June 16, 2025, marks ten years since Donald Trump descended the Golden Escalator and officially declared his candidacy for president of the United States. The legacy media’s joke candidate quickly skyrocketed to Republican nominee, ensuring years of institutional ire from both sides of the aisle. One would be hard pressed to find a man more photographed in the decade since that fateful ride. Nor more quoted.
Ten Years Ago Today, President Donald J. Trump came down the Golden Escalator and officially declared his candidacy for President of the United States. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/CK1BLlnZmE
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 16, 2025
A brief recapitulation of Trump’s most iconic moments in that period:
Trump Takes The 2016 Debate Stage(s)
The power of broadcast television was immortalized in the Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate of 1960. Trump’s entry to the presidential debate stage in 2016 was a similar revolution. The medium underwent no technical change, but Jeb Bush’s stunned face says it all. Candidates, moderators, and viewers alike shared in his astonishment: “You’re allowed to say that?” (RELATED: New Poll Spells Utter Disaster For Democrat Party)
There’s a glut of zingers to pick from. Consider: “First of all, Rand Paul shouldn’t even be on this stage.” Or: “More energy, tonight, I like that,” to a gobsmacked Jeb Bush.
But Trump’s best line came during a confrontation with then-presidential candidate for the Democrat Party, Hillary Clinton.
“It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” Clinton remarked.
“Because you’d be in jail.”
Cue the cheers. And jeers. Trump, for better or worse, has perfected the art of debate as entertainment.
Nicknames
Trump has a Shakespearean talent for nicknames. His epithets are so sprawling and well-documented they’ve spawned a Wikipedia page all their own.
Highlights include “Sleepy Joe” (former President Joe Biden), “Low IQ War Hawk” (Liz Cheney), “Governor Newscum” (Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California), and “Pocahontas” for Elizabeth Warren. Hillary Clinton deserves special mention. There’s “Crazy Hillary,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Lyin’ Hillary,” and “Beautiful Hillary” (which, as a Wikipedia editor aptly notes, only came into use following Trump’s 2016 election victory).
Institutions hardly escape his scope. CNN is “Fake News CNN” or “Clinton News Network.” The New York Times is the “Failing New York Times.”
Build The Wall
Trump was elected, in no small part, for his promise to “build a great wall.” He faced a host of legal challenges to that end during his first term. On his first day in office, then-President Joe Biden signed an executive order mandating a “pause” in all construction of the wall. On Trump’s first second day in presidential office, he invoked the National Emergencies Act (NEA) to address the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. The wall has yet to be finished. But Trump 2.0 has seen a historic low in migrant crossings at the border, with more deportations from within our nation’s border to come. (RELATED: Deranged Legacy Media Twists Itself Into Pretzel To Avoid Crediting Trump)
Deplatforming or Censoring?
“It’s kinda weird that deplatforming Trump just like completely worked with no visible downside whatsoever,” blogger and journalist Matt Yglesias tweeted nearly two weeks following Trump’s exile from Twitter (now X). The tweet has since been deleted, but an archived copy remains available.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the [Trump] account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company wrote in a statement issued January 8, 2021.
Whoops. How many days into Trump’s second term are we now?
Trump’s Mugshot
When “deplatforming” (i.e., removing from the public square) Trump didn’t work, his political adversaries kicked it up a notch. Forget bad press. Trump faced four criminal indictments in 2023. He surrendered himself to authorities in Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, resulting in the first, and to date, only, police booking photo of an U.S. president.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA – AUGUST 24: In this handout provided by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, former U.S. President Donald Trump poses for his booking photo at the Fulton County Jail on August 24, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. Trump was booked on 13 charges related to an alleged plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Trump and 18 others facing felony charges have been ordered to turn themselves in to the Fulton County Jail by August 25. (Photo by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office via Getty Images)
Just one problem for those who’d use the photo to humiliate Trump or his supporters – It’s a great image. It’s such a great image, in fact, that Trump’s 2024 campaign slapped it on official merchandise.
Turns out, the optics of “political underdog defiantly staring down the camera” tend to work in the underdog’s favor.
“Fight, Fight, Fight”
Trump’s opponents have tested every legal, and quasi legal, means of destroying him. When the censorship, and the indictments, and the mugshot all failed to yield desired fruit, the most rabid Never Trumpers took to violence.
Trump has been the subject of multiple assassination attempts in his course as politician, the earliest of which occurred in 2016. The most serious attempt occurred on July 13, 2024, near Butler, Pennsylvania, when a would-be assassin missed Trump’s skull by a matter of providence. Trump suffered injuries to his right ear.
Trump Seen Standing Up, Bloodied Shouting “FIGHT” After Assassination Attempt pic.twitter.com/m4lXG8gbvs
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 13, 2024
Still, he struggled above security to pump his fist, and yell, “Fight, fight, fight.”

BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA – JULY 13: Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump is whisked away by Secret Service after shots rang out at a campaign rally at Butler Farm Show Inc. on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
A Unique Diplomacy
No one would describe Trump’s diplomacy as subtle. He got into hot water with the press for reportedly describing Haiti, El Salvador, and certain African nations, as “shithole countries.” Minced words aside, are any members of the press corps planning a permanent exodus to Haiti? Maybe El Salvador, which has certainly cleaned up its act under President Nayib Bukele.
Then there was the moment Trump visited Puerto Rico for hurricane disaster relief efforts. The president took to throwing paper towels into the audience.
That’s just Trump’s style. During a visit to Japan, Trump and then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, fed koi fish. Trump, following Abe’s lead, dumped his container of fish food into the pond. This, too, turned into a scandal. Photos captured of Trump turning over his box of food, absent context, brought the internet’s koi fish experts out of the woodwork to explain why Trump had doomed the koi to certain, painful death.

TOPSHOT – US President Donald Trump (C) feeds koi fish as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (R)looks on during a welcoming ceremony in Tokyo on November 6, 2017. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
A Rocky Relationship With Elon Musk
Trump’s relationship with billionaire Elon Musk has been tested in recent weeks. An Epstein allegation will do that. But Trump’s initial allyship with the tech entrepreneur proved pivotal for his victory in 2024. Musk’s purchase of social media site X saw decreased strictures on freedom of speech on the platform. (RELATED: Elon Musk Has Left The Building, But He Helped Expose Democrats)
Musk’s partnership with Trump turned a once hostile tech industry to seek Trump’s favor. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s Jeff Bezos appeared at Trump’s second presidential inauguration. Libertarian makeover and scantily clad plus one, respectively, in tow.
A Rally To Remember
Trump rallies have produced no shortage of memorable moments. That’ll happen when you ask Hulk Hogan to appear. A personal favorite: Trump’s now-iconic “YMCA” dance, which sparked thousands of TikTok copycats. Also, when he urged the crowd to chant, “Turn off the lights! Turn off the lights!” This, following nearly a minute of commentary on electricity and lighting. He managed to weave, in typical fashion, back to the topic at hand: “That’s the way we have to negotiate for our country.”

US President Donald Trump dances at the end of a rally at Carson City Airport in Carson City, Nevada on October 18, 2020. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
If the next ten years are anything like the last, the media won’t want for much.
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatalieIrene03
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