up in your office. I say, of course. Mark those seem big. They are 44, to 48. Mark those seem big. You quit your job and volunteered to come here . Yep. Mark president ial campaigns are normally something that people spend a lifetime working up to. I just showed up. I will work free. Mark you are wearing a tie today. Is that Office Policy . In most campaign, like up in burlington, vermont, they would be wearing tiedye shirts and ripped jeans. Did you come here because you like donald trump . I love donald trump. I came here for my work. I just emailed the homepage and showed up. Mark i do not know if you can thisre see in here, but used to be the office space for the apprentice. I guess this is where the props were. The floor we are going to is where they filmed it . It is still there . There we go. You are working one floor below where the magic happens. Ed. Lets take a quick peek at the taping of the show. Table from the show. This is it. This is the famous board table. Covered up for posterity. But see what we have over here. Iphone covers. Buttons, make America Great again. The celebrity present president. You are hired. The famous hats. Trump ties. Proving this is campaign headquarters, the one piece of food we have seen. When we return, more, more, more donald trump. We will take a look back at the summer of his meteoric rise. The only way to get better is to challenge yourself, and thats what were doing at xfinity. We are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. And this includes our commitment to being on time. Every time. Thats why if were ever late for an appointment, well credit your account 20. Its our promise to you. Were doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. Because we should fit into your life. Not the other way around. John it is a little colder outside, so you probably have forgotten when it was hot, hot, hot. We will always remember the summer of trump. Here is a look back at the mans political rise. Mr. Trump, thank you for your time. And thank you for being 50 big fan. Donald trump tremendous show, tremendous success. John you are finally running for president. Donald trump i am officially running for president of the united states. Mark with all due respect to donald trump john with all due respect to donald trump, you are not the only one who knows how to escalate a situation. Mark happy National Donald trump day, sports fans. John returning to our regularly scheduled programming, donald trump. He is a more compelling figure. This is not michele bachmann. This is not herman cain. Mark every other candidate in the field would kill for his poll numbers. Showsa new fox news poll support for donald the trump is 11 . Mark once people took him seriously, he would rise. John the donald tops every leaderboard in sight. Mark trump gets crazy high best in show marks from everything to handling the economy, terrorism, and yes, immigration. A force field of otherworldly energy. A reuters poll has him at 32 who is doing well right now . Donald trump. John in our ongoing attempt to understand the trump phenomenon, we did a focus group last night with 12 donald backers