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| “ | I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters! | „ |
| ~ One of Trump's most infamous quotes. |
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politican and businessman who served as the 45th President of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Born and raised in Queens, New York City, Trump attended Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1968. He became the president of his father Fred Trump's real estate business in 1971 and renamed it to The Trump Organization. Trump expanded the company's operations to building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He later started various side ventures, mostly by licensing his name. Trump and his businesses have been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six bankruptcies. He owned the Miss Universe brand of beauty pageants from 1996 to 2015. From 2003 to 2015 he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice.
Trump's political positions have been described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. He entered the 2016 presidential race as a Republican and was elected in an upset victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote. He was the first U.S. president without prior military or government service. His election and policies sparked numerous protests. Trump made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist.
During his presidency, Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, citing security concerns; after legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld the policy's third revision. He enacted a tax-cut package for individuals and businesses, rescinding the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He signed criminal justice reform and appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials in his messaging, and promoted misinformation about unproven treatments and the availability of testing.
In office, an unofficial cult of personality grew around Trump as his political base's reverence of him (particularly by those within the Alt-Right has been described as cult-like.
In foreign policy, Trump pursued an America First agenda: he renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement as the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement and withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations, the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal. He imposed import tariffs that triggered a trade war with China and met three times with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but negotiations on denuclearization eventually broke down.
A special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller found that Trump benefited from Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, but did not find sufficient evidence to establish criminal conspiracy or coordination with Russia. Mueller also investigated Trump for obstruction of justice and neither indicted nor exonerated him. The House of Representatives impeached Trump in December 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he solicited Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. The Senate acquitted him of both charges in February 2020.
Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden, but refused to concede defeat. He attempted to overturn the results by making false claims of electoral fraud, pressuring government officials, mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challenges and obstructing the presidential transition. On the day Congress met to tally the electoral votes, January 6, 2021, Trump rallied his supporters and urged them to march to the Capitol, "take back our country", and "fight like hell". Many arrived before he concluded his speech; hundreds broke through security barricades and violently stormed the Capitol, forcing Congress to evacuate. Seven days later, the House impeached Trump for incitement of insurrection, making him the only federal officeholder in American history to be impeached twice. The Senate acquitted Trump for the second time on February 13, 2021.
Biography
Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York. He was an energetic, assertive child. In the 1950s, the Trumps’ wealth increased with the postwar real estate boom. Trump was raised Presbyterian by his mother, and he identifies as a mainline Protestant.
At age 13, Trump’s parents sent him to the New York Military Academy, hoping the discipline of the school would channel his energy in a positive manner. He did well at the academy, both socially and academically, rising to become a star athlete and student leader by the time he graduated in 1964.
Trump entered Fordham University in 1964. He transferred to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania two years later and graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics.
During his years at college, Trump worked at his father’s real estate business during the summer. He also secured education deferments for the draft for the Vietnam War and ultimately a 1-Y medical deferment after he graduated.
Trump followed his father into a career in real estate development, bringing his grander ambitions to the family business. Trump’s business ventures include The Trump Organization, Trump Tower, casinos in Atlantic City and television franchises like The Apprentice and Miss Universe. Trump has business deals with the Javits Center and the Grand Hyatt New York, as well as other real estate ventures in New York City, Florida and Los Angeles.
Federal income disclosure forms Trump filed in 2017 list Trump's golf courses, including Trump National Doral and Mar-a-Lago in Florida, as earning about half of his income. Other financial ventures include aircraft, merchandise and royalties from his two books, The Art of the Deal and Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again.
Over the years, Trump’s net worth have been a subject of public debate. Because Trump has not publicly released his tax returns, it’s not possible to definitively determine his wealth in the past or today. However, Trump valued his businesses at least $1.37 billion on his 2017 federal financial disclosure form, published by the Office of Government Ethics. Trump’s 2018 disclosure form put his revenue for the year at a minimum of $434 million from all sources.
In 1990, Trump asserted his own net worth in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion. At the time, the real estate market was in decline, reducing the value of and income from Trump's empire. The Trump Organization required a massive infusion of loans to keep it from collapsing, a situation that raised questions as to whether the corporation could survive bankruptcy. Some observers saw Trump's decline as symbolic of many of the business, economic and social excesses that had arisen in the 1980s.
A May 2019 investigation by The New York Times of 10 years of Trump’s tax information found that between 1985 and 1994, his businesses lost money every year. The newspaper calculated that Trump’s businesses suffered $1.17 billion in losses over the decade.
Trump later defended himself on Twitter, calling the Times’ report “a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!” He tweeted that he reported “losses for tax purposes,” and that doing so was a “sport” among real estate developers.
In 1973, the federal government filed a complaint against Trump, his father and their company alleging that they had discriminated against tenants and potential tenants based on their race, a violation of the Fair Housing Act, which is part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
After a lengthy legal battle, the case was settled in 1975. As part of the agreement, the Trump company had to train employees about the Fair Housing Act and inform the community about its fair housing practices.
Trump wrote about the resolution of the case in his 1987 memoir Art of the Deal: "In the end, the government couldn’t prove its case, and we ended up taking a minor settlement without admitting any guilt."
Trump University
In 2005, Trump launched his for-profit Trump University, offering classes in real estate and acquiring and managing wealth. The venture had been under scrutiny almost since its inception and at the time of his 2015 presidential bid, it remained the subject of multiple lawsuits.
In the cases, claimants accused Trump of fraud, false advertising and breach of contract. Controversy about the suits made headlines when Trump suggested that U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel could not be impartial in overseeing two class action cases because of his Mexican heritage.
On November 18, 2016, Trump, who had previously vowed to take the matter to trial, settled three of the lawsuits for $25 million without admission of liability. In a statement from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, he called the settlement, “a stunning reversal by Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”
Later, in a separate incident related to Trump University, it was reported that Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi decided not to join the existing New York fraud lawsuit. This came just days after she had received a sizable campaign donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which was founded in 1988 as a private charity organization designed to make donations to nonprofit groups. In November 2016, it was reported that Bondi's name was on Trump's list as a possible U.S. Attorney General contender.
As a result of the improper donation to Bondi's campaign, Trump was required to pay the IRS a penalty and his foundation came under scrutiny about the use of its funds for non-charitable activities. According to tax records, The Trump Foundation itself was found to have received no charitable gifts from Trump since 2008, and that all donations since that time had come from outside contributors.
In fall 2019, after Trump admitted to misusing money raised by his foundation to promote his presidential campaign and settle debts, he was ordered to pay $2 million in damages, and the foundation was forced to shutter its doors.
Villainy
- He used his personal lawyer and "fixer", Michael Cohen, to threaten people often. Cohen testified under oath that Trump did this on close to 500 occasions.
- He infamously incited the 2021 United States Capitol storming, in which various members of the Alt-Right, followers of QAnon, the Oath Keepers and the Stop the Steal movement stormed the United States Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
- He passed the Family Separation Act in 2018.
- He has been accused of rape many times, once by his ex-wife Ivana.
- He is a known former associate of Jeffrey Epstein.
- He has shown Islamophobic tendencies, as he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, and was briefly successful in doing so.
- Back in 1989 he outright advocated for the deaths of five black and Latino teenagers (who were nicknamed the "Central Park Five") who were accused of beating and raping a white woman who was jogging down the street in Central Park (but were later shown to be innocent.)
- He notably once claimed that Mexicans were nothing but "criminals and rapists".
- He failed to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis, often retweeting their posts.
- During his debate with Joe Biden, he told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by".
- He has some anti-vax and ableist views - claiming that vaccines cause autism. This has actually been proven otherwise.
- He also most notably mocked disabled reporter Serge F. Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a condition causing joint contracture in his right arm and hand, by bending his wrist and flailing his arms repeatedly as he spoke, drawing laughter from the audience.
- He called the COVID-19 coronavirus the "Chinese virus" and the "kung flu"
- And, in relation to COVID-19, he handled the pandemic very poorly by downplaying the impact of the virus, therefore causing a whole lot of Americans to die in the process. He notably called the virus a hoax, and later suggested that people inject bleach to try and combat the virus.
- He has often faced accusations of having connections to organized crime, which go back to shortly after his first forays into Manhattan real estate. Trump made friends with Roy Cohn, formerly Joseph McCarthy's lawyer during the McCarthy Senate hearings, but who by then was a mob lawyer. Cohn likely introduced Trump to Genovese crime boss Anthony Salerno.
- As President, he was accused of being a pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin, advancing Putin's agenda regarding the United States.
Quotes
Trump has become known for his outrageous quotes, many of which have been turned into internet memes.
| “ | I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words. | „ |
| “ | Our country is in serious trouble. We don't have victories any more. We used to have victories but [now] we don't have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time. | „ |
| “ | They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. | „ |
| “ | The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. | „ |
| “ | Well, if I ever ran for office, I'd do better as a Democrat than as a Republican - and that's not because I'd be more liberal, because I'm conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me. When I walk down the street, those cabbies start yelling out their windows. | „ |
| “ | I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I've been challenged by so many people and I don't, frankly, have time for total political correctness. | „ |
| “ | You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy - you can do anything. | „ |
| “ | If Hillary Clinton can't satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America? | „ |
| “ | I think Viagra is wonderful if you need it, if you have medical issues, if you've had surgery. I've just never needed it. Frankly, I wouldn't mind if there were an anti-Viagra, something with the opposite effect. I'm not bragging. I'm just lucky. I don't need it. | „ |
| “ | She does have a very nice figure... If [Ivanka] weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her. | „ |
| “ | As a kid, I was making a building with blocks in our playroom. I didn't have enough. So I asked my younger brother Robert if I could borrow some of his. He said, 'Okay, but you have to give them back when you're done.' I used all of my blocks, then all of his blocks, and when I was done I had a great building, which I then glued together. Robert never did get those blocks back. | „ |
| “ | My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body. | „ |
| “ | We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides. | „ |
Notabke villainous supporters
People
- Ashli Babbitt
- Cesar Sayoc
- David Duke
- Jason Kessler
- Louis Farrakhan
- Nikolas Cruz
- Pat Buchanan
- Roger Stone
Organizations
Post-presidency
After his term ended, Trump went to live at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. As provided for by the Former Presidents Act, he established an office there to handle his post-presidential activities.