BuzzFeed News was the first to get the biggest story about Donald Trump wrong, with a mocking prediction he'd never actually run. And we were, I think, among the first to really get the story right, as our reporters kept their eyes wide open to a candidate who would smash American democratic norms and who would, in particular, vault the high bar to calling a public figure a liar.
Many BuzzFeed News reporters have covered Trump and his movement, the central and surprising story of 2016, and one that — win or lose — we will be reckoning with for years to come. We've broken stories of the campaign's craziest moments (remember the great Breitbart meltdown of March 2016?); ones that feel like hallucinations (the secret Times tape!); and ones that the nominee could never shake, like his support for the Iraq war. And our breaking news reporters have been all over the eye-opening day-to-day on the Trump train.
Here are some of the stories that can be read the day before the election to tell the story of this crazy year. They include McKay Coppins' rich, explanatory profiles of Trump and his "yes men" from the inside; Rosie Gray's narrative of the marginal figures and ideas who took over the Republican Party, and how; and a series of tour-de-force pieces of reporting from our investigative team. Those indelible images include the console at Mar-a-Lago where Trump allegedly listened in on phone calls, and the specter of him barging into a dressing room full of teenagers.
So here's Trump: