Yesterday, Donald Trump finally pulled the trigger and announced at long last that YES OMG YES he will be running for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 election cycle. Trump has been very, very vocal about his conservative politics over the years, especially during the Obama presidency. Trump has also been one of the most vocal and high-profile “birthers” out there – meaning he believes (honestly believes!) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that Obama’s birth certificate was forged as some sort of massive conspiracy to get a Kenyan socialist into the White House. Trump memorably had an epic Twitter meltdown on election night in 2012, when Obama was reelected. It was amazing.

So, Trump’s entrance into the GOP race is welcome, even if most of the people interested seeing Trump are basically laughing at him and hate-watching him. Trump’s announcement speech was… AMAZING. It was like a parody from The Onion only Trump really said this stuff.

Here are some highlights from Politico’s write-up:

In a rambling hour-long stream-of-consciousness speech, The Donald vowed he would be “the greatest jobs President that God ever created.” He said he would “build a great wall on our southern border and have Mexico pay for that wall” and rebuild the country’s nuclear arsenal that “doesn’t work.”

He blasted the $5 billion price tag for Obamacare websites and said he could do better. “I hire people, they do a website, it costs $3,” he boasted. And, of course, he reminded the crowd: “I’m really rich…that’s the kind of thinking you need for this country. It sounds crass, it’s not crass.”

A team of accountants, he said, has been toiling for months to calculate his total net worth of $8 billion, and assets of $9.24 billion.

“That’s the kind of thinking our country needs,” he said in apparent reference to his wealth. “We have the opposite thinking. We have losers. We have people that don’t have it. We have people that are morally corrupt.”

Trumpalooza was unlike any regular candidate’s announcement. Reporters from Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight and gossip reporters from Page Six filled the marble basement of Trump Tower. Unlike the kick-off acts of the more deliberate candidates, where regular Americans are placed in closest proximity to the candidate, and the press is shunted to the back of the room, supporters were kept upstairs while area closest to Trump was reserved for hundreds of reporters and television cameras. A crowd filled up three floors of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, leaning over the amber-colored mirrored walls, waving signs that said: “Donald, We need YOU!!!” The soundtrack of the event was pure schmaltz, featuring pieces from Phantom of the Opera and Cats.

“This is beyond anybody’s expectations,” Trump crowed from the podium, after descending the escalator with his wife, Melania, dressed in stiletto heels and a strapless white dress. “There’s been no crowd like this. Some of the candidates they went in, they didn’t know the air conditioning didn’t work and they sweated like dogs…They didn’t know the room was too big because there was nobody was there. How are they going to beat ISIS?”

He vowed: “nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump.” And he said America was currently losing to other world powers like China. “I’m not saying they’re stupid, I like China,” he said. “I just sold an apartment for $15 million to someone from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?”

Trump criticized President Obama for failing to be a cheerleader for the United States, and said as president he would immediately repeal Obama’s “illegal” executive action on immigration. But he said Obama would be welcome on his golf courses. “I have the best courses in the world,” he said. “If he’d like to play that’s fine. In fact, I want him to leave early and play, that would be a very good thing.”

[From Politico]

I truly wonder why Trump didn’t run in 2012. As much as all of these Republicans want to bash Obama and call him every name in the book, they were scared about running against him, weren’t they? I wonder why they’re not scared of Hillary Clinton. Speaking of, the Democratic National Committee welcomed Trump into the race with this statement: “Today, Donald Trump became the second major Republican candidate to announce for president in two days. He adds some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field, and we look forward to hearing more about his ideas for the nation.” I hope Trump gets some ice for that BURN.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, WENN.