Donald Trump(born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.Trump received a Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. His father named him president of his real estate business in 1971.
Donald Trump renamed it the Trump Organization and reoriented the company toward building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. After a series of business failures in the late 1990s, he launched successful side ventures, mostly licensing the Trump name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television seriesThe Apprentice. He and his businesses have been plaintiffs or defendants in more than 4,000 legal actions, including six business bankruptcies.
Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election as the Republican Party nominee against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote. A special counsel investigation established that Russia had interfered in the election to favor Donald Trump. During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. His election and policies sparked numerous protests. He was the only U.S. president without prior military or government experience. Donald Trump promoted conspiracy theories and 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, racist, and misogynistic.
As president, Donald 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 family separation policy. He rolled back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations. He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes and eliminated the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S.
Supreme Court. 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. Donald Trump 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.
Donald Trump is the only U.S. president to have been impeached twice, in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection. The Senate acquitted him in both cases. Donald Trump refused to concede after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden, falsely claiming widespread electoral fraud, and attempted to overturn the results. On January 6, 2021, he urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, which many of them attacked. Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Since leaving office, Trump has continued to dominate the Republican Party and is their candidate again in the 2024 presidential election. In May 2024, a jury in New York found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels in an attempt to influence the 2016 election, making him the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime.
He has been indicted in three other jurisdictions on 54 other felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In civil proceedings, Donald Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, defamation in 2024, and for financial fraud in 2024.
In July 2024, he survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Personal life
Early life
Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York City, the fourth child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. He 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. He went to Sunday school and was confirmed in 1959 at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens.
At age 13, he entered the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school. 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 Bachelor of Science in economics. In 2015, Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen threatened Donald Trump’s colleges, high school, and the College Board with legal action if they released Donald Trump’s academic records.
While in college, Donald Trump obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War. In 1966, he was deemed fit for military service based on 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, unfit for military service, due to bone spurs, permanently disqualifying him.
Family
In 1977, Donald Trump married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková. They had three children: Donald Jr. (born 1977), Ivanka (1981), and Eric (1984). The couple divorced in 1990, following Donald Trump’s affair with actress Marla Maples. Donald 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, Donald Trump married Slovenian model Melania Knauss. They have one son, Barron (born 2006).
Religion
In the 1970s, Donald Trump’s parents joined the Marble Collegiate Church, part of the Reformed Church in America. In 2015, he said he was a Presbyterian and attended Marble Collegiate Church; the church said he 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
Donald Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs. He sleeps about four or five hours a night. He 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 the body is “like a battery, with a finite amount of energy”, which is depleted by exercise.
In 2015, Donald 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 Donald Trump had dictated the contents of the letter and that three of Donald Trump’s agents had seized his medical records in a February 2017 raid on the doctor’s office.
Wealth
In 1982, Donald Trump made the initialForbeslist of wealthy people for holding a share of his family’s estimated $200 million net worth (equivalent to $631 million in 2023). His losses in the 1980s dropped him from the list between 1990 and 1995. After filing the mandatory financial disclosure report with the FEC in July 2015, he announced a net worth of about $10 billion. Records released by the FEC showed at least $1.4 billion in assets and $265 million in liabilities.Forbesestimated his net worth dropped by $1.4 billion between 2015 and 2018. In their 2024 billionaires ranking, Donald Trump’s net worth was estimated to be $2.3 billion (1,438th in the world).
Journalist Jonathan Greenberg reported that Donald Trump called him in 1984, pretending to be a fictional Trump Organization official named “John Barron”. Greenberg said that Donald Trump, just to get a higher ranking on theForbes400 list of wealthy Americans, identified himself as “Barron”, and then falsely asserted that Donald Trump owned more than 90 percent of his father’s business. Greenberg also wrote thatForbeshad vastly overestimated Donald Trump’s wealth and wrongly included him on the 1982, 1983, and 1984 rankings.
Trump has often said he began his career with “a small loan of a million dollars” from his father and that he had to pay it back with interest. He was a millionaire by age eight, borrowed at least $60 million from his father, largely failed to repay those loans, and received another $413 million (2018 dollars adjusted for inflation) from his father’s company.
In 2018, he and his family were reported to have committed tax fraud, and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance started an investigation. His investments underperformed the stock and New York property markets.Forbesestimated in October 2018 that his net worth declined from $4.5 billion in 2015 to $3.1 billion in 2017 and his product-licensing income from $23 million to $3 million.
Contrary to his claims of financial health and business acumen, Donald Trump’s tax returns from 1985 to 1994 show net losses totaling $1.17 billion. The losses were higher than those of almost every other American taxpayer. The losses in 1990 and 1991, more than $250 million each year, were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers. In 1995, his reported losses were $915.7 million (equivalent to $1.83 billion in 2023).
In 2020,The New York Timesobtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over two decades. Its reporters found that Donald Trump reported losses of hundreds of millions of dollars and had, since 2010, deferred declaring $287 million in forgiven debt as taxable income. His income mainly came from his share inThe Apprenticeand businesses in which he was a minority partner, and his losses mainly from majority-owned businesses.
Much income was in tax credits for his losses, which let him avoid annual income tax payments or lower them to $750. During the 2010s, Donald Trump balanced his businesses’ losses by selling and borrowing against assets, including a $100 million mortgage on Trump Tower (due in 2022) and the liquidation of over $200 million in stocks and bonds. He personally guaranteed $421 million in debt, most of which is due by 2024.
As of October 2021, Donald Trump had over $1.3 billion in debts, much of which is secured by his assets. In 2020, he owed $640 million to banks and trust organizations, including Bank of China, Deutsche Bank, and UBS, and approximately $450 million to unknown creditors. The value of his assets exceeds his debt.
Business career
Real estate
Starting in 1968, Donald Trump was employed at his father’s real estate company, Trump Management, which owned racially segregated 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 in Manhattan, the casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts company.
Manhattan developments
Donald 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 for Trump by his father who also, jointly with Hyatt, guaranteed a $70 million bank construction loan.
The hotel reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and that same year, Donald 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, Donald Trump acquired the Plaza Hotel with a loan from a consortium of sixteen banks. The hotel filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992, and a reorganization plan was approved a month later, with the banks taking control of the property. In 1995, Donald Trump defaulted on over $3 billion of bank loans, and the lenders seized the Plaza Hotel along with most of his other properties in a “vast and humiliating restructuring” that allowed Donald Trump to avoid personal bankruptcy. The lead bank’s attorney said of the banks’ decision that they “all agreed that he’d be better alive than dead.”
In 1996, Donald Trump acquired and renovated the mostly vacant 71-story skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, later rebranded as the Trump Building. In the early 1990s, Donald 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, Donald Trump sold most of his interest in the project to Asian investors, who financed the project’s completion, Riverside South.
Atlantic City casinos
In 1984, Donald Trump opened Harrah’s at Trump Plaza, a hotel and casino, with financing and management help from the Holiday Corporation. It was unprofitable, and Trump paid Holiday $70 million in May 1986 to take sole control. In 1985, Trump bought the unopened Atlantic City Hilton Hotel and renamed it Trump Castle. Both casinos filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1992.
Donald Trump bought a third Atlantic City venue in 1988, the Trump Taj Mahal. It was financed with $675 million in junk bonds and completed for $1.1 billion, opening in April 1990. Trump filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1991. Under the provisions of the restructuring agreement, Trump gave up half his initial stake and personally guaranteed future performance. To reduce his $900 million of personal debt, he sold the Trump Shuttle airline; his megayacht, theTrump Princess, which had been leased to his casinos and kept docked; and other businesses.
In 1995, Donald Trump founded Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts (THCR), which assumed ownership of the Trump Plaza. THCR purchased the Taj Mahal and the Trump Castle in 1996 and went bankrupt in 2004 and 2009, leaving Trump with 10 percent ownership. He remained chairman until 2009.
Clubs
In 1985, Donald Trump acquired the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. In 1995, he converted the estate into a private club with an initiation fee and annual dues. He continued to use a wing of the house as a private residence. Donald Trump declared the club his primary residence in 2019, and the town determined in 2021 that he was legally entitled to live there as an employee of the club. The Trump Organization beganbuilding and buying golf coursesin 1999. It owns fourteen and manages another three Trump-branded courses worldwide.
Licensing of the Trump brand
The Donald Trump name has beenlicensed forconsumer products and services, including foodstuffs, apparel, learning courses, and home furnishings. According toThe Washington Post, there are more than 50 licensing or management deals involving Donald Trump’s name, and they have generated at least $59 million in revenue for his companies. By 2018, only two consumer goods companies continued to license his name.
Side ventures
In September 1983, Donald Trump purchased theNew Jersey Generals, a team in theUnited States Football League. After the 1985 season, the league folded, largely due to Trump’s attempt to move to a fall schedule (when it would have competed with theNFLfor audience) and trying to force a merger with the NFL by bringing an antitrust suit.
Donald Trump and his Plaza Hotel hosted several boxing matches at theAtlantic City Convention Hall. In 1989 and 1990, Donald Trump lent his name to theTour de Trumpcycling stage race, an attempt to create an American equivalent of European races such as theTour de Franceor theGiro d’Italia.
From 1986 to 1988, Donald Trump purchased significant blocks of shares in various public companies while suggesting that he intended to take over the company and then sold his shares for a profit, leading some observers to think he was engaged ingreenmail.The New York Timesfound that Trump initially made millions of dollars in such stock transactions, but “lost most, if not all, of those gains after investors stopped taking his takeover talk seriously”.
In 1988, Trump purchased theEastern Air Lines Shuttle, financing the purchase with $380 million (equivalent to $979 million in 2023) in loans from a syndicate of 22 banks. He renamed the airlineTrump Shuttleand operated it until 1992. Trump defaulted on his loans in 1991, and ownership passed to the banks.
In 1992, Trump, his siblingsMaryanne, Elizabeth, andRobert, and his cousin John W. Walter, each with a 20 percent share, formed All County Building Supply & Maintenance Corp. The company had no offices and is alleged to have been a shell company for paying the vendors providing services and supplies for Trump’s rental units, then billing those services and supplies to Trump Management with markups of 20–50 percent and more. The owners shared the proceeds generated by the markups. The increased costs were used to get state approval for increasing the rents of Trump’s rent-stabilized units.
From 1996 to 2015, Trump owned all or part of theMiss Universepageants, includingMiss USAandMiss Teen USA. Due to disagreements with CBS about scheduling, he took both pageants to NBC in 2002. In 2007, Trump received a star on theHollywood Walk of Famefor his work as producer of Miss Universe. NBC and Univision dropped the pageants in June 2015.
Trump University
In 2004, Trump co-foundedTrump University, a company that sold real estate seminars for up to $35,000. After New York State authorities notified the company that its use of “university” violated state law (as it was not an academic institution), its name was changed to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative in 2010.
In 2013, the State of New York filed a $40 million civil suit against Trump University, alleging that the company made false statements and defrauded consumers. Additionally, two class actions were filed in federal court against Trump and his companies. Internal documents revealed that employees were instructed to use a hard-sell approach, and former employees testified that Trump University had defrauded or lied to its students. Shortly after he won the 2016 presidential election, Trump agreed to pay a total of $25 million to settle the three cases.
Foundation
The Donald J. Trump Foundation was aprivate foundationestablished in 1988. From 1987 to 2006, Trump gave his foundation $5.4 million which had been spent by the end of 2006. After donating a total of $65,000 in 2007–2008, he stopped donating any personal funds to the charity, which received millions from other donors, including $5 million fromVince McMahon. The foundation gave to health- and sports-related charities, conservative groups, and charities that held events at Trump properties.
In 2016,The Washington Postreported that the charity committed several potential legal and ethical violations, including alleged self-dealing and possibletax evasion. Also in 2016, the New York Attorney General determined the foundation to be in violation of state law, for soliciting donations without submitting to required annual external audits, and ordered it to cease its fundraising activities in New York immediately. Trump’s team announced in December 2016 that the foundation would be dissolved.
In June 2018, the New York attorney general’s office filed a civil suit against the foundation, Trump, and his adult children, seeking $2.8 million in restitution and additional penalties. In December 2018, the foundation ceased operation and disbursed its assets to other charities. In November 2019, a New York state judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million to a group of charities for misusing the foundation’s funds, in part to finance his presidential campaign.
Legal affairs and bankruptcies
Roy Cohn was Trump’s fixer, lawyer, and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s. According to Trump, Cohn sometimes waived fees due to their friendship. In 1973, Cohn helped Trump countersue the U.S. government for $100 million (equivalent to $686 million in 2023) over its charges that Trump’s properties had racial discriminatory practices. Trump’s counterclaims were dismissed, and the government’s case went forward, ultimately resulting in a settlement. In 1975, an agreement was struck requiring Trump’s properties to furnish the New York Urban League with a list of all apartment vacancies, every week for two years, among other things. Cohn introduced political consultant Roger Stone to Trump, who enlisted Stone’s services to deal with the federal government.
According to a review of state and federal court files conducted byUSA Todayin 2018, Trump and his businesses had been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions. While Trump has not filed for personal bankruptcy, his over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection six times between 1991 and 2009. They continued to operate while the banks restructured debt and reduced Trump’s shares in the properties.
During the 1980s, more than 70 banks had lent Trump $4 billion. After his corporate bankruptcies of the early 1990s, most major banks, with the exception of Deutsche Bank, declined to lend to him. After the January 6 Capitol attack, the bank decided not to do business with Trump or his company in the future.
Media career
Books
Using ghostwriters, Trump has produced 19 books under his name. His first book,The Art of the Deal(1987), was aNew York TimesBest Seller. While Trump was credited as co-author, the entire book was written by Tony Schwartz. According toThe New Yorker, the book made Trump famous as an “emblem of the successful tycoon”.
Film and television
Trump made cameo appearances in many films and television shows from 1985 to 2001.
Starting in the 1990s, Trump was a guest about 24 times on the nationally syndicatedHoward Stern Show. He also had his own short-form talk radio program calledTrumped!(one to two minutes on weekdays) from 2004 to 2008. From 2011 until 2015, he was a weekly unpaid guest commentator onFox & Friends.
From 2004 to 2015, Trump was co-producer and host of reality showsThe ApprenticeandThe Celebrity Apprentice. Trump played a flattering, highly fictionalized version of himself as a superrich and successful chief executive who eliminated contestants with the catchphrase “You’re fired.” The shows remade his image for millions of viewers nationwide. With the related licensing agreements, they earned him more than $400 million which he invested in largely unprofitable businesses.
In February 2021, Trump, who had been a member of SAG-AFTRA since 1989, resigned to avoid a disciplinary hearing regarding the January 6 attack. Two days later, the union permanently barred him from readmission.
Political career
Trump registered as a Republican in 1987; a member of the Independence Party, the New York state affiliate of the Reform Party, in 1999; a Democrat in 2001; a Republican in 2009; unaffiliated in 2011; and a Republican in 2012.
In 1987, Trump placed full-page advertisements in three major newspapers, expressing his views on foreign policy and how to eliminate the federal budget deficit. In 1988, he approached Lee Atwater, asking to be put into consideration to be Republican nominee George H. W. Bush’s running mate. Bush found the request “strange and unbelievable”.
Presidential campaigns (2000–2016)
Trump ran in the California and Michigan primaries for nomination as the Reform Party candidate for the 2000 presidential election but withdrew from the race in February 2000.
In 2011, Trump speculated about running against President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, making his first speaking appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February 2011 and giving speeches in early primary states. In May 2011, he announced he would not run. Trump’s presidential ambitions were generally not taken seriously at the time.
2016 presidential campaign
Further information: 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries and 2016 United States presidential election § General election campaign
Trump’s fame and provocative statements earned him an unprecedented amount of free media coverage, elevating his standing in the Republican primaries. He adopted the phrase “truthful hyperbole”, coined by his ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, to describe his public speaking style. His campaign statements were often opaque and suggestive, and a record number were false. TheLos Angeles Timeswrote, “Never in modern presidential politics has a major candidate made false statements as routinely as Trump has.” Trump said he disdained political correctness and frequently made claims of media bias.
Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015. His campaign was initially not taken seriously by political analysts, but he quickly rose to the top of opinion polls. He became the front-runner in March 2016 and was declared the presumptive Republican nominee in May.
Hillary Clinton led Trump in national polling averages throughout the campaign, but, in early July, her lead narrowed. In mid-July Trump selected Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, and the two were officially nominated at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Trump and Clinton faced off in three presidential debates in September and October 2016. Trump twice refused to say whether he would accept the result of the election.
Campaign rhetoric and political positions
Main articles: Political positions of Donald Trump and Donald Trump’s rhetoric
Trump’s political positions and rhetoric were right-wing populist.Politicodescribed them as “eclectic, improvisational and often contradictory”, quoting a health-care policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute as saying that his political positions were a “random assortment of whatever plays publicly”. NBC News counted “141 distinct shifts on 23 major issues” during his campaign.
Trump described NATO as “obsolete” and espoused views that were described as non-interventionist and protectionist. His campaign platform emphasized renegotiating U.S.–China relations and free trade agreements such as NAFTA, strongly enforcing immigration laws, and building a new wall along the U.S.–Mexico border. Other campaign positions included pursuing energy independence while opposing climate change regulations, modernizing services for veterans, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, abolishing Common Core education standards, investing in infrastructure, simplifying the tax code while reducing taxes, and imposing tariffs on imports by companies that offshore jobs. He advocated increasing military spending and extreme vetting or banning immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.
Trump helped bring far-right fringe ideas and organizations into the mainstream. In August 2016, Trump hired Steve Bannon, the executive chairman ofBreitbart News—described by Bannon as “the platform for the alt-right”—as his campaign CEO. The alt-right movement coalesced around and supported Trump’s candidacy, due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and immigration.
Financial disclosures
Trump’s FEC-required reports listed assets above $1.4 billion and outstanding debts of at least $315 million. Trump did not release his tax returns, contrary to the practice of every major candidate since 1976 and his promises in 2014 and 2015 to do so if he ran for office He said his tax returns were being audited, and that his lawyers had advised him against releasing them.
After a lengthy court battle to block release of his tax returns and other records to the Manhattan district attorney for a criminal investigation, including two appeals by Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court, in February 2021 the high court allowed the records to be released to the prosecutor for review by a grand jury.
In October 2016, portions of Trump’s state filings for 1995 were leaked to a reporter fromThe New York Times. They show that Trump had declared a loss of $916 million that year, which could have let him avoid taxes for up to 18 years.
Election to the presidency
On November 8, 2016, Trump received 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Clinton, though, after elector defections on both sides, the official count was ultimately 304 to 227. Trump, the fifth person to be elected president while losing the popular vote, received nearly 2.9 million fewer votes than Clinton. He also was the only president who neither served in the military nor held any government office prior to becoming president. Trump’s victory was a political upset. Polls had consistently shown Clinton with a nationwide—though diminishing—lead, as well as an advantage in most of the competitive states.
Trump won 30 states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, states which had been considered a blue wall of Democratic strongholds since the 1990s. Clinton won 20 states and the District of Columbia. Trump’s victory marked the return of an undivided Republican government—a Republican White House combined with Republican control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump’s election victory sparked protests in major U.S. cities. On the day after Trump’s inauguration, an estimated 2.6 million people worldwide, including an estimated half million in Washington, D.C., protested against Trump in the Women’s Marches.
Presidency (2017–2021)
Early actions
Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. During his first week in office, he signed six executive orders, which authorized: interim procedures in anticipation of repealing the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, reinstatement of the Mexico City policy, advancement of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline construction projects, reinforcement of border security, and a planning and design process to construct a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner became his assistant and senior advisor, respectively.
Conflicts of interest
Before being inaugurated, Trump moved his businesses into a revocable trust run by his sons, Eric and Donald Jr., and a business associate. Though he said he would eschew “new foreign deals”, the Trump Organization pursued expansions of its operations in Dubai, Scotland, and the Dominican Republic. Trump continued to profit from his businesses and to know how his administration’s policies affected his businesses.
He was sued for violating the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution, marking the first time that the clauses had been substantively litigated. One case was dismissed in lower court. Two were dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court as moot after the end of Trump’s term.
Trump visited a Trump Organization property on 428 days, one visit for every 3.4 days of his presidency.
Domestic policy
Economy
Trump took office at the height of the longest economic expansion in American history, which began in 2009 and continued until February 2020, when the COVID-19 recession began.
In December 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 passed by Congress without Democratic votes. It reduced tax rates for businesses and individuals, with business tax cuts to be permanent and individual tax cuts set to expire after 2025, and set the penalty associated with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to $0. The Trump administration claimed that the act would not decrease government revenue, but 2018 revenues were 7.6 percent lower than projected.
Despite a campaign promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years, Trump approved large increases in government spending and the 2017 tax cut. As a result, the federal budget deficit increased by almost 50 percent, to nearly $1 trillion in 2019. Under Trump, the U.S. national debt increased by 39 percent, reaching $27.75 trillion by the end of his term, and the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio hit a post-World War II high. Trump also failed to deliver the $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan on which he had campaigned.
Trump is the only modern U.S. president to leave office with a smaller workforce than when he took office, by 3 million people.
Climate change, environment, and energy
Trump rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. He reduced the budget for renewable energy research by 40 percent and reversed Obama-era policies directed at curbing climate change. He withdrew from the Paris Agreement, making the U.S. the only nation to not ratify it.
Trump aimed to boost the production and exports of fossil fuels. Natural gas expanded under Trump, but coal continued to decline. Trump rolled back more than 100 federal environmental regulations, including those that curbed greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, and the use of toxic substances. He weakened protections for animals and environmental standards for federal infrastructure projects, and expanded permitted areas for drilling and resource extraction, such as allowing drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
Deregulation
In 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13771, which directed that, for every new regulation, federal agencies “identify” two existing regulations for elimination, though it did not require elimination. He dismantled many federal regulations on health, labor, and the environment, among others, including a bill that made it easier for severely mentally ill persons to buy guns. During his first six weeks in office, he delayed, suspended, or reversed ninety federal regulations, often “after requests by the regulated industries”. The Institute for Policy Integrity found that 78 percent of Trump’s proposals were blocked by courts or did not prevail over litigation.
Health care
During his campaign, Trump vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In office, he scaled back the Act’s implementation through executive orders. Trump expressed a desire to “let Obamacare fail”; his administration halved the enrollment period and drastically reduced funding for enrollment promotion.
In June 2018, the Trump administration joined 18 Republican-led states in arguing before the Supreme Court that the elimination of the financial penalties associated with the individual mandate had rendered the Act unconstitutional. Their pleading would have eliminated health insurance coverage for up to 23 million Americans, but was unsuccessful. During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised to protect funding for Medicare and other social safety-net programs, but in January 2020, he expressed willingness to consider cuts to them.
In response to the opioid epidemic, Trump signed legislation in 2018 to increase funding for drug treatments but was widely criticized for failing to make a concrete strategy. U.S. opioid overdose deaths declined slightly in 2018 but surged to a record 50,052 in 2019.
