Recalling Trump 2015 campaign launch

Then-candidate planned ‘famous’ escalator ride

NEW YORK — It was the escalator ride that would change history.

Four years ago on Sunday, Donald Trump descended through the pink marble and brass atrium of Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for president, the first step on a journey few believed would take him all the way to the White House.

Now the president who loves to reminisce about that “famous” Trump Tower moment is trying to re-create the magic as he formally launches his re-election bid Tuesday in Florida.

His 2015 announcement, according to those involved in the effort, was a classic Trump production aimed at highlighting all the things that made Trump, well, Trump: his brashness, his wealth and his skill for lighting rhetorical fires and watching the press scramble to respond.

Trump had been in Europe playing golf the week before his scheduled announcement, with plans to return in time to go over remarks written by his ragtag team of early staffers.

“I get a call while he is in Europe and he asked, ‘What do you think about postponing this a little?’” recalled Sam Nunberg, an early campaign adviser. “I tell him, ‘We can’t do that. We have set this date. If we postpone it, it would be covered that you got cold feet and you would not be taken seriously.’ ”

A speech had been written. But Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager, wrote in his book, “Let Trump Be Trump,” that the candidate “gave a quick look at the sheet of paper Corey handed him, folded it up, and put it in his breast pocket, never to look at it again.”

Longtime adviser Roger Stone said Trump “orchestrated every minute detail of his announcement,” including vetoing a suggestion from his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to feature a live elephant.

Trump “decided to come down the escalator and worked from his own handwritten notes rather than a prepared text,” said Stone. “Then, as now, Donald Trump does not have handlers or managers or chief strategists.”