In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton ran against Donald Trump for President of the United States. Clinton was a longtime politician and Trump was a businessman who ran on the platform of not being a politician. The race was not a particularly nice one, and many experts predicted that Clinton would win, not only because she had experience, but because of the things Trump said during debates and at rallies. However, that was not the case. Although Clinton won the popular vote, Trump won the most electoral votes and became the 45th President.
Trump’s win came as a surprise to a lot of people, including those who worked at Disney. Not long ago, podcaster Alex Goldman tweeted a rumor that Disney has created a Hillary Clinton animatronic to go into the Hall of Presidents attraction at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Imagineers had expected Hillary to win and made a last-minute change when Trump won. That is why the Hall of Presidents animatronic does not look a lot like Donald Trump, but it does look strangely like Hillary Clinton.
In his Substack publication, Goldman says that his beliefs were confirmed when a Disney Imagineer — who wished to remain anonymous — reached out to him. Disney shuts down the Hall of Presidents for months as it works the new President into the show. Because Disney Imagineers only have a set amount of time to change the attraction, they had to work quickly to turn Hillary Clinton into Donald Trump.
According to Goldman’s Substack, the Imagineer said:
The problem is they backed the wrong horse. Everyone was positive that Hillary was going to win so much so that they created her animatronic, then they got caught with their pants down when Trump won. It can take months if not years to design a new animatronic. I remember seeing the facial designs for the Hillary animatronic at least six months before the election and an intern asked the 3D artist what would happen if Trump won, and he laughed and just said, “Then, we’re screwed.”
I mean, honestly, we all laughed. The thing is that [Disney CEO] Bob Iger was a really big Hillary supporter. I think there was just a real urge on the part of the executives overseeing the HOP project to please him, and I think it all ended up just blowing up in everyone’s faces….
So, yeh, the animatronic was originally meant to be Hillary. I think the thing that made it obvious to everyone was that it had Hillary’s facial structure. And, that’s the thing that can take the longest and be the hardest to design on the animatronics. My guess is that they probably originally tried to salvage the animatronic by keeping Hillary’s skull and putting Trump’s skin over top of it.
The inclusion of Donald Trump in the Hall of Presidents has been a controversial one, and there have been several instances of Trump supporters shouting out and causing disturbances during the shows. Disney has also added Joe Biden when he won the presidential election in 2020. Now, all that remains to be seen is who will win the next election and what new president will be added to the Hall.
