How the Deep State Went to War Against Donald Trump, From the Escalator to Now... On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump rode the escalator at Trump Tower and did something the political class never forgave him for: he said what tens of millions of Americans were already thinking. "Sadly, the American dream is dead," he told the room, "but if I get elected president, I will bring it back, bigger and better and stronger than ever before." He promised a wall on the southern border and said Mexico would pay for it.