Trump Organization

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.

Born into a wealthy family in the New York City borough of Queens, Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became the president of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it the Trump Organization, and began acquiring and building skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He launched side ventures, many licensing the Trump name, and filed for six business bankruptcies in the 1990s and 2000s. From 2004 to 2015, he hosted the reality television show '' The Apprentice'', bolstering his fame as a billionaire. Presenting himself as a political outsider, Trump won the 2016 presidential election against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.

During his first presidency, Trump imposed a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, expanded the Mexico–United States border wall, and enforced a family separation policy on the border. He rolled back environmental and business regulations, signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and appointed three Supreme Court justices. In foreign policy, Trump withdrew the U.S. from agreements on climate, trade, and Iran's nuclear program, and initiated a trade war with China. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020, he downplayed its severity, contradicted health officials, and signed the CARES Act. After losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Trump attempted to overturn the result, culminating in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021. He was impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection; the Senate acquitted him both times.

In 2023, Trump was found liable in civil cases for sexual abuse and defamation and for business fraud. He was found guilty of falsifying business records in 2024, making him the first U.S. president convicted of a felony. After winning the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris, he was sentenced to a penalty-free discharge, and two felony indictments against him for retention of classified documents and obstruction of the 2020 election were dismissed without prejudice. A racketeering case related to the 2020 election in Georgia is pending.

Trump began his second presidency by pardoning around 1,500 January 6 rioters and initiating mass layoffs of federal workers. He imposed tariffs on nearly all countries, including large tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico. Many of his administration's actions—including intimidation of political opponents and civil society, deportations of immigrants, and extensive use of executive orders—have drawn over 300 lawsuits challenging their legality. High-profile cases have underscored his broad interpretation of the unitary executive theory and have led to significant conflicts with the federal courts.

Trump is the central figure of Trumpism, and his faction is dominant within the Republican Party. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racist or misogynistic, and he has made false and misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. After his first term, scholars and historians ranked him as one of the worst presidents in American history.

Early life and education

Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in the New York City borough of Queens, the fourth child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. He is of German and Scottish descent. He grew up with his older siblings, Maryanne, Fred Jr., and Elizabeth, and his younger brother, Robert, in a mansion in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens. Fred Trump paid his children each about $20,000 a year, equivalent to $265,000 a year in 2024. Trump was a millionaire in inflation-adjusted dollars by age eight.

Trump attended the private Kew-Forest School through seventh grade. He was a difficult child and showed an early interest in his father's business. His father enrolled him in New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, to complete secondary school. Trump considered a show business career but instead in 1964 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. He was exempted from the draft during the Vietnam War due to a claim of bone spurs in his heels.

Business career

Real estate

Starting in 1968, 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, his father made him president of the company and he began using the Trump Organization as an umbrella brand. Roy Cohn was Trump's fixer, lawyer, and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1973, Cohn helped Trump countersue the U.S. government for $100 million (equivalent to $ million in ) over its charges that Trump's properties had racially discriminatory practices. Trump's counterclaims were dismissed, and the government's case was settled with the Trumps signing a consent decree agreeing to desegregate; four years later, Trumps again faced the courts when they were found in contempt of the decree. Before age thirty, he showed his propensity for litigation, no matter the outcome and cost; even when he lost, he described the case as a win. Helping Trump projects, Cohn was a consigliere whose Mafia connections controlled construction unions. Cohn introduced political consultant Roger Stone to Trump, who enlisted Stone's services to deal with the federal government. 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.

In 1992, Trump, his siblings Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert, 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 his rent-stabilized units. In January 1994, the siblings formed Apartment Management Associates and took over the management fees formerly collected by Trump Management. As well as inflating rents, the schemes served to transfer assets from Fred Trump to his children and nephew and lower the tax burden.

Manhattan and Chicago 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 for him 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, he 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 his primary residence until 2019. In 1988, Trump acquired the Plaza Hotel with a loan from a consortium of 16 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, he 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 him 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, Trump acquired and renovated the mostly vacant 71-story skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, later rebranded as the Trump Building. In the early 1990s, he won the right to develop a tract in the Lincoln Square neighborhood near the Hudson River. Struggling with debt from other ventures in 1994, he sold most of his interest in the project to Asian investors, who financed the project's completion, Riverside South. Trump's last major construction project was the 92-story mixed-use Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, which opened in 2008. In 2024, ''The New York Times'' and ProPublica reported that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating whether he had twice written off losses incurred through construction cost overruns and lagging sales of residential units in the building he had declared to be worthless on his 2008 tax return.

Atlantic City casinos

In 1984, Trump opened Harrah's at Trump Plaza, a hotel and casino, with financing and management help from the Holiday Corporation. It was unprofitable, and he paid Holiday $70 million in May 1986 to take sole control. In 1985, he bought the unopened Atlantic City Hilton Hotel and renamed it Trump Castle. Both casinos filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1992. 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. He filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1991. Under the provisions of the restructuring agreement, he 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, the '' Trump Princess'', which had been leased to his casinos and kept docked; and other businesses. In 1995, 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 him with 10 percent ownership. He remained chairman until 2009.

Clubs

In 1985, 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. He declared the club his primary residence in 2019. He began building and buying golf courses in 1999, owning 17 golf courses by 2016.

Licensing the Trump name

The Trump Organization often licensed the Trump name for consumer products and services, including foodstuffs, apparel, learning courses, and home furnishings. Over 50 licensing or management deals involved Trump's name, generating at least $59 million for his companies. By 2018, only two consumer goods companies continued to license his name. During the 2000s, Trump licensed his name to residential property developments worldwide, 40 of which were never built.

Side ventures

In 1970, Trump invested $70,000 to receive billing as coproducer of a Broadway comedy. In September 1983, he purchased the New Jersey Generals, a team in the United States Football League. After the 1985 season, the league folded, largely due to his attempt to move to a fall schedule (when it would have competed with the National Football League FLfor audience) and trying to force a merger with the NFL by bringing an antitrust suit. Trump and his Plaza Hotel hosted several boxing matches at the Atlantic City Convention Hall. In 1989 and 1990, he lent his name to the Tour de Trump cycling stage race, an attempt to create an American equivalent of European races such as the Tour de France or the Giro d'Italia. From 1986 to 1988, he 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 in greenmail. ''The New York Times'' found that he 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 the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle, financing the purchase with $380 million (equivalent to $ million in ) in loans from a syndicate of 22 banks. He renamed the airline Trump Shuttle and operated it until 1992. He defaulted on his loans in 1991, and ownership passed to the banks. In 1996, he purchased the Miss Universe pageants, including Miss USA and Miss Teen USA. Due to disagreements with CBS about scheduling, he took both pageants to NBC in 2002. In 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work as producer of Miss Universe. NBC and Univision dropped the pageants in June 2015 in reaction to his comments about Mexican immigrants.

In 2005, Trump cofounded Trump 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, he agreed to pay a total of $25 million to settle the three cases.

Foundation

The Donald J. Trump Foundation was a private foundation established 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 from Vince McMahon. The foundation gave to health- and sports-related charities, conservative groups, and charities that held events at Trump properties. In 2016, ''The Washington Post'' reported that the charity had committed several potential legal and ethical violations, including self-dealing and tax evasion. Also in 2016, the New York attorney general stated the foundation had violated state law by 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

According to a review of state and federal court files conducted by ''USA Today'' in 2018, Trump and his businesses had been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions. While he 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 his 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 him or his affiliated company in the future.

Wealth

Trump has 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 borrowed at least $60 million from his father, largely did not repay the loans, and received another $413 million (2018 equivalent, adjusted for inflation) from his father's company. Posing as a Trump Organization official named " John Barron", Trump called journalist Jonathan Greenberg in 1984, trying to get a higher ranking on the ''Forbes'' 400 list of wealthy Americans. Trump self-reported his net worth over a wide range: from minus $900 million in 1990, to $10 billion in 2015. In 2015, ''Forbes'' estimated his net worth at $4.5 billion, based on interviews with more than 80 sources. In 2025, the magazine estimated his net worth at $5.1 billion and ranked him the 700th wealthiest person in the world.

Media career

Trump has published 19 books under his name, most written or cowritten by ghostwriters. His first book, ''The Art of the Deal'' (1987), was a ''New York Times'' Best Seller, and was credited by ''The New Yorker'' with making Trump famous as an "emblem of the successful tycoon". The book was ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz, who is credited as a coauthor. Trump had cameos in many films and television shows from 1985 to 2001. Trump acquired his style of politics from professional wrestling—with its staged fights and name-calling. He sporadically appeared for the professional wrestling company WWE from the late 1980s including Wrestlemania 23 in 2007. Starting in the 1990s, Trump appeared 24 times as a guest on the nationally syndicated ''Howard Stern Show''. He had his own short-form talk radio program, '' Trumped!'', from 2004 to 2008. From 2011 until 2015, he was a guest commentator on '' Fox & Friends''. In 2021, Trump, who had been a member since 1989, resigned from SAG-AFTRA to avoid a disciplinary hearing regarding the January 6 attack. Two days later, the union permanently barred him.

''The Apprentice'' and ''The Celebrity Apprentice''

Producer Mark Burnett made Trump a television star when he created ''The Apprentice'', which Trump hosted from 2004 to 2015 (including variant ''The Celebrity Apprentice''). On the shows, he was a superrich chief executive who eliminated contestants with the catchphrase "you're fired". ''The New York Times'' called his portrayal "a highly flattering, highly fictionalized version" of himself. The shows remade Trump's image for millions of viewers nationwide. With the related licensing agreements, they earned him more than $400 million.

Early political aspirations

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 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". Trump was a candidate in the 2000 Reform Party presidential primaries for three months before he withdrew in February 2000. In 2011, Trump considered challenging President Barack Obama in the 2012 election. He spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February and gave speeches in states with early primaries. In May 2011, he announced that he would not run.

2016 presidential election

Trump announced his candidacy for the 2016 election in June 2015. He campaigned as a rich, successful businessman and an outsider without political experience, and claimed media bias against him. His campaign statements were often opaque and suggestive, and a record number were false. He became the Republican front-runner in March 2016 and was declared the presumptive Republican nominee in May.

Trump described NATO as "obsolete" and espoused views described by the Washington Post as noninterventionist and protectionist. His campaign platform emphasized renegotiating U.S.–China relations and free trade agreements such as NAFTA and strongly enforcing immigration laws. 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 of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. Trump's proposed immigration policies were a topic of bitter debate during the 2016 campaign. He promised to build a wall on the Mexico–U.S. border to restrict illegal movement and vowed that Mexico would pay for it. He pledged to deport millions of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S., and criticized birthright citizenship for incentivizing " anchor babies". According to an analysis in ''Political Science Quarterly'', Trump made "explicitly racist and sexist appeals to win over white voters" during his 2016 presidential campaign. In particular, his campaign launch speech drew criticism for claiming Mexican immigrants were "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists"; in response, NBC fired him from ''Celebrity Apprentice''.

Trump's FEC-required reports listed assets above $1.4 billion and outstanding debts of at least $315 million. He 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 from ''The New York Times''. They show that he had declared a loss of $916 million that year, which could have let him avoid taxes for up to 18 years.

Trump won 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. After elector defections on both sides, the official count was 304 to 227. The fifth person to be elected president despite losing the popular vote, he received nearly 2.9 million fewer votes than Clinton, 46.3% to her 48.25%. He was the only president who neither served in the military nor held any government office prior to becoming president. His election marked the return of a Republican undivided government. Trump's victory sparked protests in major U.S. cities.

First presidency (2017–2021)

Early actions

Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. The day after his inauguration, an estimated 2.6 million people worldwide, including 500,000 in Washington, D.C., protested against him in the Women's Marches. During his first week in office, Trump signed six executive orders, including authorizing procedures for repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, advancement of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline projects, and planning for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Conflicts of interest

Before being inaugurated, Trump moved his businesses into a revocable trust, rather than a blind trust or equivalent arrangement "to cleanly sever himself from his business interests". He continued to profit from his businesses and knew how his administration's policies affected them. Although he said he would eschew "new foreign deals", the Trump Organization pursued operational expansions in Scotland, Dubai, and the Dominican Republic. Lobbyists, foreign government officials, and Trump donors and allies generated hundreds of millions of dollars for his resorts and hotels. Trump was sued for violating the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution, the first time that the clauses had been substantively litigated. One case was dismissed in lower court. Two were dismissed by the Supreme Court as moot after his term.

During the campaign, Trump had pledged to donate his presidential salary and profits from foreign patronage to the U.S. government. He donated his salary to federal agencies and publicized each donation until July 2020. Federal agencies surveyed by ''The Washington Post'' in July 2021 reported not having received any gifts after that month. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reported in 2024 that he had donated $448,000 of an estimated $13.6 million in payments from foreign governments in his first term.

Domestic policy

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, he signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. It reduced tax rates for businesses and individuals and eliminated the penalty associated with the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. The Trump administration claimed that the act would not decrease government revenue, but 2018 revenues were 7.6 percent lower than projected. Under Trump, the federal budget deficit increased by almost 50 percent, to nearly $1 trillion in 2019. By the end of his term, the U.S. national debt increased by 39 percent, reaching $27.75 trillion, 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 three million people. He 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. He aimed to boost the production and exports of fossil fuels. Natural gas expanded under Trump, but coal continued to decline. He 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.

Trump dismantled federal regulations on health, labor, the environment, and other areas, 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 his proposals were blocked by courts or did not prevail over litigation. 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. He 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. 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. He barred organizations that provide abortions or abortion referrals from receiving federal funds. He said he supported "traditional marriage", but considered the nationwide legality of same-sex marriage "settled". His administration rolled back key components of the Obama administration's workplace protections against discrimination of LGBTQ people. His attempted rollback of anti-discrimination protections for transgender patients in August 2020 was halted by a federal judge after a Supreme Court ruling extended employees' civil rights protections to gender identity and sexual orientation. Trump has said he is opposed to gun control, although his views have shifted over time. His administration took an anti-marijuana position, revoking Obama-era policies that provided protections for states that legalized marijuana. He is a long-time advocate of capital punishment, and his administration oversaw the federal government execute 13 prisoners, more than in the previous 56 years combined, ending a 17-year moratorium. In 2016, he said he supported the use of interrogation torture methods "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."

Race relations

Trump's comments on the 2017 Unite the Right rally, condemning "this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides" and stating that there were "very fine people on both sides", were criticized as implying a moral equivalence between the white supremacist demonstrators and the counter-protesters. In a January 2018 discussion of immigration legislation, he reportedly referred to El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and African nations as "shithole countries". His remarks were condemned as racist.

In July 2019, Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen—all minorities, three of whom are native-born Americans—should " go back" to the countries they "came from". Two days later the House of Representatives voted 240–187, mostly along party lines, to condemn his "racist comments". White nationalist publications and social media praised his remarks, which continued over the following days. He continued to make similar remarks during his 2020 campaign. In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, federal law-enforcement officials controversially removed a largely peaceful crowd of lawful protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House. Trump then posed with a Bible for a photo-op at the nearby St. John's Episcopal Church, with religious leaders condemning both the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself. Many retired military leaders and defense officials condemned his proposal to use the U.S. military against anti-police-brutality protesters.

Pardons and commutations

During his first term, Trump granted 237 requests for clemency, fewer than all presidents since 1900 with the exception of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Only 25 of them had been vetted by the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney; the others were granted to people with personal or political connections to him, his family, and his allies, or recommended by celebrities. In his last full day in office, he granted 73 pardons and commuted 70 sentences. Several Trump allies were not eligible for pardons under Justice Department rules, and in other cases the department had opposed clemency. The pardons of three military service members convicted of or charged with violent crimes were opposed by military leaders.

Immigration

As president, Trump described illegal immigration as an "invasion" of the United States and drastically escalated immigration enforcement. He implemented harsh policies against asylum seekers and deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the U.S.–Mexico border to stop illegal crossings. He reduced the number of refugees admitted to record lows, from an annual limit of 110,000 before he took office to 15,000 in 2021. Trump also increased restrictions on granting permanent residency to immigrants needing public benefits. One of his central campaign promises was to build a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border; during his first term, the U.S. built of wall in areas without barriers and to replace older barriers. In 2018, Trump's refusal to sign any spending bill unless it allocated funding for the border wall resulted in the longest-ever federal government shutdown, for 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019. The shutdown ended after he agreed to fund the government without any funds for the wall. To avoid another shutdown, Congress passed a funding bill with $1.4 billion for border fencing in February. Trump later declared a national emergency on the southern border to divert $6.1 billion of funding to the border wall despite congressional disagreement.

In January 2017, Trump signed an executive order that temporarily denied entry to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries. The order caused many protests and legal challenges that resulted in nationwide injunctions. A revised order giving some exceptions was also blocked by courts, but the Supreme Court ruled in June that the ban could be enforced on those lacking "a ''bona fide'' relationship with a person or entity" in the U.S. Trump replaced the ban in September with a presidential proclamation extending travel bans to North Koreans, Chadians, and some Venezuelan officials, but excluded Iraq and Sudan. The Supreme Court allowed that version to go into effect in December 2017, and ultimately upheld the ban in 2019. From 2017 to 2018, the Trump administration had a policy of family separation that separated over 4,400 children of migrant families from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border, an unprecedented policy sparked public outrage in the country. Despite Trump initially blaming Democrats and insisting he could not stop the policy with an executive order, he acceded to public pressure in June 2018 and mandated that migrant families be detained together unless "there is a concern" of risk for the child. A judge later ordered that the families be reunited and further separations stopped except in limited circumstances, though over 1,000 additional children were separated from their families after the order.

Foreign policy

Trump described himself as a "nationalist" and his foreign policy as " America First". He supported populist, neo-nationalist, and authoritarian governments. Unpredictability, uncertainty, and inconsistency characterized foreign relations during his tenure. Relations between the U.S. and its European allies were strained under Trump. He criticized NATO allies and privately suggested that the U.S. should withdraw from NATO. Trump supported many of the policies of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2020, Trump hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize their foreign relations.

Trump began a trade war with China in 2018 after imposing tariffs and other trade barriers he said would force China to end longstanding unfair trade practice and intellectual property infringement. Trump weakened the toughest U.S. sanctions imposed after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. Trump praised and, according to some critics, rarely criticized Russian president Vladimir Putin, though he opposed some actions of Russia's government. He withdrew the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing alleged Russian noncompliance, and supported Russia's possible return to the G7. As North Korea's nuclear weapons were increasingly seen as a serious threat, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korean leader, meeting Kim Jong Un three times: in Singapore in June 2018, in Hanoi in February 2019, and in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in June 2019. Talks in October 2019 broke down and no denuclearization agreement was reached.

Personnel

By the end of Trump's first year in office, 34 percent of his original staff had resigned, been fired, or been reassigned. , 61 percent of his senior aides had left and 141 staffers had left in the previous year. Both figures set a record for recent presidents. Close personal aides to Trump quit or were forced out. He publicly disparaged several of his former top officials.

Trump had four White House chiefs of staff, marginalizing or pushing out several. In May 2017, he dismissed FBI director James Comey, saying a few days later that he was concerned about Comey's role in the Trump–Russia investigations. Three of Trump's 15 original cabinet members left or were forced to resign within his first year. Trump was slow to appoint second-tier officials in the executive branch, saying many of the positions are unnecessary. In October 2017, there were hundreds of sub-cabinet positions without a nominee. By January 8, 2019, of 706 key positions, 433 had been filled and he had no nominee for 264.

Judiciary

Trump appointed 226 federal judges, including 54 to the courts of appeals and three to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. His Supreme Court appointments politically shifted the Court to the right. In the 2016 campaign, he pledged that ''Roe v. Wade'' would be overturned "automatically" if he were elected and given the opportunity to appoint two or three anti-abortion justices. He later took credit when ''Roe'' was overturned by ''Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization'' in 2022; all three of his Supreme Court nominees voted with the majority. Trump disparaged courts and judges he disagreed with, often in personal terms, and questioned the judiciary's constitutional authority. His attacks on courts drew rebukes from observers, including sitting federal judges, concerned about the effect of his statements on the judicial independence and public confidence in the judiciary.

COVID-19 pandemic

Trump initially ignored public health warnings and calls for action from health officials within his administration. Trump established the White House Coronavirus Task Force on January 29. On March 27, he signed into law the CARES Act—a $2.2 trillion bipartisan economic stimulus bill—the largest stimulus in U.S. history. After weeks of attacks to draw attention away from his slow response, Trump halted funding of the World Health Organization in April. In April 2020, Republican-connected groups organized anti-lockdown protests against the measures state governments were taking to combat the pandemic; Trump encouraged the protests on Twitter, although the targeted states did not meet his administration's guidelines for reopening. He repeatedly pressured federal health agencies to take actions he favored, such as approving unproven treatments. In October, Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three days with a severe case of COVID-19.

Investigations

After he assumed office, Trump was the subject of increasing Justice Department and congressional scrutiny, with investigations covering his election campaign, transition, and inauguration, actions taken during his presidency, his private businesses, personal taxes, and charitable foundation. There were ten federal criminal investigations, eight state and local investigations, and twelve congressional investigations.

In July 2016, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane, an investigation into possible links between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. After Trump fired Comey in May 2017, the FBI opened a second investigation into Trump's personal and business dealings with Russia. In January 2017, three U.S. intelligence agencies jointly stated with "high confidence" that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to favor Trump. Many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials were discovered. Trump told Russian officials he was unconcerned about Russia's election interference. Crossfire Hurricane was later transferred to Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation; the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia was ended by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after he told the FBI that Mueller would pursue the matter. At the request of Rosenstein, the Mueller investigation examined criminal matters "in connection with Russia's 2016 election interference". Mueller submitted his final report in March 2019. The report found that Russia did interfere in 2016 to favor Trump and that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged the effort, but that the evidence "did not establish" that Trump campaign members conspired or coordinated with Russia. Trump claimed the report exonerated him despite Mueller writing that it did not. The report also detailed potential obstruction of justice by Trump but "did not draw ultimate conclusions" and left the decision to charge the laws to Congress.

In April 2019, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas seeking financial details from Trump's banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, and his accounting firm, Mazars USA. He sued the banks, Mazars, and committee chair Elijah Cummings to prevent the disclosures. In May, two judges ruled that both Mazars and the banks must comply with the subpoenas; Trump's attorneys appealed. In September 2022, Trump and the committee agreed to a settlement regarding Mazars, and the firm began turning over documents.

Impeachments

Trump was impeached twice by the House of Representatives during his first presidential term, though acquitted by the Senate on both occasions. The first impeachment arose from a whistleblower complaint that in 2019 Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden, in an attempt to gain an advantage in the 2020 presidential election. In December 2019, the House voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and the Senate acquitted him in February 2020.

The second impeachment came after the January 6 attack, for which the House charged Trump with incitement of insurrection on January 13, 2021. Trump left office on January 20 and was acquitted on February 13. Seven Republican senators voted for conviction.

2020 presidential election

Trump filed to run for reelection only a few hours after becoming president in 2017. He held his first reelection rally less than a month after taking office and officially became the Republican nominee in August 2020. Trump's campaign focused on crime, claiming that cities would descend into lawlessness if Democratic nominee Joe Biden won. He repeatedly misrepresented Biden's positions and appealed to racism. Starting in early 2020, Trump sowed doubts about the election, claiming without evidence that it would be rigged and that widespread use of mail balloting would produce massive election fraud. He blocked funding for the U.S. Postal Service, saying he wanted to prevent any increase in voting by mail. He repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the results if he lost and commit to a peaceful transition of power.

Loss to Biden and rejection of outcome

Biden won the November 2020 election, receiving 81.3 million votes (51.3 percent) to Trump's 74.2 million (46.8 percent) and 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. The Electoral College formalized Biden's victory on December 14. Even before the results were known on the morning after the election, Trump declared victory. Days later, when Biden was projected the winner, Trump baselessly alleged election fraud. As part of an effort to overturn the results, Trump and his allies filed many legal challenges to the results, which were rejected by at least 86 judges in both state and federal courts for having no factual or legal basis.

Trump's allegations were also refuted by state election officials, and the Supreme Court declined to hear a case asking it to overturn the results in four states won by Biden. Trump repeatedly sought help to overturn the results, personally pressuring Republican local and state office-holders, Republican legislators, the Justice Department, and Vice President Pence, urging actions such as replacing presidential electors, or that Georgia officials "find" votes and announce a "recalculated" result. In the weeks after the election, Trump withdrew from public activities. He initially blocked government officials from cooperating in Biden's presidential transition. After three weeks, the administrator of the General Services Administration declared Biden the "apparent winner" of the election, allowing the disbursement of transition resources to his team. While Trump said he recommended that the GSA begin transition protocols, he still did not formally concede. Trump did not attend Biden's inauguration on January 20.

January 6 Capitol attack

In December 2020, reports emerged that the U.S. military was on "red alert", and ranking officers had discussed what to do if Trump declared martial law. CIA director Gina Haspel and Army general Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, grew concerned that Trump might attempt a coup or military action against China or Iran. Milley insisted that he be consulted about any military orders from Trump, including the use of nuclear weapons.

At noon on January 6, 2021, while Congress was certifying the presidential election results in the U.S. Capitol, Trump held a rally at the nearby Ellipse. Speaking from behind a glass barrier, he called for the election to be overturned and urged his supporters to "fight like hell" and "take back our country" by marching to the Capitol. His supporters then formed a mob that broke into the building, disrupting certification and causing the evacuation of Congress. During the attack, Trump posted on social media but did not ask the rioters to disperse. In a tweet at 6 p.m., he told them to "go home with love & in peace", called them "great patriots", and restated that he had won the election. Congress later reconvened and confirmed Biden's victory in the early hours of January 7.

More than 140 police officers were injured, and five people died during or after the attack. The event has been described as an attempted self-coup by Trump.

Between presidencies (2021–2025)

Upon leaving the White House, Trump began living at Mar-a-Lago, establishing an office there as provided for by the Former Presidents Act. His continuing false claims concerning the 2020 election were commonly referred to as the " big lie" by his critics, although in May 2021, with his supporters he began using the term to refer to the election itself. The Republican Party used his false claims about the election to justify imposing new voting restrictions in its favor. As of July 2022, he continued to pressure state legislators to overturn the election. Unlike other former presidents, Trump continued to dominate his party; a 2022 profile in ''The New York Times'' described him as a modern party boss. He continued fundraising, raising a war chest containing more than twice that of the Republican Party, and profited from fundraisers many Republican candidates held at Mar-a-Lago. Much of his focus was on party governance and installing in key posts officials loyal to him. In the 2022 midterm elections, he endorsed over 200 candidates for various offices. In February 2021, he registered a new company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), for providing "social networking services" to U.S. customers. In March 2024, TMTG merged with special-purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition and became a public company. In February 2022, TMTG launched Truth Social, a social media platform.

Legal issues

In 2019, journalist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s and sued him for defamation over his denial. Carroll sued him again in 2022 for battery and more defamation. He was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered to pay $5 million in one case and $83.3 million in the other. In 2022, New York filed a civil lawsuit against Trump accusing him of inflating the Trump Organization's value to gain an advantage with lenders and banks; He was found liable and ordered to pay $350 million plus interest.

In connection with Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his involvement in the January 6 attack, in December 2022 the U.S. House committee on the attack recommended criminal charges against him for obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and inciting or assisting an insurrection. In August 2023, he was indicted on 13 charges, including racketeering, by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election in the state.

In January 2022, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of documents Trump had taken to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, some of which were classified. In the ensuing Justice Department investigation, officials retrieved more classified documents from his lawyers. On August 8, 2022, FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago for illegally held documents, including those in breach of the Espionage Act, collecting 11 sets of classified documents, some marked top secret. A federal grand jury constituted by Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump in June 2023 on 31 counts of "willfully retaining national defense information" under the Espionage Act, among other charges. Trump pleaded not guilty. In July 2024, judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case, ruling Smith's appointment as special prosecutor was unconstitutional.

In May 2024, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The case stemmed from evidence that he booked Michael Cohen's hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels as business expenses to cover up his alleged 2006–2007 affair with Daniels during the 2016 election. On January 10, 2025, the judge gave Trump a no-penalty sentence known as an unconditional discharge, saying that punitive requirements would have interfered with presidential immunity. After his reelection, the 2020 election obstruction case and the classified documents case were dismissed without prejudice due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.

2024 presidential election

In November 2022, Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election and created a fundraising account.

In March 2023, the campaign began diverting 10 percent of the donations to his leadership PAC. His campaign had paid $100 million towards his legal bills by March 2024. In December 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled him disqualified for the Colorado Republican primary for his role in inciting the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. In March 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court restored his name to the ballot in a unanimous decision, ruling that Colorado lacks the authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding federal office.

During the campaign, Trump made increasingly violent and authoritarian statements. He said that he would weaponize the FBI and the Justice Department against his political opponents and use the military to target Democratic politicians and those that do not support his candidacy. He used harsher, more dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric than during his presidency. His harsher rhetoric against his political enemies has been described by some historians and scholars as authoritarian, fascist, and unlike anything a political candidate has ever said in American history. Age and health concerns also arose during the campaign, with several medical experts highlighting an increase in rambling, tangential speech and behavioral disinhibition.

Trump mentioned "rigged election" and "election interference" earlier and more frequently than in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and refused to commit to accepting the 2024 election results. Analysts for ''The New York Times'' described this as an intensification of his "heads I win; tails you cheated" rhetorical strategy; the newspaper stated that the claim of a rigged election had become the backbone of the campaign.

On July 13, 2024, Trump was shot in the ear in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania. Two days later, the 2024 Republican National Convention nominated him as their presidential candidate, with Senator JD Vance as his running mate. In September, he was targeted but unharmed in an assassination attempt in Florida.

Trump won the election in November 2024 with 312 electoral votes to incumbent vice president Kamala Harris's 226, making him the second president in U.S. history to be elected to a nonconsecutive second term. He also won the popular vote with 49.8% to Harris's 48.3%. His victory in 2024 was part of a global backlash against incumbent parties, in part due to the 2021–2023 inflation surge. Several outlets described his reelection as an extraordinary comeback.

Second presidency (2025–present)

Trump began his second term upon his inauguration on January 20, 2025. He became the oldest individual to assume the presidency and the first president with a felony conviction.

Early actions, 2025–present

Upon taking office, Trump signed a series of executive orders. Many of these tested his legal authority, and drew immediate legal action. He issued more executive orders on his first day than any other president; he also granted clemency to all January 6 rioters convicted or charged, including those who violently attacked police, by pardoning more than 1,500 and commuting the sentences of 14. Four days into his second term, analysis conducted by ''Time'' found that nearly two-thirds of his executive actions "mirror or partially mirror" proposals from Project 2025. In his first weeks, several of his actions have ignored or violated federal laws, regulations, and the Constitution according to American legal scholars. In his administration's first month, Trump issued ninety executive orders, memorandums, and directives. He used the government to target his political opponents and his actions against civil society and contributing to democratic backsliding. By May 1, his orders and actions had been challenged by over 300 lawsuits nationwide, with most of them still moving through the courts.

Conflicts of interest, 2025–present

Trump's second presidency was described as having less guardrails against conflicts of interest than his first, and breaking with decades of ethical norms. He maintained a publicly traded company in Truth Social, and diversified it into financial services. He pursued new overseas real estate deals involving state-affiliated entities, and had several branding and licensing deals selling Trump-branded merchandise. He profited from events held at his hotels and golf courses and did not place his assets in a blind trust, as previous presidents had. He repealed the previous administration's ethics guidelines and enforcement of laws prohibiting bribery without establishing formal ethics guidelines for his political appointees, many of whom entered his administration with an "uncharacteristically large list of potential conflicts of interest". He dropped corruption charges against politicians with ties to him and paused enforcement of the law prohibiting companies operating in the U.S. to bribe foreign governments. He launched, promoted, and personally benefited from two cryptocurrency tokens ("meme coins"), $Trump and $Melania. He also directly benefited from his family's cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial, which engaged in an unprecedented mixing of private enterprise and government policy.

Mass terminations of federal employees

Trump implemented a hiring freeze across the federal government and ordered telework of federal employees to be discontinued within 30 days. He ordered a review of many career civil service positions with the intention of reclassifying them into at-will positions without job protections. He initiated mass job terminations of federal employees, which were described by legal experts as unprecedented or in violation of federal law, with the intent of replacing them with workers more aligned with his agenda. By late February, the administration had fired more than 30,000 people. To facilitate further terminations, it adopted a novel legal interpretation that vastly expands the range of departments and agencies considered as having national security for their primary function, declaring various federal workers' unions "hostile". A late March executive order based on this interpretation excluded dozens of departments and agencies from federal labor-management relations programs, prompting them to sue to invalidate their collective bargaining agreements, which could remove union protections from one million federal employees. He ordered an end to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) projects in the federal government and placed employees in DEI offices on leave. He rescinded Executive Order 11246, which mandated affirmative action and nondiscrimination practices for federal contractors.

Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency largely dismantled several federal agencies including USAID and the Department of Education, unilaterally fired several thousand staff, and reduced administrative functions to statutory minimums. Some actions, such as attempts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, were paused by federal courts. Many of his actions attempted to bring historically independent institutions under direct executive branch control in diminished forms.

Domestic policy, 2025–present

Trump inherited a resilient economy from the Biden administration, with increasing economic growth, low unemployment, and declining inflation. His tariff policies resulted in large drops in consumer sentiment and a downgraded U.S. credit rating. They ultimately triggered a stock market crash in April 2025 following his global tariff announcement.

Trump canceled and paused federal grants and made large cuts to scientific research. He appointed oil, gas, and chemical lobbyists to the EPA to reverse climate regulations and pollution controls. He declared a national energy emergency, allowing the suspension of environmental regulations, loosening the rules for fossil fuel extraction and limiting renewable energy projects. He initiated a review of the "legality and continued applicability" of the EPA endangerment finding, which is the basis of most federal regulations on greenhouse gases, and again withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Slashing the government's ability to address public corruption, Trump disbanded the Public Integrity Section and fired more than twelve inspectors general government-wide. By executive order, he halted enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He pardoned or dropped charges against officials accused of corruption.

Trump attributed societal problems to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and wokeness. Equating diversity with incompetence, he reversed pro-diversity policies in the federal government. His administration aggressively moved against the rights of transgender people and what it termed " gender ideology". He sought to remake civil society to his preferences by executive order. On DEI and antisemitism grounds, he threatened cultural institutions and sixty universities, and forced law firms to capitulate to his political agenda.

Immigration, 2025–present

In his first days in office, Trump instructed border patrol agents to summarily deport migrants crossing the border, disabled the CBP One app that was being used to schedule border crossings, resumed the remain in Mexico policy, designated drug cartels as terrorist groups, and ordered construction to be resumed on a border wall. Rates of arrests lagged behind the Immigration and Customs Enforcement goal of 1,200 to 1,500 daily arrests.

Deportation operations first focused on "target lists" of criminals formed prior to Trump's second term. Then his administration removed asylum applicants who failed to meet requirements, revoked the parole status of migrants who entered the U.S. under CBP One and CHNV humanitarian parole, attempted to remove birthright citizenship, and suspended the Refugee Admissions Program. In March, he used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to imprison migrants without trial—one by "administrative error" and most without criminal records—at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. He targeted activists, legal immigrants, tourists, and students with visas who expressed criticism of his policies or pro-Palestinian advocacy. In April, the administration and DOGE declared about 6,300 living immigrants dead in Social Security's Death Master File, hoping that this would cause them to "self deport".

Foreign policy, 2025–present

Trump's second term foreign policy has been variously described as imperialist, expansionist, isolationist, and autarkist, employing the " America First" ideology as its cornerstone. His relations with allies were transactional and ranged from indifference to hostility, including threats of annexation. He ordered the U.S. government to stop funding and working with the WHO and announced the U.S.'s intention to formally leave the WHO.

Trump and his incoming administration helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas alongside the Biden administration, enacted a day prior to his inauguration. In March, Israel broke the ceasefire.

In February 2025, Trump and Vice President Vance met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, in the Oval Office. The meeting, which was televised live, was highly contentious as Trump and Vance berated Zelenskyy. Media outlets described it as an unprecedented public confrontation between an American president and a foreign head of state.

Trump's economic policies have been described as protectionist, with Trump imposing tariffs on most countries, including large tariffs on major trading partners China, Canada, and Mexico. He suspended American financial contributions to the World Trade Organization. Economists argued that the administration misunderstood the relationship between trade deficits and tariffs, using flawed assumptions.

Personnel, 2025–present

In his second term, Trump selected cabinet members with personal loyalty to him, with the "focus on loyalty over subject-matter expertise". In February 2025, the White House stated that Elon Musk was a special government employee. Trump gave Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to many federal government agencies. Musk's teams operated in eighteen departments and agencies in the administration's first month, including in the Treasury Department's $5 trillion payment system, the Small Business Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, and the General Services Administration. He nominated or appointed 23 former Fox News employees to his administration.

Judiciary, 2025–present

Following legal setbacks, Trump increased his criticism of the judiciary and called for impeachment of federal judges who ruled against him. He threatened, signed executive actions, and ordered investigations into his political opponents, critics, and organizations aligned with the Democratic Party. His defiance of court orders and a claimed right to disobey the courts raised fears among legal experts of a constitutional crisis. He engaged in an unprecedented Targeting of law firms and lawyers under the second Trump administration, targeting of law firms and lawyers that previously represented positions adverse to himself.

Political practice and rhetoric

Beginning with his 2016 campaign, Trump's politics and rhetoric led to the creation of a political movement known as Trumpism. His political positions are populist, more specifically described as right-wing populist. He helped bring far-right fringe ideas and organizations into the mainstream. Many of his actions and rhetoric have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. Trump pushed for an expansion of presidential power under a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory. His political base has been compared to a Cult of personality#Donald Trump, cult of personality.

Trump's rhetoric and actions inflame anger and exacerbate distrust through an "us" versus "them" narrative. He explicitly and routinely disparages racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, and scholars consistently find that racial animus regarding blacks, immigrants, and Muslims are the best predictors of support for Trump. His rhetoric has been described as using fearmongering and demagogy, and he has said that he believes real power comes from fear. The alt-right movement coalesced around and supported his candidacy, due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and Opposition to immigration, immigration. He has a strong Trumpism#Christian Trumpism, appeal to evangelical Christian voters and Christian nationalism#United States, Christian nationalists, and his rallies take on the symbols, rhetoric, and agenda of Christian nationalism. Trump has also used Anti-communism, anti-communist sentiment in his rhetoric, regularly calling his opponents "Communism, communists" and "Marxism, Marxists".

Racial and gender views

Many of Trump's comments and actions have been Racial views of Donald Trump, characterized as racist. In a 2018 national poll, about half of respondents said he is racist; a greater proportion believed that he emboldened racists. Several studies and surveys found that racist attitudes fueled his political ascent and were more important than economic factors in determining the allegiance of Trump voters. Racist and Islamophobic attitudes are strong indicators of support for Trump. He has been accused of racism for insisting a group of five black and Latino teenagers were guilty of raping a white woman in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, even after they were exonerated in 2002.

In 2011, Trump became the leading proponent of the racist Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, "birther" conspiracy theory that Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was not born in the United States. He claimed credit for pressuring the government to publish Obama's birth certificate, which he considered fraudulent. He acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S. in September 2016, though reportedly expressed birther views privately in 2017. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he made false attacks against the racial identity of his opponent, Kamala Harris, that were described as reminiscent of the birther conspiracy theory. In 2025, he promoted false claims of white genocide in South Africa and created the White South African refugee program.

Trump has a history of belittling women when speaking to the media and on social media. He made lewd comments, disparaged women's physical appearances, and referred to them using derogatory epithets. At least 25 women publicly Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations, accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape, kissing without consent, groping, looking under women's skirts, and walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants. He has denied the allegations. In October 2016, a 2005 "hot mic" recording surfaced in which Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape, he bragged about kissing and groping women without their consent, saying that, "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the Pussy#Female genitalia, pussy." He characterized the comments as "locker-room talk". The incident's widespread media exposure led to his first public apology, videotaped during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Link to violence and hate crimes

Trump has been identified as a key figure in increasing political violence in the U.S., both for and against him. He is described as embracing extremism, List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump, conspiracy theories such as Q-Anon, and far-right American militia movement, militia movements to a greater extent than any modern American president, and engaging in stochastic terrorism.

Research suggests Trump's rhetoric is associated with an increased incidence of hate crimes, and that he has an emboldening effect on expressing prejudicial attitudes due to his normalization of explicit racial rhetoric. During his 2016 campaign, he urged or praised physical attacks against protesters or reporters. Numerous defendants investigated or prosecuted for violent acts and hate crimes cited his rhetoric in arguing that they were not culpable or should receive leniency. A nationwide review by ABC News (United States), ABC News in May 2020 identified at least 54 criminal cases, from August 2015 to April 2020, in which he was invoked in direct connection with violence or threats of violence mostly by white men and primarily against minorities. Trump's refusal to condemn the white supremacist Proud Boys during a 2020 presidential debate and his comment, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by", were said to have led to increased recruitment for the pro-Trump group. Counterterrorism researchers described his normalization and Historical revisionism, revisionist history of the January 6 Capitol attack, and Pardon of January 6 United States Capitol attack defendants, grant of clemency to all January 6 rioters, as encouraging future political violence.

Conspiracy theories

Since before his first presidency, Trump has promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including Obama "birtherism", global warming Global warming conspiracy theory, being a hoax, and Conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal, alleged Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections. After the 2020 presidential election, he promoted conspiracy theories for his defeat that were characterized as "Big lie#Donald Trump's false claims of a stolen election, the big lie".

False or misleading statements

Trump frequently makes false statements in public remarks to an extent unprecedented in American politics. His falsehoods are a distinctive part of his political identity and have been described as firehosing. His false and misleading statements were documented by fact-checkers, including at ''The Washington Post'', which tallied 30,573 false or misleading statements made by him during his first presidency, increasing in frequency over time.

Some of Trump's falsehoods were inconsequential, while others had more far-reaching effects, such as his unproven promotion of antimalarial drugs as a treatment for COVID-19, causing a U.S. shortage of these drugs and panic-buying in Africa and South Asia. Other misinformation, such as misattributing a rise in crime in England and Wales to the "spread of radical Islamic terror", served his domestic political purposes. His attacks on mail-in ballots and other election practices weakened public faith in the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, while his disinformation about the pandemic delayed and weakened the national response to it. He habitually does not apologize for his falsehoods. Until 2018, the media rarely referred to his falsehoods as lies, including when he repeated demonstrably false statements.

Social media

Social media use by Donald Trump, Trump's social media presence attracted worldwide attention after Twitter use by Donald Trump, he joined Twitter in 2009. He posted frequently during his 2016 campaign and as president until Twitter banned him after the January 6 attack. He often used Twitter to communicate directly with the public and sideline the press; in 2017, his press secretary said that his Tweet (social media), tweets constituted official presidential statements.

After years of criticism for allowing Trump to post misinformation and falsehoods, Twitter began to tag some of his tweets with fact-checks in May 2020. In response, he said social media platforms "totally silence" conservatives and he would "strongly regulate, or close them down". After the January 6 attack, he was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms. The loss of his social media presence diminished his ability to shape events and correlated with a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation on Twitter. In February 2022, he launched social media platform Truth Social where he only attracted a fraction of his Twitter following. Elon Musk, after Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, acquiring Twitter, reinstated his Twitter account in November 2022. Meta Platforms' two-year ban lapsed in January 2023, allowing him to return to Facebook and Instagram.

Relationship with the press

Trump sought media attention throughout his career, maintaining a "love-hate" relationship with the press. In the 2016 campaign, he benefited from a record amount of free media coverage. As a candidate and as president, he frequently accused the press of bias, calling it the "fake news media" and "the enemy of the people".

The first Trump presidency reduced formal press briefings from about one hundred in 2017 to about half that in 2018 and to two in 2019; they also revoked the press passes of two White House reporters, which were restored by the courts. Trump's 2020 presidential campaign sued ''The New York Times'', ''The Washington Post'', and CNN for defamation in opinion pieces about his stance on Russian election interference. All the suits were dismissed. By 2024, Trump repeatedly voiced support for Criminalization of dissent, outlawing political dissent and criticism, and said that reporters should be prosecuted for not divulging confidential sources and media companies should possibly lose their broadcast licenses for unfavorable coverage of him.

Following his reelection, Trump launched lawsuits and created blacklists against certain media outlets, and took over the process run by the White House Correspondents' Association to choose what outlets have access to him. Rather than comply with a court order to restore Associated Press access, the White House made a policy of limited access for all wire services. The Federal Communications Commission launched investigations into media outlets accused of bias against him.

Personal life

Family

In 1977, Trump married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková. They had three children: Donald Jr. (b. 1977), Ivanka Trump, Ivanka (b. 1981), and Eric Trump, Eric (b. 1984). The couple divorced in 1990, following his affair with model and actress Marla Maples. He and Maples married in 1993 and divorced in 1999. They have one daughter, Tiffany Trump, Tiffany (b. 1993), whom Maples raised in California. In 2005, he married Slovenian model Melania Knauss. They have one son, Barron Trump, Barron (b. 2006).

Health

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, his campaign released a letter from his longtime personal physician, Harold Bornstein, stating that he 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 of Trump's agents had seized his medical records in a February 2017 raid on Bornstein's office.

In 2025, the White House released the results of a health examination. The report said Trump had "well controlled" high cholesterol, while "exhibit[ing] excellent cognitive and physical health" and being "fully fit to execute the duties" of the presidency. It was written by Sean Barbabella, the physician to the president.

Religion

Trump said in 2016 that he was a Presbyterian and a Protestant. In 2020, he said he was a nondenominational Christian. However, many have questioned the depth of these religious affiliations. A survey during Trump's first presidency (2017–2021) showed that 63 percent of Americans did not believe he was religious, despite his professed Christian affiliation, and that only 44 percent of Americans believed that Trump was a Christian. Some of Trump's comments on the Bible or Christian practice have led critical observers to suggest that his knowledge of Christianity is superficial or erroneous, and few biographers have described Trump as deeply or even particularly religious.

Assessments

Public image

In Trump's first term, from 2017 to 2020, international approval ratings of U.S. leadership dropped from about 22 percent in a Gallup, Inc., Gallup poll of 134 countries to just 16 percent—lower than China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin—in a Pew Research poll of 13 countries. In 2017, estimation of U.S. leadership declined most among allies.

Domestically, in his first term Trump had chiefly partisan support: 88 percent among Republicans and 7 percent among Democrats. In a 2021 Gallup poll, he was the only president never to reach a 50 percent approval rating, and he was the first not to be named most admired in his first year in office.

In his second term's first quarter according to Gallup, Trump's approval rating was 45 percent—somewhat better than his first term, and far below the 60 percent average of other presidents. Support remained polarized; he had the approval of 90 percent among Republicans, 37 percent among independents, and 4 percent among Democrats.

Scholarly rankings

In C-SPAN's 2021 survey of presidential historians, Historical rankings of presidents of the United States#2021 C-SPAN, historians ranked Trump as the fourth-worst president. He rated lowest in the leadership characteristics categories for moral authority and administrative skills. The Siena College Research Institute's 2022 survey Historical rankings of presidents of the United States#2022 Siena College, ranked him third-worst. He was ranked near the bottom in all categories except for luck, willingness to take risks, and party leadership, and ranked last in several categories. In 2018 and 2024, members of the American Political Science Association ranked him the worst president.

See also

* List of awards and honors received by Donald Trump
* Pseudonyms used by Donald Trump

Notes

References

Works cited

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External links

Archive of Donald Trump's tweets.
(''Enter 2021-01-09 into the End Date field to view tweets from before the suspension''.)
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Donald Trump
on the Internet Archive

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Attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania
Businesspeople from Queens, New York
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COVID-19 conspiracy theorists
Florida politicians convicted of crimes
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January 6 United States Capitol attack
New York (state) politicians convicted of crimes
New York (state) Republicans
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People associated with the January 6 United States Capitol attack
People charged with racketeering
People from Jamaica, Queens
People stripped of honorary degrees
Presidents of the United States
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Right-wing populists in the United States
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The State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump, et al. defendants
The Trump Organization employees
Time Person of the Year
Trump family, Donald
2019 Trump–Ukraine scandal
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