Was it a birth certificate? You tell me, he told ABC News in 2013. Some people say that was not his birth certificate.

That same year, Nunberg arranged for Trump to make his Levin show debut, preparing a memo to familiarize Mr. Trump with Mark Levin, he wrotedeploying tried-and-true ways to pique Trumps interest. Nunberg emphasized Levins ratings history (In the first 18 months on the air, the program jumped to #1 in the time slot), the company he kept (considers Sean Hannity his best friend), his reach (books Liberty and Tyranny and Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America sold more than a million copies, Nunberg noted), and his compensation (a reported annual salary of $12.5 million a year). Nunberg mentioned, too, that what he said on the air often was disseminated on a variety of websites like TheRightScoop.com. People, in other words, some people, many people, a lot of people, were listening to what Levin was saying.

Armed with this advance work, the memo as well as the emails, Trump fit in well with Levin. In addition to shilling for the upcoming season of The Celebrity ApprenticeTrace Adkins, La Toya Jackson, Dennis RodmanTrump delivered to Levins listeners what they wantedwhich essentially was Levins ideas, studiously collected by Nunberg, consumed by Trump and regurgitated back to the host.

If the Republicans are going to win, Trump said, theyre going to have to break away from the Karl Roves of the world and, frankly, get more involvedyou know, the Tea Party, these people are great. Ive done some speeches in front of the Tea Party. They are great Americans, they love this country, they work so hard, and they have been so mistreated by the liberal media. They truly are not treated with proper respect.

And he landed especially hard on immigration and any notions of amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

I watched last night, he continued, referring to Obamas State of the Union that year, as Senator McCain and everybody were jumping up and down, you know, applaudingI never saw him move so fast, you know, nice guy, but he jumped upand was applauding as soon as the immigration became a part of the discussion, a part of the speech.

Immigration, Trump said, will be the next thing, based on what Im watching.

Trump and Levin wrapped up by exchanging compliments.

Im extremely impressed with what youre doing, Levin said.

You just have a great show, Trump said. Im always listening.

Donald Trump, Levin told his listeners after Trump signed off. See that, folks? Very solid. Very conservative. To the right of the Republican establishment. Strong supporter of the Tea Party. Im telling you. Ive been watching this. Ive been listening. People have been sending me his tweets.

There was a reason for that. Hes putting stuff out there, Nunberg told me of Trumps tweets at the time, some of which Nunberg was suggesting, that sounds like Mark Levin.

In the few months before his interview with Levin:

And in the few months after:

This ear-to-the-proverbial-ground political ramp-up wasnt limited to Levin and talk radio. It was around this time as well that Trump began to give more and more talks on the pre-presidential hustings, GOP chicken dinners in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.

He talked to Pat Caddell about what he was picking up on the trail. He would put forth his position or his feelings, and he would judge the level of the response to it, and that helped him organize, I suppose to whatever degree it was organized, his views about issues, Caddell told me in 2018. Things he said that didnt go over disappeared. Things that did stayed.

Twitter, too, increasingly served a similar purpose.

He glommed onto it like it was an oxygen source, Caddell explained. And he would tweet what he believed, and people would retweet or answer or whatever, and it was kind of his ongoing focus group.

He loved it, Nunberg said. He doesnt trust the political people who do the focus groups. Instead: What are we getting the most retweets on?

In 2014 and 15well before Trump came down the escalator and announced his intention to runNunberg sent Trump nearly daily updates of snippets of news and possible topics and wordings for tweets. At the tops of the documents he showed the number of Trumps Twitter followers ticking up (a snapshot from December of 2014: 2,751,488 2,753,548 2,757,190 ) and the number of days left until the GOP primary debate at the Reagan library and the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries ticking down.

A month into the presidential campaign, after the Vietnam-avoiding Trump insulted McCain by saying he was not a war hero and that he liked people who werent captured, he refused to apologize. That, Nunberg said, partly was because of what he had internalized by listening to Levin. Nunberg told Trump it was going to help him. (It certainly didnt hurt him.) He said, Why? Nunberg said. And I said, Because our people despise John McCain. They despise the fact that McCain hides behind his military record to shit on Republicans and you cant criticize him on anything because of his military record. I said, John McCainhe is hated almost as much as Barack Obama on talk radio. I said, He might as well be Barack Obama on talk radio.

Talk radio led the way. Trump followed.

Theoretically, Trump could have changed. As successful as this pattern of behavior had been in the years preceding his run and during the campaign itselfhe was, after all, elected presidentTrump could have adjusted once he took office, having at his disposal, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, the worlds preeminent intelligence-gathering apparatus. But nosticking to that gossip kind of mentality, said ODonnell, the casino exec, Trump has continued to mine Twitter, plucking what he wants, very comfortable with half thoughts, always looking for tidbits of information that he can use to his advantage.

He sees the ones that are the most popular, former Fox News anchor Eric Bolling, identified by Time as someone who speaks regularly to Trump, told the magazine in June of 2018, and getting the most [of the] zeitgeist, most attention on social media.

And then? The last and most important piece of this by now almost rote process?

He repeats it, Bolling said.

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