said, hey, that was proof he d never been serious in the first place. it was just one big publicity stunt. and pat buchanan got 1% of the vote as the reform candidate. that s a tiny total but it nonetheless changed history when a poorly designed ballot in palm beach county, florida, led many al gore supporters to accidentally check off buchanan s name. even buchanan said the votes were not intended for him but they were counted for him. in a state that delivered the presidency to george w. bush by a grand total of 537 votes. and the bush presidency gave us the iraq war, gave us afghanistan, it ended with the financial crisis, economic meltdown. and it was some time around then in post-bush america that donald trump did something very untrump like. according to reporting from tim alberta in politico, trump picked up the phone, called pat buchanan, and apologized for all the hurtful things he said.
americans begin to put the needs of americans first. for a new nationalism wherein every negotiation, be it arms control or trade, the american side seeks advantage and victory for the united states. republican leaders stayed away from pat buchanan, no governors endorsing him, no senators, no members of congress. what he represents, they said, that s not us. that s not our party. but then came new hampshire. running against a sitting president in 1992, buchanan got almost 40% of the vote and some say bush never recovered. buchanan couldn t win the nomination but he got more than 3 million votes in 92. bush ended up a one-termer. globalization continued to speed up. the face of america continued to change. four years later in 1996, buchanan went for it again. this time bob dole was the heavy favorite. but in iowa, buchanan nearly knocked him off. and then eight days later in new hampshire, the unthinkable. pitchfork pat finished first.
november. buchanan was getting tired of the gop. in 1999 he accused primary leaders of rigging the primary race against him in 2000, rigging it on behalf of george w bush. buchanan decided to bolt the party. he would run for the nomination of the reform party started a few years before by ross perot. and that is when pat buchanan got competition for the reform party nomination, surprise competition from a celebrity billionaire named donald trump. trump joined the reform party in 1999. he said he was looking at running for president and a lot of it was like today. he disparaged enemies with schoolyard taunts, he talked about making oprah his runningmate, he claimed to be doing great in the polls when he wasn t. he became a one-man content machine for cable news channels. so much so similar but with one very big difference between the donald trump of 1999 and the one we know today. that pat buchanan platform, the donald trump of 1999 wanted no part of it.
the sitting president in the republican primaries. he won the gulf war in 1991 but buchanan said it was a waste. bush wanted nafta, but buchanan said that was a sellout of workers, a sellout of america s sovereignty, america first was his slogan. a few years before, ronald reagan had granted amnesty to those who came to the united states illegally and then built lives. but then buchanan said enough was enough. if you wanted to stop illegal immigration, he said, you needed a great big wall along the mexican border. america s demographics were changing and buchanan declared that nothing less than the country s identity was at stake. we must not trade in our sovereignty for a cushion seat at the head table of anybody s new world order. we call for new patriotism where
critics accused buchanan of flirting with racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia and worse and trump said he agreed. he called buchanan a hitler lover, an anti-semite. he said buchanan was drawing support from a staunch right whacko vote. trump wrote an op-ed attacking buchanan. on slow days, trump wrote, he attacks gays, immigrants, welfare recipients, even zulus. when cornered he says he s misunderstood. the tone was the same but the content of donald trump s message in 1999 could not be more different than what we ve come to know. tomorrow pat buchanan is announcing he will be a candidate for presidency on the reform party. i think it s ridiculous. why? look, he s a hitler lover. i guess he s an anti-semite. he doesn t like the blacks. he doesn t like the guys. it s just incredible that anybody could embrace this guy. now in the end, trump backed out of that race and critics