Dateline: April 5

Before America looks to its future president, Dateline looks at Donald Trump’s past.

Dateline follows the path from his millionaire upbringing to business successes, and failures. Who is this ‘Apprentice president’ and what is it about him that has everyone’s attention?

“He was not there for the purposes of making friends, he had to get marks, he needed to please his parents,” former classmate Peter Ticktin says on Tuesday’s Dateline.

He has fond memories of Trump from their time at a military academy in New York, but no doubt that he was destined for leadership.

School yearbooks show Trump as a captain in football, baseball and basketball, and he was the highest ranked in his company.

“I think he was on a mission when he went to school… I think he’s been on a mission all his life.”

Those schoolmates have watched as his empire has risen high into the skies over Manhattan. But in Atlantic City, there are now few winners at the former Trump casino complex.

“Donald Trump, when he was here in the city, offered a lot of hope, but he took the hope away,” says Bill Southrey, who’s head of the rescue mission that now provides a soup kitchen serving many former employees.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Trump casinos were the biggest and most expensive in the world.

Now, part of the empire has had to be rescued from bankruptcy by another investor, while peeling signs with the ‘Trump’ name removed are all that’s left of the rest.

Today, Atlantic City has one of the highest unemployment rates in the United States.

“My impression of him is, ‘don’t bother me with the problems, just give me all the gold’,” Bill says.

But as Dateline follows the Trump campaign across America, it becomes clear that those disillusioned with politics are among his biggest supporters.

“Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” he tells a cheering crowd. “Until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

9:30pm tonight on SBS.