Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and a businessman. He served as the 45th President of the United States in 2017. The 2020 Presidential Elections was a debate, with the majority of Republicans claiming that Joe Biden rigged the elections in favour of himself, and that Trump's re-election was actually voted for by the American people. The majority of Democrats claim that Biden legitimately won the elections, and that Donald Trump lost it.
He graduated from the Wharton School with a bachelor's degree in 1968. He became president of his father's real-estate business in 1971 and renamed it the Trump Organization. He expanded its operations to building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses and later started side ventures, mostly by licensing his name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice. He and his businesses have been plaintiff or defendant in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six corporate bankruptcies.
He won the 2016 presidential election as the Republican nominee against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote. During that campaign, Trump's political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. He was the first U.S. president with no prior military or government service. His election and policies sparked numerous protests. The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation claimed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor his campaign, but provided no real evidence to support their conclusion. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist and many as misogynistic.
As president, Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding toward building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for apprehended migrants. He weakened environmental protections, rolling back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations. He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed 54 federal appellate judges and three U.S. Supreme Court justices. He initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. He met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times but made no progress on denuclearization. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, used political pressure to interfere with testing efforts, and spread misinformation about unproven treatments.
Trump lost the 2020 United States presidential election to Joe Biden. He refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud, and attempted to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition. On January 6, 2021, he urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, which many of them then attacked, resulting in multiple deaths and interrupting the electoral vote count.
Trump is the only American president to have been impeached twice. After he tried to pressure Ukraine in 2019 to investigate Biden, he was impeached in December by the House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; he was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020. The House impeached him a second time in January 2021, for incitement of insurrection, and the Senate acquitted him the next month. In December 2022, the House January 6 Committee recommended criminal charges against him for obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and inciting or assisting an insurrection. Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Since leaving office, Trump has remained heavily involved in the Republican Party. In November 2022, he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election. In March 2023, a Manhattan grand jury indicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and, in June, a federal grand jury indicted him on 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents. In July 2024, he survived an assassination attempt at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Shortly after this, he became the official Republican nominee for the 2024 United States presidential election. In November 2024, he won the election against Kamala Harris.
Personal life[]
Early life[]
Trump at the New York Military Academy in 1964 Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York City, the fourth child of Fred Trump, a Bronx-born real-estate developer whose parents were German immigrants, and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, an immigrant from Scotland. Trump grew up with older siblings Maryanne, Fred Jr., and Elizabeth and younger brother Robert in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, and attended the private Kew-Forest School from kindergarten through seventh grade. At age 13, he was enrolled at the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, and, in 1964, he enrolled at Fordham University. Two years later, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in May 1968 with a B.S. in economics. In 2015, Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen threatened Trump's colleges, high school, and the College Board with legal action if they released Trump's academic records.
While in college, Trump obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War era. In 1966, he was deemed fit for military service based upon a medical examination, and in July 1968, a local draft board classified him as eligible to serve. In October 1968, he was classified 1-Y, a conditional medical deferment, and in 1972, he was reclassified 4-F due to bone spurs, permanently disqualifying him from service.
In 1977, Trump married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková. They had three children: Donald Jr. (born 1977), Ivanka (born 1981), and Eric (born 1984). Ivana became a naturalized United States citizen in 1988. The couple divorced in 1990, following Trump's affair with actress Marla Maples. Trump and Maples married in 1993 and divorced in 1999. They have one daughter, Tiffany (born 1993), who was raised by Marla in California. In 2005, Trump married Slovenian model Melania Knauss. They have one son, Barron (born 2006). Melania gained U.S. citizenship in 2006.
Religion[]
Trump went to Sunday school and was confirmed in 1959 at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens. In the 1970s, his parents joined the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, which belongs to the Reformed Church in America. The pastor at Marble, Norman Vincent Peale, ministered to the family until his death in 1993. Trump has described him as a mentor. In 2015, the church stated that Trump was not an active member. In 2019, he appointed his personal pastor, televangelist Paula White, to the White House Office of Public Liaison. In 2020, he said he identified as a non-denominational Christian.
Health habits[]
Trump has called golfing his "primary form of exercise" but usually does not walk the course. He considers exercise a waste of energy because he believes exercise depletes the body's energy "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy". In 2015, Trump's campaign released a letter from his longtime personal physician, Harold Bornstein, stating that Trump would "be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency". In 2018, Bornstein said Trump had dictated the contents of the letter and that three Trump agents had seized his medical records in a February 2017 raid on the doctor's office.
Business career[]
Main article: Business career of Donald Trump
Further information: Business projects of Donald Trump in Russia
Real estate[]
Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan Starting in 1968, Trump was employed at his father Fred's real-estate company, Trump Management, which owned middle-class rental housing in New York City's outer boroughs. In 1971, he became president of the company and began using the Trump Organization as an umbrella brand. Between 1991 and 2009, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for six of his businesses, the Plaza hotel, the Atlantic City casinos, and the Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts company.
Manhattan developments[]
Trump attracted public attention in 1978 with the launch of his family's first Manhattan venture, the renovation of the derelict Commodore Hotel, adjacent to Grand Central Terminal. The financing was facilitated by a $400 million city property tax abatement arranged by Fred Trump, who also, jointly with Hyatt, guaranteed a $70 million in bank construction financing. The hotel reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and that same year, Trump obtained rights to develop Trump Tower, a mixed-use skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. The building houses the headquarters of the Trump Corporation and Trump's PAC and was Trump's primary residence until 2019.
In 1988, Trump acquired the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan with a loan from a consortium of banks. The hotel filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992, and a reorganization plan was approved a month later. In 1995, Trump sold the Plaza Hotel along with most of his properties to pay down his debts, including personally guaranteed loans, allowing him to avoid personal bankruptcy.
In 1996, Trump acquired the mostly vacant 71-story skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, later rebranded as the Trump Building, and renovated it. In the early 1990s, Trump won the right to develop a 70-acre (28 ha) tract in the Lincoln Square neighborhood near the Hudson River. Struggling with debt from other ventures in 1994, Trump sold most of his interest in the project to Asian investors, who were able to finance the project's completion, Riverside South.
Gallery[]
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