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Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman serving as the 47th president of the United States since January 2025. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 45th president from 2017 to
2021.
Trump was born in New York City, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became president of his family's real estate business in 1971 and oriented it to luxury hotels and casinos.
After a series of bankruptcies in the 1990s and 2000s, he began side ventures.
In his first term, Trump imposed a travel ban on citizens from six Muslim-majority countries, expanded the U.S.–Mexico border wall, and implemented a brief family separation policy.
Domestically, he rolled back environmental and business regulations, signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and appointed three Supreme Court justices.
In foreign policy, he withdrew the U.S. from agreements on climate, trade, and Iran's nuclear program, began a trade war with China, and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without reaching an agreement on denuclearization.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he downplayed its severity, contradicted guidance from public health officials, and enacted the CARES Act stimulus package.
Trump was impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection; the Senate acquitted him in both cases.
After his first term, scholars and historians ranked him one of the worst presidents in American history.
Trump is the central figure behind and namesake of Trumpism. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged, racist or misogynistic, and he has made false and misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to a degree unprecedented in American politics.
Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede, falsely claiming electoral fraud, and attempted to overturn the results, including through his involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021.
He founded Trump Media & Technology Group that year. Trump ran again for the 2024 presidential election, defeating incumbent vice president Kamala Harris.
Trump faced legal issues between presidencies and during his 2024 campaign:
After his victory in the 2024 presidential election, Trump was sentenced to a penalty-free discharge in 2025, and two other felony indictments against him were dismissed.
Trump began his second presidency by pardoning around 1,500 January 6 rioters, attempting to reduce the size of the federal workforce, and initiating a deportation program of illegal immigrants.
His broad and extensive use of executive orders has drawn dozens of lawsuits challenging their legality.
Early life and education
Pictured below: Trump at New York Military Academy, 1964:
2021.
Trump was born in New York City, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became president of his family's real estate business in 1971 and oriented it to luxury hotels and casinos.
After a series of bankruptcies in the 1990s and 2000s, he began side ventures.
- From 2004 to 2015, he hosted the reality television show The Apprentice.
- A political outsider, Trump won the 2016 presidential election against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
In his first term, Trump imposed a travel ban on citizens from six Muslim-majority countries, expanded the U.S.–Mexico border wall, and implemented a brief family separation policy.
Domestically, he rolled back environmental and business regulations, signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and appointed three Supreme Court justices.
In foreign policy, he withdrew the U.S. from agreements on climate, trade, and Iran's nuclear program, began a trade war with China, and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without reaching an agreement on denuclearization.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he downplayed its severity, contradicted guidance from public health officials, and enacted the CARES Act stimulus package.
Trump was impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection; the Senate acquitted him in both cases.
After his first term, scholars and historians ranked him one of the worst presidents in American history.
Trump is the central figure behind and namesake of Trumpism. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged, racist or misogynistic, and he has made false and misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to a degree unprecedented in American politics.
Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede, falsely claiming electoral fraud, and attempted to overturn the results, including through his involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021.
He founded Trump Media & Technology Group that year. Trump ran again for the 2024 presidential election, defeating incumbent vice president Kamala Harris.
Trump faced legal issues between presidencies and during his 2024 campaign:
- In civil proceedings, he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, and financial fraud in 2024.
- He was found guilty of falsifying business records in 2024, making him the first U.S. president convicted of a felony.
After his victory in the 2024 presidential election, Trump was sentenced to a penalty-free discharge in 2025, and two other felony indictments against him were dismissed.
Trump began his second presidency by pardoning around 1,500 January 6 rioters, attempting to reduce the size of the federal workforce, and initiating a deportation program of illegal immigrants.
His broad and extensive use of executive orders has drawn dozens of lawsuits challenging their legality.
Early life and education
Pictured below: Trump at New York Military Academy, 1964:
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 at age eight by contemporary standards.
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 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 $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 was settled with the Trumps signing a consent decree agreeing to desegregate. Before age thirty, Trump 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:
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.
Manhattan and Chicago developments:
Pictured below: Trump in 1985 with a model of one of his aborted Manhattan development projects
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 at age eight by contemporary standards.
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 bone spurs in his heels.
Business career:
- Main article: Business career of Donald Trump
- Further information:
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 $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 was settled with the Trumps signing a consent decree agreeing to desegregate. Before age thirty, Trump 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,
- Four 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.
Manhattan and Chicago developments:
Pictured below: Trump in 1985 with a model of one of his aborted Manhattan development projects
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 70-acre (28 ha) 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
Pictured below: Entrance of the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City
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 70-acre (28 ha) 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
Pictured below: Entrance of the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City
- 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 (see preceding illustration). 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.
Trump began building and buying golf courses in 1999, owning 17 golf courses by 2016.
Licensing the Trump name:
See also: List of things named after Donald Trump
The Trump Organization has licensed the Trump name for consumer products and services, including foodstuffs, apparel, learning courses, and home furnishings. According to The Washington Post, there are more than 50 licensing or management deals involving his name, and they have generated at least $59 million for his companies. By 2018, only two consumer goods companies continued to license his name.
Side ventures:
Pictured below: Trump and New Jersey Generals quarterback Doug Flutie at a 1985 press conference in Trump Tower
- 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 [NFL] for 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 $979 million in 2023) 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
Main article: Donald J. Trump 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 committed several potential legal and ethical violations, including alleged self-dealing and possible tax 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:
Main article: Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump
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 (below), the bank decided not to do business with him or his company in the future.
Wealth
Main article: Wealth of Donald Trump
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 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 a low of minus $900 million in 1990, to a high of $10 billion in 2015. In 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at $2.3 billion and ranked him the 1,438th wealthiest person in the world.
Media career
Main article: Media career of Donald Trump
See also: Bibliography of Donald Trump
Trump has produced 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.
Starting in the 1990s, Trump was a guest 24 times 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:
Main articles:
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
Further information:
- Political career of Donald Trump: 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".
Trump was a candidate in the 2000 Reform Party presidential primaries for three months, 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 in February and giving speeches in early primary states.
In May 2011, he announced he would not run.
2016 presidential election
Main article: Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign
Further information:
- 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries,
- 2016 United States presidential election,
- and First presidential transition of Donald Trump
Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015. He became the Republican front-runner in March 2016 and was declared the presumptive Republican nominee in May.
His campaign statements were often opaque and suggestive, and a record number were false. He was highly critical of media coverage and frequently made claims of media bias.
Hillary Clinton led Trump in national polling averages throughout the campaign, but, in early July, her lead narrowed. In mid-July, he 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. He twice refused to say whether he would accept the result of the election.
Trump described NATO as "obsolete" and espoused views that were described 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 appeals to whites" 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.
On November 8, 2016, Trump received 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Clinton.After elector defections on both sides, the official count was 304 to 227. The fifth person to be elected president while losing the popular vote, he received nearly 2.9 million fewer votes than Clinton, 46.3% to her 48.25%.
Trump was the only president who neither served in the military nor held any government office prior to becoming president. Trump won 30 states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, states which had been considered a blue wall of Democratic strongholds since the 1990s. His victory marked the return of an undivided Republican government—a Republican president combined with Republican control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump's victory sparked protests in major U.S. cities.
First presidency (2017–2021)
Main article: First presidency of Donald Trump
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of the Donald Trump presidencies.
Early actions
See also: First presidential transition of Donald Trump and First 100 days of the first Donald Trump presidency
Pictured below: Trump took his first oath of office, administered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., at the Capitol on January 20, 2017
Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. The day after his inauguration, an estimated 2.6 million people worldwide, including a half million in Washington, D.C., protested against him in the Women's Marches.
During his first week in office, Trump signed six executive orders, including:
Conflicts of interest
See also: First presidency of Donald Trump § Ethics
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.
Domestic policy
Main articles:
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 set the penalty associated with the Affordable Care Act's (AFC) individual mandate to $0.
The Trump administration claimed that the AFC 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.
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.
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.
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".
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:
Further information: List of people granted executive clemency by Donald Trump
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:
Main articles:
In his first days in office, Trump:
Trump sought to implement mass deportations, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) setting a goal of 1,200 to 1,500 daily arrests. However, actual numbers of arrests have lagged these goals and the rates of arrests under the Obama and Biden administrations.
Trump initially focused deportation operations in sanctuary cities and against individuals on "target lists" of criminals formed prior to the Trump administration. Removals were also expedited for asylum applicants who failed to meet requirements.
Trump also suspended refugee processing for four months and revoked the parole status of migrants who entered the U.S. under CBP One and CHNV humanitarian parole.
He attempted to remove birthright citizenship. On January 29, 2025, he signed the Laken Riley Act into law.
Foreign policy, 2025–present
Trump's second term foreign policy has been described as imperialist and expansionist.
He ordered the U.S. government to stop funding and working with the World Health Organization (WHO) and announced the U.S.'s intention to formally leave the WHO.
He and his incoming administration helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas alongside the Biden administration, enacted a day prior to his inauguration.
Personnel, 2025–present:
Main article: Second cabinet of Donald Trump
Further information: Political appointments of the second Trump administration and 2025 United States federal mass layoffs
On February 3, 2025, the White House said that Elon Musk was a special government employee. Trump gave Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—which is not a federal department—access to many federal government agencies. Musk teams operated in eleven agencies by early February, including:
Political practice and rhetoric
Further information:
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. His political base has been compared to a 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. The alt-right movement coalesced around and supported his candidacy, due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and immigration.
He has a strong appeal to evangelical Christian voters and Christian nationalists, and his rallies take on the symbols, rhetoric and agenda of Christian nationalism.
Racial and gender views:
Many of Trump's comments and actions have been described as racist. In national polling, about half of respondents said that 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 a powerful indicator of support for Trump.
He has also 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 when the actual rapist confessed and his DNA matched the evidence.
In 2024, the men sued Trump for defamation after he said in a televised debate that they had committed the crime and killed the woman.
In 2011, when he was reportedly considering a presidential run, Trump became the leading proponent of the racist "birther" conspiracy theory, alleging that Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was not born in the United States.
In April, he claimed credit for pressuring the White House to publish the "long-form" birth certificate, which he considered fraudulent, and later said this made him "very popular". In September 2016, amid pressure, he acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S.
In 2017, he reportedly expressed birther views privately. 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.
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 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 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." 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
Further information: Rhetoric of Donald Trump § Violence and dehumanization
Trump has been identified as a key figure in increasing political violence in America, both for and against him. He is described as embracing extremism, conspiracy theories such as Q-Anon, and far-right 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, including participants in the storming of the U.S. Capitol, cited his rhetoric in arguing that they were not culpable or should receive leniency.
A nationwide review by 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 normalization and revisionist history of the January 6 Capitol attack (see next topic), and grant of clemency to all January 6 rioters, were described by counterterrorism researchers as encouraging future political violence.
Conspiracy theories:
Main article: List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
Before and throughout his presidency, Trump promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including:
During and since the 2020 presidential election, he promoted various conspiracy theories for his defeat that were characterized as "the big lie".
Truthfulness:
Main article: False or misleading statements by Donald Trump
Pictured below: False or misleading claims by Donald Trump as compiled by the Washington Post:
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
See also: First presidency of Donald Trump § Ethics
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 U.S. Supreme Court as moot after his term.
Domestic policy
Main articles:
- Economic policy of the first Donald Trump administration,
- Environmental policy of the first Donald Trump administration,
- and Social policy of the first Donald Trump administration
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 set the penalty associated with the Affordable Care Act's (AFC) individual mandate to $0.
The Trump administration claimed that the AFC 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.
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.
- 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 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 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 such as 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:
Further information: List of people granted executive clemency by Donald Trump
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:
Main articles:
- Immigration policy of the first Donald Trump administration
- Mexico–United States border crisis § First Trump administration (2017–2021)
- Trump travel ban,
- Trump administration family separation policy,
- and Mexico–United States border wall § First Trump administration (2017–2021)
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.
- He indefinitely paused the refugee admissions program.
Trump sought to implement mass deportations, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) setting a goal of 1,200 to 1,500 daily arrests. However, actual numbers of arrests have lagged these goals and the rates of arrests under the Obama and Biden administrations.
Trump initially focused deportation operations in sanctuary cities and against individuals on "target lists" of criminals formed prior to the Trump administration. Removals were also expedited for asylum applicants who failed to meet requirements.
Trump also suspended refugee processing for four months and revoked the parole status of migrants who entered the U.S. under CBP One and CHNV humanitarian parole.
He attempted to remove birthright citizenship. On January 29, 2025, he signed the Laken Riley Act into law.
Foreign policy, 2025–present
- Main article: Foreign policy of the second Donald Trump administration
- Further information:
Trump's second term foreign policy has been described as imperialist and expansionist.
He ordered the U.S. government to stop funding and working with the World Health Organization (WHO) and announced the U.S.'s intention to formally leave the WHO.
He and his incoming administration helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas alongside the Biden administration, enacted a day prior to his inauguration.
Personnel, 2025–present:
Main article: Second cabinet of Donald Trump
Further information: Political appointments of the second Trump administration and 2025 United States federal mass layoffs
On February 3, 2025, the White House said that Elon Musk was a special government employee. Trump gave Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—which is not a federal department—access to many federal government agencies. Musk teams operated in eleven agencies by early February, including:
- the Treasury Department's $5 trillion payment system,
- Small Business Administration,
- Office of Personnel Management,
- and the General Services Administration.
Political practice and rhetoric
Further information:
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. His political base has been compared to a 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. The alt-right movement coalesced around and supported his candidacy, due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and immigration.
He has a strong appeal to evangelical Christian voters and Christian nationalists, and his rallies take on the symbols, rhetoric and agenda of Christian nationalism.
Racial and gender views:
Many of Trump's comments and actions have been described as racist. In national polling, about half of respondents said that 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 a powerful indicator of support for Trump.
He has also 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 when the actual rapist confessed and his DNA matched the evidence.
In 2024, the men sued Trump for defamation after he said in a televised debate that they had committed the crime and killed the woman.
In 2011, when he was reportedly considering a presidential run, Trump became the leading proponent of the racist "birther" conspiracy theory, alleging that Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was not born in the United States.
In April, he claimed credit for pressuring the White House to publish the "long-form" birth certificate, which he considered fraudulent, and later said this made him "very popular". In September 2016, amid pressure, he acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S.
In 2017, he reportedly expressed birther views privately. 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.
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 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 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." 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
Further information: Rhetoric of Donald Trump § Violence and dehumanization
Trump has been identified as a key figure in increasing political violence in America, both for and against him. He is described as embracing extremism, conspiracy theories such as Q-Anon, and far-right 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, including participants in the storming of the U.S. Capitol, cited his rhetoric in arguing that they were not culpable or should receive leniency.
A nationwide review by 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 normalization and revisionist history of the January 6 Capitol attack (see next topic), and grant of clemency to all January 6 rioters, were described by counterterrorism researchers as encouraging future political violence.
Conspiracy theories:
Main article: List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
Before and throughout his presidency, Trump promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including:
- Obama birtherism,
- global warming being a hoax,
- and alleged Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections.
During and since the 2020 presidential election, he promoted various conspiracy theories for his defeat that were characterized as "the big lie".
Truthfulness:
Main article: False or misleading statements by Donald Trump
Pictured below: False or misleading claims by Donald Trump as compiled by the Washington Post:
As a candidate and as president, 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, such as his repeated claim of the "biggest inaugural crowd ever". Others had more far-reaching effects, such as his promotion of antimalarial drugs as an unproven 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.
Trump 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:
Main articles:
Trump's social media presence attracted worldwide attention after he joined Twitter in 2009. He tweeted 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 June 2017, the White House press secretary said that his tweets were 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 tweeted that social media platforms "totally silence" conservatives and that he would "strongly regulate, or close them down".
In the days after the storming of the Capitol, he was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms. The loss of his social media presence diminished his ability to shape events and prompted a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation shared 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 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, although in 2024, he continued to call the company an "enemy of the people". In January 2025, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit filed by Trump over his suspension.
Relationship with the press:
Further information:
Trump sought media attention throughout his career, sustaining a "love-hate" relationship with the press.
In the 2016 campaign, he benefited from a record amount of free media coverage. The New York Times writer Amy Chozick wrote in 2018 that his media dominance enthralled the public and created "must-see TV".
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". In 2018, journalist Lesley Stahl said that he had privately told her that he intentionally discredited the media "so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you".
The first Trump presidency reduced formal press briefings from about a 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. The Atlantic characterized the suits as an intimidation tactic.
By 2024, he repeatedly voiced support for 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.
In 2024, he sued ABC News for defamation after George Stephanopoulos said on-air that a jury had found him civilly liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. The case was settled in December with ABC's parent company, Walt Disney, apologizing for the inaccurate claims about Trump and agreeing to donate $15 million to his future presidential library.
Personal life:
Family
Further information: Family of Donald Trump
In 1977, Trump married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková. They had three children: Donald Jr. (b. 1977), Ivanka (b. 1981), and 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 (b. 1993), whom Maples raised in California.
In 2005, he married Slovenian model Melania Knauss. They have one son, Barron (b. 2006).
Health
Main article: Age and health concerns about Donald Trump
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.
Religion
Main article: Donald Trump and religion
Trump declared that he was a Presbyterian and a Protestant in 2016, though in 2020, he began to identify as a nondenominational Christian.
Assessments:
Public image:
Main articles: See also:
A Gallup poll in 134 countries comparing the approval ratings of U.S. leadership between 2016 and 2017 found that:
During his first presidency, research from 2020 found that Trump had a stronger impact on popular assessments towards American political parties and partisan opinions than any president since the Truman administration.
In 2021, he was identified as the only president never to reach a 50 percent approval rating in the Gallup poll, which dates to 1938, partially due to a record-high partisan gap in his approval ratings: 88 percent among Republicans and 7 percent among Democrats.
Trump's early ratings were unusually stable, ranging between 35 and 49 percent. He finished his term with a rating between 29 and 34 percent—the lowest of any president since modern polling began—and a record-low average of 41 percent throughout his presidency.
In Gallup's annual poll asking Americans to name the man they admire the most, Trump placed second to Obama in 2017 and 2018, tied with Obama for first in 2019, and placed first in 2020. Since Gallup started conducting the poll in 1946, he was the first elected president not to be named most admired in his first year in office.
According to Gallup, Trump began his second term with an approval rating of 47% and a disapproval rating of 48%. His approval rating was extremely politically polarized, being approved by 91% of Republicans, 46% of independents, and 6% of Democrats.
Scholarly rankings:
Further information: Historical rankings of presidents of the United States
In C-SPAN's "Presidential Historians Survey 2021", 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 ranked him 43rd out of 45 presidents. He was ranked near the bottom in all categories except for luck, willingness to take risks, and party leadership, and he ranked last in several categories. In 2018 and 2024, surveys of members of the American Political Science Association ranked him the worst president.
See also
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, such as his repeated claim of the "biggest inaugural crowd ever". Others had more far-reaching effects, such as his promotion of antimalarial drugs as an unproven 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.
Trump 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:
Main articles:
Trump's social media presence attracted worldwide attention after he joined Twitter in 2009. He tweeted 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 June 2017, the White House press secretary said that his tweets were 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 tweeted that social media platforms "totally silence" conservatives and that he would "strongly regulate, or close them down".
In the days after the storming of the Capitol, he was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms. The loss of his social media presence diminished his ability to shape events and prompted a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation shared 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 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, although in 2024, he continued to call the company an "enemy of the people". In January 2025, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit filed by Trump over his suspension.
Relationship with the press:
Further information:
- First presidency of Donald Trump § Relationship with the news media,
- Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump
Trump sought media attention throughout his career, sustaining a "love-hate" relationship with the press.
In the 2016 campaign, he benefited from a record amount of free media coverage. The New York Times writer Amy Chozick wrote in 2018 that his media dominance enthralled the public and created "must-see TV".
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". In 2018, journalist Lesley Stahl said that he had privately told her that he intentionally discredited the media "so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you".
The first Trump presidency reduced formal press briefings from about a 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. The Atlantic characterized the suits as an intimidation tactic.
By 2024, he repeatedly voiced support for 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.
In 2024, he sued ABC News for defamation after George Stephanopoulos said on-air that a jury had found him civilly liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. The case was settled in December with ABC's parent company, Walt Disney, apologizing for the inaccurate claims about Trump and agreeing to donate $15 million to his future presidential library.
Personal life:
Family
Further information: Family of Donald Trump
In 1977, Trump married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková. They had three children: Donald Jr. (b. 1977), Ivanka (b. 1981), and 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 (b. 1993), whom Maples raised in California.
In 2005, he married Slovenian model Melania Knauss. They have one son, Barron (b. 2006).
Health
Main article: Age and health concerns about Donald Trump
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.
Religion
Main article: Donald Trump and religion
Trump declared that he was a Presbyterian and a Protestant in 2016, though in 2020, he began to identify as a nondenominational Christian.
Assessments:
Public image:
Main articles: See also:
- Opinion polling on the first Donald Trump administration
- Opinion polling on the second Donald Trump administration
A Gallup poll in 134 countries comparing the approval ratings of U.S. leadership between 2016 and 2017 found that:
- Trump led Obama in job approval in 29 countries, most of them non-democracies;
- approval of U.S. leadership plummeted among allies and G7 countries.
- By mid-2020, 16 percent of international respondents to a 13-nation Pew Research poll expressed confidence in him, lower than China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
During his first presidency, research from 2020 found that Trump had a stronger impact on popular assessments towards American political parties and partisan opinions than any president since the Truman administration.
In 2021, he was identified as the only president never to reach a 50 percent approval rating in the Gallup poll, which dates to 1938, partially due to a record-high partisan gap in his approval ratings: 88 percent among Republicans and 7 percent among Democrats.
Trump's early ratings were unusually stable, ranging between 35 and 49 percent. He finished his term with a rating between 29 and 34 percent—the lowest of any president since modern polling began—and a record-low average of 41 percent throughout his presidency.
In Gallup's annual poll asking Americans to name the man they admire the most, Trump placed second to Obama in 2017 and 2018, tied with Obama for first in 2019, and placed first in 2020. Since Gallup started conducting the poll in 1946, he was the first elected president not to be named most admired in his first year in office.
According to Gallup, Trump began his second term with an approval rating of 47% and a disapproval rating of 48%. His approval rating was extremely politically polarized, being approved by 91% of Republicans, 46% of independents, and 6% of Democrats.
Scholarly rankings:
Further information: Historical rankings of presidents of the United States
In C-SPAN's "Presidential Historians Survey 2021", 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 ranked him 43rd out of 45 presidents. He was ranked near the bottom in all categories except for luck, willingness to take risks, and party leadership, and he ranked last in several categories. In 2018 and 2024, surveys of members of the American Political Science Association ranked him the worst president.
See also
- Awards and honors received by Donald Trump
- Pseudonyms used by Donald Trump
- Archive of Donald Trump's tweets
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Donald Trump at IMDb
- Donald Trump on the Internet Archive
JD Vance: Vice-President under Donald Trump (2025-2029)
2/23/2025: James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman; August 2, 1984) is an American politician, author, attorney, and Marine Corps veteran serving as the 50th vice president of the United States since 2025 under President Donald Trump in the second and current administration. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 2023 to 2025.
Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio. After high school, Vance joined the Marine Corps, where he served as a military journalist from 2003 to 2007, and was deployed to the Iraq War for six months in 2005.
He graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in 2009 and Yale Law School with a law degree in 2013. He practiced briefly as a corporate lawyer before embarking on a career in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. His memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was published in 2016 and adapted into a film in 2020.
Vance won the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio, defeating Democratic nominee Tim Ryan. After initially opposing Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2016 election, Vance became a strong Trump supporter during Trump's first presidency.
In July 2024, Trump selected Vance as his running mate before the Republican National Convention. He served as Ohio's senator until his resignation in preparation to assume the vice presidency in January 2025. Vance is the third-youngest vice president in U.S. history, as well as the first millennial to hold the office.
Vance has been characterized as a national conservative and right-wing populist, and he describes himself as a member of the postliberal right. His political positions include opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and gun control.
Vance is an outspoken critic of childlessness and has acknowledged the influence of Catholic theology and Scotch-Irish Americans on his sociopolitical positions.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about J.D Vance:
Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio. After high school, Vance joined the Marine Corps, where he served as a military journalist from 2003 to 2007, and was deployed to the Iraq War for six months in 2005.
He graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in 2009 and Yale Law School with a law degree in 2013. He practiced briefly as a corporate lawyer before embarking on a career in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. His memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was published in 2016 and adapted into a film in 2020.
Vance won the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio, defeating Democratic nominee Tim Ryan. After initially opposing Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2016 election, Vance became a strong Trump supporter during Trump's first presidency.
In July 2024, Trump selected Vance as his running mate before the Republican National Convention. He served as Ohio's senator until his resignation in preparation to assume the vice presidency in January 2025. Vance is the third-youngest vice president in U.S. history, as well as the first millennial to hold the office.
Vance has been characterized as a national conservative and right-wing populist, and he describes himself as a member of the postliberal right. His political positions include opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and gun control.
Vance is an outspoken critic of childlessness and has acknowledged the influence of Catholic theology and Scotch-Irish Americans on his sociopolitical positions.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about J.D Vance:
- Early life, military service, and education
- Early career
U.S. Senate (2023–2025) - 2024 presidential election
- Vice presidency (2025–present)
- Political positions
- Personal life
- Electoral history
- Works
- See also:
Herein, we offer two sources of the risk to our Democracy if Project 2025 is implemented:
Project 2025: A Primer:
The Far-Right Playbook for American Authoritarianism:
With a 100-member advisory board composed of a “Who’s Who” of extreme far-right groups including Christian Nationalists and bigoted organizations, and tens of millions of dollars in funding from dark money donors, Project 2025 maps out a clear plan of sweeping reforms that would erode multiracial democracy should a “conservative” win the 2024 presidential election.
Spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 seeks to “rescue the country” from “elite rule and woke cultural warriors,” replacing democracy with Christian-based authoritarianism.
The guidelines for the first 180 days of the administration are detailed in a 900+-page document authored by leading far-right voices.
This Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise calls for draconian rollbacks of sexual health and reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ equality, racial equity, public education, climate, and environmental protections, all the while preferencing an exclusionary interpretation of Christianity and stripping rights from multiple communities.
Among policies called for in the first 180 days of a conservative presidency:
This plan is made easier if a “conservative” president is elected soon, but it’s not dependent upon upcoming elections. This is the plan that will continue to drive far-right thinking into the future as Christian Nationalist groups push for these changes. Elements of the plan are already being put in place on the local and state level.
[End of Article]
___________________________________________________________________________
Project 2025: (Wikipedia)
Project 2025 (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project) is a political initiative to reshape the federal government of the United States and consolidate executive power in favor of right-wing policies. The plan was published in April 2023 by The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, in anticipation of Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election.
The ninth iteration of the Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership series, Project 2025 is based on a controversial interpretation of the unitary executive theory that states that the entire executive branch is under the complete control of the president.
Proponents of Project 25 say it would dismantle a government bureaucracy which they say is unaccountable and mostly liberal.
Critics have characterized it as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan that would steer the U.S. toward autocracy.
Legal experts say it would undermine:
The project calls for merit-based federal civil service workers to be replaced with people loyal to Trump to take partisan control of key government agencies, like:
Other agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Education (ED), would be dismantled or abolished. The president would then be free to implement the Project 25 agenda, including:
Project 2025 calls for reducing environmental regulations to favor fossil fuels and proposes making the National Institutes of Health (NIH) less independent, and defunding its stem cell research. It proposes:
The project recommends the arrest, detention, and mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and deploying the military for domestic law enforcement. The plan also proposes enacting laws supported by the Christian right, such as criminalizing those who send and receive abortion and birth control medications, and eliminating coverage of emergency contraception.
Most of Project 2025's writers and contributors either worked within Trump's last administration or his election campaign. Trump campaign officials maintained contact with Project 2025, seeing its goals as aligned with their Agenda 47 program.
Trump later attempted to distance himself from the plan. After Trump won the 2024 election, he nominated several of the plan's architects and supporters to positions in his administration. Four days into his second term, analysis by Time found that nearly two-thirds of Trump's executive actions "mirror or partially mirror" proposals from Project 2025.
Click on any of the following hyperlinks for more about Project 2025:
The Far-Right Playbook for American Authoritarianism:
With a 100-member advisory board composed of a “Who’s Who” of extreme far-right groups including Christian Nationalists and bigoted organizations, and tens of millions of dollars in funding from dark money donors, Project 2025 maps out a clear plan of sweeping reforms that would erode multiracial democracy should a “conservative” win the 2024 presidential election.
Spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 seeks to “rescue the country” from “elite rule and woke cultural warriors,” replacing democracy with Christian-based authoritarianism.
The guidelines for the first 180 days of the administration are detailed in a 900+-page document authored by leading far-right voices.
This Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise calls for draconian rollbacks of sexual health and reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ equality, racial equity, public education, climate, and environmental protections, all the while preferencing an exclusionary interpretation of Christianity and stripping rights from multiple communities.
Among policies called for in the first 180 days of a conservative presidency:
- Eliminating LGBQI+ and transgender rights.
- Eradicating federal funding for DEI programs.
- Participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative will be grounds for termination of government employees.
- Ending reproductive freedom and replacing the Department of Health and Human Services with the “Department of Life.”
- Ending climate change and environmental policies by shutting down:
- the Office of Domestic Climate Policy,
- the Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations,
- the Office of Environmental Justice, and External Civil Rights,
- and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
- to name a few.
- Climate science will no longer be used in National Security.
- Slashing of the Department of Justice and dismantling the FBI and replacing their traditional independence from political pressure with fealty to the administration.
- Purging the government of apolitical civil servants by firing as many as 50,000 and hiring replacements from a database of personnel vetted for conservative values and loyalty, a “Conservative Linked In.”
- Successful candidates will undergo training at a “Presidential Training Academy” and be furnished “with the insight, background knowledge, and expertise in governance to immediately begin rolling back destructive policy and advancing conservative ideas in the federal government.”
- Eliminating the checks and balances built into three branches of government in favor of expanded control by the executive branch.
- Replacing the Department of Homeland Security with:
- a 100,000-worker-strong immigration department,
- militarization of the border and an end to refugee programs.
- Fundamentally altering American diplomacy to push:
- anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ agendas,
- adopt a “human rights” regime distinct from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
- and abandon international organizations and traditional diplomatic and security alliances.
This plan is made easier if a “conservative” president is elected soon, but it’s not dependent upon upcoming elections. This is the plan that will continue to drive far-right thinking into the future as Christian Nationalist groups push for these changes. Elements of the plan are already being put in place on the local and state level.
[End of Article]
___________________________________________________________________________
Project 2025: (Wikipedia)
Project 2025 (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project) is a political initiative to reshape the federal government of the United States and consolidate executive power in favor of right-wing policies. The plan was published in April 2023 by The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, in anticipation of Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election.
The ninth iteration of the Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership series, Project 2025 is based on a controversial interpretation of the unitary executive theory that states that the entire executive branch is under the complete control of the president.
Proponents of Project 25 say it would dismantle a government bureaucracy which they say is unaccountable and mostly liberal.
Critics have characterized it as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan that would steer the U.S. toward autocracy.
Legal experts say it would undermine:
The project calls for merit-based federal civil service workers to be replaced with people loyal to Trump to take partisan control of key government agencies, like:
- the Department of Justice (DOJ),
- Department of Commerce (DOC),
- and Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Other agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Education (ED), would be dismantled or abolished. The president would then be free to implement the Project 25 agenda, including:
- reducing taxes on corporations and capital gains,
- instituting a flat income tax on individuals,
- cutting Medicare and Medicaid,
- and reversing former president Joe Biden's policies.
Project 2025 calls for reducing environmental regulations to favor fossil fuels and proposes making the National Institutes of Health (NIH) less independent, and defunding its stem cell research. It proposes:
- criminalizing pornography,
- removing legal protections against anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination,
- and ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs
- while having the DOJ prosecute anti-white racism instead.
The project recommends the arrest, detention, and mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and deploying the military for domestic law enforcement. The plan also proposes enacting laws supported by the Christian right, such as criminalizing those who send and receive abortion and birth control medications, and eliminating coverage of emergency contraception.
Most of Project 2025's writers and contributors either worked within Trump's last administration or his election campaign. Trump campaign officials maintained contact with Project 2025, seeing its goals as aligned with their Agenda 47 program.
Trump later attempted to distance himself from the plan. After Trump won the 2024 election, he nominated several of the plan's architects and supporters to positions in his administration. Four days into his second term, analysis by Time found that nearly two-thirds of Trump's executive actions "mirror or partially mirror" proposals from Project 2025.
Click on any of the following hyperlinks for more about Project 2025:
- Background
- Advisory board and leadership
- Philosophical outlook
- Policies
- Other initiatives
- Database
- Training modules
- Draft executive orders
- Dawn's Early Light
- Implementation
- Reactions and responses
- See also:
- America First Policy Institute – U.S. advocacy organization which has a transition project which is viewed as a rival to Project 2025
- Donald Trump and fascism
- Hiring and personnel concerns about Donald Trump
- Human rights inflation – Criticism of human rights expansion
- Neopatriarchy – Modern revival of traditional patriarchal norms
- Southern strategy – 20th century Republican electoral strategy for the Southern US
- Project Esther
- Official website
- "Top Project 2025 architect talks conservative blueprint for Trump second term" on the MSNBC show The Weekend, an interview of Kevin Roberts
- "Paul Dans discussing the 2025 Presidential Transition Project" on C-SPAN call-in show Washington Journal