In the fall of 1999, Trump quit the Republican Party — “I really believe the Republicans are just too crazy right,” — to join New York’s Independence party, the state’s version of the Reform Party.
“It’s a very great possibility that I will run,” he said, according to The New York Times, regarding the Reform Party’s 2000 presidential nomination. He ultimately opted against a campaign a few months later after saying he’d become convinced the Reform nominee couldn’t win. Had he run, he would’ve faced off against Pat Buchanan for the nomination. Suffice it to say, things could’ve gotten ugly.
“He’s a Hitler lover, I guess he’s an anti-Semite,” he said of Buchanan on Meet the Press. “He doesn’t like the blacks, he doesn’t like the gays.”
http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/06/15/donald-trump-president-campaign/