The long friendship between Republican strategist John McLaughlin and Donald Trump dates back to 2011, when the then-future president was considering ditching his gig on The Apprentice to run for office. Trump, picking up early signals of the changing political winds, had begun deploying increasingly racially charged attacks on President Barack Obama, questioning everything from his college grades to his citizenship status. Notably, it was around this time that Trump reached out to McLaughlin to see how he might fare as a candidate, himself. In the end, he decided that he didn’t want to give up his show, but McLaughlin has been his private pollster ever since.