Who Is Donald Trump?
Donald Trump is the 45th and current President of the United
States; he took office on January 20, 2017. Previously, he was a real estate
mogul and a former reality TV star. In 1980, he opened the Grand Hyatt New
York, which made him the city's best-known developer. In 2004, Trump began
starring in the hit NBC reality series The Apprentice. Trump turned his
attention to politics, and in 2015 he announced his candidacy for president of
the United States on the Republican ticket. After winning a majority of the
primaries and caucuses, Trump became the official Republican candidate for
president on July 19, 2016. That November, Trump was elected the 45th President
of the United States, after defeating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
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| Donald Trump Addressing American |
Early Life and Education
Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York. He was
an energetic, assertive child. In the 1950s, the Trumps’ wealth increased with
the postwar real estate boom. Trump was raised Presbyterian by his mother,
and he identifies as a mainline Protestant.
At age 13, Trump’s parents sent him to the New York Military
Academy, hoping the discipline of the school would channel his energy in a
positive manner. He did well at the academy, both socially and academically,
rising to become a star athlete and student leader by the time he graduated in
1964.
Trump entered Fordham University in 1964. He transferred to
the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania two years later
and graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics.
During his years at college, Trump worked at his father’s
real estate business during the summer. He also secured education deferments
for the draft for the Vietnam War and ultimately a 1-Y medical deferment after
he graduated.
Parents and Siblings
Father
Trump’s father, Frederick Trump, was a builder and real
estate developer who specialized in constructing and operating middle-income
apartments in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn.
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| Donald Trump with his son |
Mother
Trump’s mother, Mary MacLeod, immigrated from Tong,
Scotland, in 1929 at the age of 17. She and Fred Trump married in 1936. The
couple settled in Jamaica, Queens, a neighborhood that was, at the time, filled
with Western European immigrants. As the family’s wealth increased, Mary became
a New York socialite and philanthropist.
Fred died in 1999, and Mary passed away the following year.
Siblings
Trump is the fourth of five children.
Maryanne Trump Barry was a senior judge of the US Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit, but took an inactive stats soon after her
brother became president.
Fred Trump Jr. worked briefly with his father and then
became a pilot. He struggled with alcohol and died in 1981 at the age of 43,
prompting Donald to announce that he never drinks alcohol or take drugs.
"He had a profound impact on my life, because you never know where you're
going to end up," Trump said.
Elizabeth Trump Grau is a retired banker who is married to
film producer James Grau.
Robert Trump is Donald’s younger brother who spent much of
his career working for the family company.
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| Donald Trump with his Family |
Wives
Melania Trump
Trump is currently married to former Slovenian model Melania
Trump (née Knauss), who is more than 23 years his junior. In January 2005, the
couple married in a highly-publicized and lavish wedding. Among the many
celebrity guests at the wedding were Hillary Clinton and former President Bill
Clinton.
Ivana Trump
In 1977, Trump married his first wife Ivana Trump, (née
Zelnickova Winklmayr), a New York fashion model who had been an alternate on
the 1972 Czech Olympic Ski Team. She was named vice president in charge of
design in the Trump Organization and played a major role in supervising the
renovation of the Commodore and the Plaza Hotel.
The couple had three children together: Donald Trump Jr.,
Ivanka and Eric. They went through a highly publicized divorce that was
finalized in 1992.
Marla Maples
In 1993 Trump married his second wife, Marla Maples, an
actress with whom he had been involved for some time and already had a
daughter, Tiffany.
Trump would ultimately file for a highly publicized divorce
from Maples in 1997, which became final in June 1999. A prenuptial agreement
allotted $2 million to Maples.
Children
Trump has five children. He and his first wife, Ivana Trump,
had three children together: Donald Trump Jr., born in 1977; Ivanka Trump, born
in 1981, and Eric Trump, born in 1984. Trump and his second wife, Marla Maples,
had daughter Tiffany Trump in 1993. And current wife Melania Trump gave birth
to Trump’s youngest child, Barron William Trump, in March 2006.
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| Grand daughter of Donald Trump |
Trump's sons — Donald Jr. and Eric— work as executive vice presidents for The Trump Organization. They took over the family business while their father serves as president.
Trump's daughter Ivanka was also an executive vice president
of The Trump Organization. She left the business and her own fashion label to
join her father's administration and become an unpaid assistant to the
president. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is also a senior adviser to President
Trump.
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| Grandson of Donald Trump |
Trump’s Real Estate and Businesses
Trump followed his father into a career in real estate
development, bringing his grander ambitions to the family business. Trump’s
business ventures include The Trump Organization, Trump Tower, casinos in
Atlantic City and television franchises like The Apprentice and Miss Universe. Trump
has business deals with the Javits Center and the Grand Hyatt New York, as well
as other real estate ventures in New York City, Florida and Los Angeles.
Federal income disclosure forms Trump filed in 2017 list
Trump's golf courses, including Trump National Doral and Mar-a-Lago in Florida,
as earning about half of his income. Other financial ventures include aircraft,
merchandise and royalties from his two books, The Art of the Deal and Crippled
America: How to Make America Great Again.
The Art of the Deal
In 1987, Trump published the book The Art of the Deal,
co-authored with Tony Schwartz. In the book, Trump describes how he
successfully makes business deals.
“I DON’T do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more
than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form,” Trump wrote.
The book made the New York Times best-seller list, although
the number of copies sold has been debated; sales have been estimated at
between 1 to 4 million copies to-date. Schwartz later became an outspoken
critic of the book and of Trump, saying he felt remorseful for helping make the
president “more appealing than he is.”
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| Donald Trump |
Wealth
Over the years, Trump’s net worth have been a subject of
public debate. Because Trump has not publicly released his tax returns, it’s
not possible to definitively determine his wealth in the past or today.
However, Trump valued his businesses at least $1.37 billion on his 2017 federal
financial disclosure form, published by the Office of Government Ethics.
Trump’s 2018 disclosure form put his revenue for the year at a minimum of $434
million from all sources.
In 1990, Trump asserted his own net worth in the
neighborhood of $1.5 billion. At the time, the real estate market was in
decline, reducing the value of and income from Trump's empire. The Trump
Organization required a massive infusion of loans to keep it from collapsing, a
situation that raised questions as to whether the corporation could survive
bankruptcy. Some observers saw Trump's decline as symbolic of many of the
business, economic and social excesses that had arisen in the 1980s.
A May 2019 investigation by The New York Times of 10 years
of Trump’s tax information found that between 1985 and 1994, his businesses
lost money every year. The newspaper calculated that Trump’s businesses
suffered $1.17 billion in losses over the decade.
Trump later defended himself on Twitter, calling the Times’
report “a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!” He tweeted that he reported
“losses for tax purposes,” and that doing so was a “sport” among real estate
developers.
Tax Returns
Trump’s net worth was questioned over the course of his 2016
presidential run, and he courted controversy after repeatedly refusing to
release his tax returns while they were being audited by the Internal Revenue
Service. He did not release his tax returns during the election, and he has not
to date. It was the first time a major party candidate had not released such information
to the public before a presidential election since Richard Nixon in 1972.
After Democrats regained control of the House with the 2018
elections, Trump again faced calls to release his tax returns. In April 2019,
Congressman Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,
requested six years' worth of the president's personal and business tax returns
from the IRS. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin rejected the request, as well as
Neal's follow-up subpoena for the documents.
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| Donald Trump |
In May the New York State Assembly passed legislation that
authorized tax officials to release the president's state returns to the
chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee
and the Joint Committee on Taxation for any "specified and legitimate
legislative purpose." With New York City serving as the home base for the
Trump Organization, it was believed that the state returns would contain much
of the same information as the president's federal returns.
In September 2019, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance
Jr. subpoenaed the accounting firm Mazars USA for Trump's personal and
corporate tax returns dating back to 2011, prompting a challenge from the
president's lawyers. A Manhattan federal district judge dismissed Trump's
lawsuit in October, though the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 2nd
Circuit agreed to temporarily delay enforcement of the subpoena while
considering arguments in the case. A few days later, that same appeals court
rejected Trump's bid to block another subpoena issued to Mazars USA, this one
from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
After the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over
whether the president could block the disclosure of his financial information
to congressional committees and the Manhattan district attorney in December
2019, the cases were presented to the Court the following May.
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| Donald Trump |
Lawsuits and Investigations
Fair Housing Act Discrimination Trial
In 1973, the federal government filed a complaint against
Trump, his father and their company alleging that they had discriminated
against tenants and potential tenants based on their race, a violation of the
Fair Housing Act, which is part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
After a lengthy legal battle, the case was settled in 1975.
As part of the agreement, the Trump company had to train employees about the
Fair Housing Act and inform the community about its fair housing practices.
Trump wrote about the resolution of the case in his 1987
memoir Art of the Deal: "In the end, the government couldn’t prove its
case, and we ended up taking a minor settlement without admitting any
guilt."
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| Donald Trump Addressing his Team |
Trump University
In 2005, Trump launched his for-profit Trump University,
offering classes in real estate and acquiring and managing wealth. The venture
had been under scrutiny almost since its inception and at the time of his 2015
presidential bid, it remained the subject of multiple lawsuits.
In the cases, claimants accused Trump of fraud, false
advertising and breach of contract. Controversy about the suits made headlines
when Trump suggested that U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel could not be
impartial in overseeing two class action cases because of his Mexican heritage.
On November 18, 2016, Trump, who had previously vowed to
take the matter to trial, settled three of the lawsuits for $25 million without
admission of liability. In a statement from New York Attorney General Eric
Schneiderman, he called the settlement, “a stunning reversal by Trump and a
major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”
Donald J. Trump Foundation
Later, in a separate incident related to Trump University,
it was reported that Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi decided not to join the
existing New York fraud lawsuit. This came just days after she had received a
sizable campaign donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which was
founded in 1988 as a private charity organization designed to make donations to
nonprofit groups. In November 2016, it was reported that Bondi's name was on
Trump's list as a possible U.S. Attorney General contender.
As a result of the improper donation to Bondi's campaign,
Trump was required to pay the IRS a penalty and his foundation came under
scrutiny about the use of its funds for non-charitable activities. According to
tax records, The Trump Foundation itself was found to have received no
charitable gifts from Trump since 2008, and that all donations since that time
had come from outside contributors.
In fall 2019, after Trump admitted to misusing money raised
by his foundation to promote his presidential campaign and settle debts, he was
ordered to pay $2 million in damages.
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| Donald Trump on the stage |
Political Party
Trump is currently registered as a Republican. He has
switched parties several times in the past three decades.
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| Donald Trump with Indian PM Narendra Modi |
In 1987, Trump registered as a Republican; two years later,
in 1989, he registered as an Independent. In 2000, Trump ran for president for
the first time on the Reform platform. In 2001, he registered as a Democrat.
By 2009, Trump had switched back to the Republican party,
although he registered as an Independent in 2011 to allow for a potential run
in the following year’s presidential election. He finally returned to the
Republican party to endorse Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential run and has
remained a Republican since.
2016 Presidential Campaign vs. Clinton
Trump became the official Republican nominee for president
in the 2016 presidential election against Democrat Clinton. Defying polls and
media projections, he won the majority of electoral college votes in a stunning
victory on November 8, 2016. Despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton
by almost 2.9 million votes, Trump's electoral win — 306 electoral college
votes to Clinton's 232 — clinched his victory as the 45th president of the
United States.
After one of the most contentious presidential races in U.S.
history, Trump's rise to the office of president was considered a resounding
rejection of establishment politics by blue-collar and working-class Americans.
In his victory speech, Trump said: “I pledge to every
citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans." About his
supporters, he said: "As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a
campaign, but rather an incredible and great movement made up of millions of
hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter
future for themselves and for their families.”
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| Donald Trump with Pakistani PM |
Election Platforms
On July 21, 2016, Trump accepted the presidential nomination
at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. In his speech, he outlined
the issues he would tackle as president, including violence in America, the
economy, immigration, trade, terrorism, and the appointment of Supreme Court
justices.
On immigration, he said: “We are going to build a great
border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence,
and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities.”
He also promised supporters that he would renegotiate trade
deals, reduce taxes and government regulations, repeal the Affordable Care Act
(otherwise known as Obamacare), defend Second Amendment gun rights, and
“rebuild our depleted military,” asking the countries the U.S. is protecting
"to pay their fair share."
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| Donald Trump with workers on Labor Day |
Inauguration
On January 20, 2017, Trump was sworn in as the 45th
president of the United States by Chief Justice of the United States John
Roberts. Trump took the oath of office placing his hand on the Bible that was
used at Abraham Lincoln's inauguration and his own family Bible, which was
presented to him by his mother in 1955 when he graduated from Sunday school at
his family's Presbyterian church.
In his inaugural speech on January 20th, Trump sent a
populist message that he would put the American people above politics. “What
truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our
government is controlled by the people,” he said. “January 20, 2017, will be
remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”
He went on to paint a bleak picture of an America that had
failed many of its citizens, describing families trapped in poverty, an
ineffective education system, and crime, drugs and gangs. “This American
carnage stops right here and stops right now," he said.
The day after Trump's inauguration, millions of protesters
demonstrated across the United States and around the world. The Women's March
on Washington drew over half a million people to protest Trump's stance on a
variety of issues ranging from immigration to environmental protection.
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| Donald Trump |
First 100 Days
The first 100 days of Trump’s presidency lasted from January
20, 2017, until April 29, 2017. In the first days of his presidency, Trump
issued a number of back-to-back executive orders to make good on some of his
campaign promises, as well as several orders aimed at rolling back policies and
regulations that were put into place during the Obama administration.
Several of Trump’s key policies that got rolling during
Trump’s first 100 days in office include his Supreme Court nomination; steps
toward building a wall on the Mexico border; a travel ban for several
predominantly Muslim countries; the first moves to dismantle the Affordable
Care Act; and the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.
In addition, Trump signed orders to implement a federal
hiring freeze, withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and reinstate the
Mexico City policy that bans federal funding of nongovernmental organizations
abroad that promote or perform abortions.
He signed an order to scale back financial regulation under
the Dodd-Frank Act, created by the Obama administration and passed by Congress
after the financial crisis of 2008. And he called for a lifetime
foreign-lobbying ban for members of his administration and a five-year ban for
all other lobbyings.
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| Donald Trump is with his party member |
On March 16, 2017, the president released his proposed
budget. The budget outlined his plans for increased spending for the military,
veterans affairs and national security, including building a wall on the border
with Mexico.
It also made drastic cuts to many government agencies
including the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department, as well
as the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, funding for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting and the Community Development Block Grant program which supports
Meals on Wheels.
Trump's Supreme Court Nominations
Trump has nominated two Supreme Court Justices: Neil Gorsuch
and Brett Kavanaugh.
Neil Gorsuch
On January 31, 2017, Trump nominated Judge Gorsuch to the
Supreme Court. The 49-year-old conservative judge was appointed by President
George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in
Denver.
Judge Gorsuch was educated at Columbia, Harvard and Oxford
and clerked for Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. The nomination came
after Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to replace the late Antonin
Scalia, was denied a confirmation hearing by Senate Republicans.
As Gorsuch's legal philosophy was considered to be similar
to Scalia's, the choice drew strong praise from the conservative side of the aisle.
"Millions of voters said this was the single most important issue for them
when they voted for me for president," Trump said. "I am a man of my
word. Today I am keeping another promise to the American people by nominating
Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court."
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| Donald Trump is with Mark Juberberg |
After Gorsuch gave three days of testimony before the Senate
Judiciary Committee in March, the Senate convened on April 6 to advance his
nomination. Democrats mostly held firm to deny the 60 votes necessary to
proceed, resulting in the first successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme
Court nominee.
But Republicans quickly countered with another historic
move, invoking the "nuclear option" to lower the threshold for
advancing Supreme Court nominations from 60 votes to a simple majority of 50.
On April 7, Gorsuch was confirmed by the Senate to become the 113th justice of
the Supreme Court.
Brett Kavanaugh
On July 9, 2018, Trump nominated Kavanaugh following the
retirement of Justice Kennedy. A textualist and originalist in the mold of
Scalia, the nomination continued the rightward push of the Supreme Court.
Democrats vowed to fight the nomination, and Kavanaugh was
nearly derailed by accusations of sexual assault. He earned confirmation in a
close vote that October.
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| Donald Trump is with Tanahshah |
Climate Change
During the 2016 presidential election, Trump called climate
change a “hoax.” He later recanted, saying, "I don't think it's a hoax, I
think there's probably a difference."
However, in an October 2018 interview on Fox News, Trump
accused climate scientists of having a “political agenda” and said that he was
unconvinced that humans were responsible for rising temperatures.
In November 2018, The Fourth National Climate Assessment,
compiled by 13 federal agencies including the EPA and Department of Energy,
found that, left unchecked, climate change would be catastrophic for the U.S.
economy. Trump told reporters, "I don't believe it."
In June 2019, Trump met with Prince Charles and reportedly
discussed climate change at length. In an interview with British TV host Piers
Morgan, Trump said "I believe that there is a change in weather and I
think it changes both ways...It used to be called global warming, that wasn't
working, then it was called climate change and now actually it is called
extreme weather."
Trump later told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that he pushed
back Prince Charles’ suggestions that the United States do more to combat climate
change, saying that the U.S. “now has among the cleanest climates there are
based on all statistics.”
Paris Climate Agreement
On June 1, 2017, Trump withdrew from the 2015 Paris Climate
Agreement, which President Obama had joined along with the leaders of 195 other
countries. The accord requires all participating nations to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions in an effort to curb climate change over the ensuing century and
also to allocate resources for the research and development of alternative energy
sources.
With Trump’s decision, the United States joined Syria and
Nicaragua as the only three countries to reject the accord. However, Nicaragua
eventually joined the Paris Climate Agreement months later.
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| Donald Trump with Israil PM |
Oil Extraction
Soon after taking office, Trump revived the controversial
Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines to transfer oil extracted in Canada and
North Dakota. The pipelines had been halted by President Obama following
protests from environmental and Native American groups.
Trump owned shares of Energy Transfer Partners, the company
in charge of construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, but sold his stake in
the company in December 2016. Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren also
contributed to Trump’s presidential campaign, raising concerns over conflict of
interest.
Coal Mining
On March 28, 2017, the president, surrounded by American
coal miners, signed the "Energy Independence" executive order,
calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back Obama's Clean
Power Plan, curb climate and carbon emissions regulations and to rescind a
moratorium on coal mining on U.S. federal lands.
Endangered Species Act
In August 2019, the Trump administration announced it was
overhauling the Endangered Species Act. This included changes to legislation
that gave the government increased discretion over matters of climate change
and economic cost when determining whether a species should be protected.
Health Care
One of Trump’s first executive orders in office was calling
on federal agencies to "waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or
delay" aspects of the Affordable Care Act to minimize financial burden on
states, insurers and individuals.
On March 7, 2017, House Republicans, led by Speaker Paul
Ryan, introduced the American Health Care Act, a plan to repeal and replace the
Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, the controversial bill ultimately didn't
have enough Republican votes and was withdrawn a few weeks later, representing
a major legislative setback for Speaker Ryan and Trump.
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| Donald Trump's Favourite Food |
After intense negotiations among party factions, a new
Republican health care plan was brought to a vote in the House of
Representatives on May 4, 2017, and passed by a slim margin of 217 to 213. That
passed the buck to the Senate.
Almost immediately after a draft was unveiled on June 22,
conservative senators such as Ted Cruz declared they could not support the
bill's failure to significantly lower premiums, while moderates like Susan
Collins voiced concerns over its steep cuts to Medicaid. On June 27, Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell elected to delay his planned vote for the bill.
When the third, so-called “skinny repeal,” bill finally went to a vote on in
the Senate July 28, it failed by three votes.
In September, a new bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act
was put forth by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Bill
Cassidy of Louisiana. However, on September 26, Senate Republicans announced
they would not move forward with the current plan, as they were short of the
required votes. “We are disappointed in certain so-called Republicans,” Trump
responded.
On October 12, 2017 Trump signed an executive order in a
move that could dismantle the ACA without Congress’s approval, expanding health
insurance products — mostly less comprehensive plans through associations of
small employers and more short-term medical coverage.
He also announced that he would get rid of health insurance
subsidies. Known as cost-sharing reduction payments, which lower the cost of
deductibles for low-income Americans, they were expected to cost $9 billion in
2018 and $100 billion over the next decade.
Birth Control Mandate
On October 6, 2017, the Trump administration announced a
rollback of the birth control mandate put in place by the Obama
administration’s Affordable Care Act, which required insurers to cover birth
control at no cost without copayments as a preventive service. For years, the
mandate was threatened by lawsuits from conservative and religious groups.
The Trump administration said the new exemption applied to
any employer that objects to covering contraception services on the basis of
“sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.” The change is in line
with Trump’s promises as a candidate to ensure that religious groups “are not
bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs.”
Opponents of the measure said that it could potentially
affect hundreds of thousands of women and that access to affordable
contraception in the mandate provided prevents unintended pregnancies and saves
women’s lives.
Abortion
As president, Trump has said that he is “strongly pro-life”
and wants to ban all abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when a
woman’s life is in danger. He has supported bans on abortions after 20 weeks of
pregnancy and has cited his appointments of conservative Supreme Court judges
Gorsuch and Kavanaugh as helping to make abortion laws in some states more
restrictive.
Trump changed his beliefs on abortion from pro-choice to
anti-abortion in 1999. In 2016, he said that he supported “some form of
punishment” for women who undergo abortions; he later released a statement
saying he only thought practitioners should be punished for performing
abortions, not women for having them.
In January 2020, after his administration threatened to cut
federal funds to California over a mandate that the state's health insurance
plans cover abortion, Trump became the first sitting president to address the
annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C.
Tax Plan
On April 26, 2017, Trump announced his tax plan in a
one-page outline that would dramatically change tax codes. The plan called for
streamlining seven income tax brackets to three — 10, 25 and 35 percent.
The initial outline did not specify which income ranges
would fall under those brackets. The plan also proposed to lower the corporate
tax rate from 35 to 15 percent, eliminate the alternative minimum tax and
estate tax, and simplify the process for filing tax returns. The proposal did
not address how the tax cuts might reduce federal revenue and increase debt.
On December 2, 2017, Trump achieved the first major
legislative victory of his administration when the Senate passed a sweeping tax
reform bill. Approved along party lines by a 51-49 vote, the bill drew
criticism for extensive last-minute rewrites, with frustrated Democrats posting
photos of pages filled with crossed-out text and handwriting crammed into the
margins.
Among other measures, the Senate bill called for the slashing
of the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent, doubling personal deductions
and ending the Obamacare mandate. It also included a controversial provision
that allowed for "unborn children" to be named as beneficiaries of
college savings accounts, which critics called an attempt to support the
pro-life movement. Despite estimates by the Congressional Budget Office that
the bill would cost $1.5 trillion over a decade, GOP senators insisted that
charges would be offset by a growing economy.
After the bill's passage, Trump tweeted: “Biggest Tax Bill
and Tax Cuts in history just passed in the Senate. Now, these great Republicans
will be going for final passage. Thank you to House and Senate Republicans for
your hard work and commitment!” On December 20, the final tax bill formally
passed both chambers of Congress.
Following partisan battles over a spending bill in early
2018, which resulted in a brief government shutdown and stopgap measures, Trump
threatened to torpedo a $1.3 trillion spending bill with a last-minute veto.
Reportedly angry that the bill did not fully fund his long-promised Mexican
border wall, he nevertheless signed the bill into law on March 23, hours before
another government shutdown would have gone into effect.
Transgender Rights
On February 22, 2017, the Trump administration rolled back
federal protection for transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond to
their gender identity, allowing states and school districts to interpret
federal anti-discrimination law.
On March 27, 2017, Trump signed several measures under the
Congressional Review Act to reverse regulations related to education, land use
and a "blacklisting rule" requiring federal contractors to disclose
violations of federal labor, wage and workplace safety laws.
Later that year, the president tweeted that he would enact a
ban on transgender people from serving in the military. The official policy
went into effect the following March with the statement that "transgender
persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria — individuals who the
policies state may require substantial medical treatment, including medications
and surgery — are disqualified from military service except under certain
limited circumstances."
Following a legal challenge, the Supreme Court allowed the
ban to go into effect in January 2019, while allowing lower courts to hear
additional arguments.
Gun Control
Trump has vowed to defend the Second Amendment and gun
ownership since taking office. He spoke at the National Rifle Association’s
annual convention in 2019, and he promised to veto a measure passed in February
2019 by House Democrats to strengthen background checks. However, Trump has
also at times said he would be willing to consider a range of measures to
restrict gun access. His administration also banned bump stocks in October 2017
after a mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival left 58 people dead.
The Valentine's Day 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left a total of 17 students and
faculty dead, sparked a strong response from Trump.
He ordered the Justice Department to issue regulations
banning bump stocks and suggested he was willing to consider a range of
measures, from strengthening background checks to raising the minimum age for
buying rifles. He also backed an NRA-fueled proposal for arming teachers, which
drew backlash from many in the profession.
The president remained invested in the issue even as the
usual cycle of outrage began diminishing: In a televised February 28 meeting
with lawmakers, he called for gun control legislation that would expand
background checks to gun shows and internet transactions, secure schools and
restrict sales for some young adults.
At one point he called out Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey
for being "afraid of the NRA," and at another, he suggested that
authorities should seize guns from mentally ill or other potentially dangerous
people without first going to court. "I like taking the guns early,"
he said. "Take the guns first, go through due process second."
His stances seemingly stunned the Republican lawmakers at
the meeting, as well as the NRA, which previously considered the president as a
strong supporter. Within a few days, Trump was walking back his proposal to
raise the age limit and mainly pushing for arming select teachers.
In June 2019, Trump said he would “think about” a ban on gun
silencers following the deaths of a dozen people, who were killed by a gunman
at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. Two months later, after back-to-back
mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, the president suggested
tying expanded background checks to immigration reform legislation.
Trump and Mexico
Border Wall
Trump issued an executive order to build a wall at the
United States’ border with Mexico. In his first televised interview as
president, Trump said the initial construction of the wall would be funded by
U.S. taxpayer dollars, but that Mexico would reimburse the U.S. “100 percent”
in a plan to be negotiated and might include a suggested import tax on Mexican
goods.
In response to the new administration's stance on a border
wall, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a planned visit to meet
with Trump. "Mexico does not believe in walls," the Mexican president
said in a video statement. "I've said time again; Mexico will not pay for
any wall."
After funding for the wall failed to materialize, from
either Mexico or Congress, Trump in April 2018 announced that he would
reinforce security along the U.S. border with Mexico by using American troops
because of the "horrible, unsafe laws" that left the country
vulnerable. The following day, the president signed a proclamation that
directed National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Department of Homeland Security said that the deployment
would be in coordination with governors, that the troops would "support
federal law enforcement personnel, including [Customs and Border
Protection]," and that federal immigration authorities would "direct
enforcement efforts."
 |
| Donald Trump with his son in his Childhood |
In December 2018, shortly before a newly elected Democratic
majority was set to take control of the House, Trump announced he would not
sign a bill to fund the government unless Congress allocated $5.7 billion
toward building his long-promised border wall. With Democrats refusing to give
in to his demand, a partial government shutdown ensued for a record 35 days,
until all sides agreed to another attempt at striking a compromise.
On February 14, 2019, one day before the deadline, Congress
passed a $333 billion spending package that allocated $1.375 billion for 55
miles of steel-post fencing. After indicating that he would sign the bill, the
President made good on his threat to declare a national emergency the following
day, enabling him to funnel $3.6 billion slated for military construction
projects toward building the wall.
In response, a coalition of 16 states filed a lawsuit that
challenged Trump's power to circumvent Congress on this issue.
"Contrary to the will of Congress, the president has
used the pretext of a manufactured 'crisis' of unlawful immigration to declare
a national emergency and redirect federal dollars appropriated for drug
interdiction, military construction and law enforcement initiatives toward
building a wall on the United States-Mexico border," the lawsuit said.
After the House voted for a resolution to overturn the
national emergency declaration in late February, the Senate followed suit on
March 14 when 12 Republican senators joined a united Democratic side to vote
for the resolution. Trump promptly issued the first veto of his presidency the
following day, calling the resolution a "vote against reality."
In late July 2019, the Supreme Court overturned an appellate
decision and ruled that the Trump administration could begin using Pentagon
money for construction during the ongoing litigation over the issue.
Border Separation Policy
As part of attempts to seal the U.S. border with Mexico, the
Trump administration in 2018 began following through on a
"zero-tolerance" policy to prosecute anybody found to have crossed
the border illegally. As children were legally not allowed to be detained with
their parents, this meant that they were to be held separately as family cases
wound through immigration courts.
A furor ensued after reports surfaced that nearly 2,000
children had been separated from their parents over a six-week period that ended
in May 2018, compounded by photos of toddlers crying in cages. Trump initially
deflected blame for the situation, insisting it resulted from the efforts of
predecessors and political opponents. "The Democrats are forcing the
breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative
agenda," he tweeted.
The president ultimately caved to pressure from the bad PR,
and on June 20 he signed an executive order that directed the Department of
Homeland Security to keep families together.
"I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families
being separated," he said, adding that it remained important to have
"zero tolerance for people that enter our country illegally" and for
Congress to find a permanent solution to the problem. In the meantime, the DHS
essentially revived the "catch-and-release" system that the
zero-tolerance policy was meant to eradicate while dealing with the logistics
of reuniting families.
Travel Ban
President Trump signed one of his most controversial
executive orders on January 27, 2017, calling for "extreme vetting"
to "keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of
America." The president's executive order was put into effect immediately,
and refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries traveling
to the U.S. were detained at U.S. airports.
The order called for a ban on immigrants from Iraq, Syria,
Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen for at least 90 days, temporarily
suspended the entry of refugees for 120 days and barred Syrian refugees
indefinitely. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump
also said he would give priority to Christian refugees trying to gain entry
into the United States.
After facing multiple legal hurdles, Trump signed a revised
executive order on March 6, 2017, calling for a 90-day ban on travelers from
six predominantly Muslim countries including Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia
and Yemen. Iraq, which was included in the original executive order, was
removed from the list.
Travelers from the six listed countries, who hold green
cards or have valid visas as of the signing of the order, will not be affected.
Religious minorities would not get special preference, as was outlined in the
original order, and an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees was reduced to 120
days.
 |
| Donald Trump with her daughter |
On March 15, just hours before the revised ban was going to
be put into effect, Derrick Watson, a federal judge in Hawaii, issued a
temporary nationwide restraining order in a ruling that stated the executive
order did not prove that a ban would protect the country from terrorism and
that it was “issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion, in spite
of its stated, religiously neutral purpose.” At a rally in Nashville, Trump
responded to the ruling, saying: "This is, in the opinion of many, an
unprecedented judicial overreach.”
Judge Theodore D. Chuang of Maryland also blocked the ban
the following day, and in subsequent months, the ban was impeded in decisions
handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond,
Virginia, and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals once again.
However, on June 26, 2017, Trump won a partial victory when
the Supreme Court announced it was allowing the controversial ban to go into
effect for foreign nationals who lacked a "bona fide relationship with any
person or entity in the United States." The court agreed to hear oral
arguments for the case in October, but with the 90-to-120-day timeline in place
for the administration to conduct its reviews, it was believed the case would
be rendered moot by that point.
On September 24, 2017, Trump issued a new presidential
proclamation, which permanently bans travel to the United States for most
citizens from seven countries. Most were on the original list, including Iran,
Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, while the new order included Chad, North Korea
and some citizens of Venezuela (certain government officials and their
families). The tweak did little to pacify critics, who argued that the order
was still heavily biased toward Islam.
“The fact that Trump has added North Korea — with few
visitors to the U.S. — and a few government officials from Venezuela doesn’t
obfuscate the real fact that the administration’s order is still a Muslim ban,”
said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties
Union.
On October 10, the Supreme Court canceled a planned hearing
on an appeal of the original travel ban. On October 17, the day before the
order was to take effect, Judge Watson of Hawaii issued a nationwide order
freezing the Trump administration’s new travel ban, writing that the order was
a “poor fit for the issues regarding the sharing of ‘public-safety and
terrorism-related information that the president identifies.”
On December 4, 2017, the Supreme Court allowed the third
version of the Trump administration’s travel ban to go into effect despite the
ongoing legal challenges. The court’s orders urged appeals courts to determine
as quickly as possible whether the ban was lawful.
Under the ruling, the administration could fully enforce its
new restrictions on travel from eight nations, six of them predominantly
Muslim. Citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea,
along with some groups of people from Venezuela, would be unable to emigrate to
the United States permanently, with many barred from also working, studying or
vacationing in the country.
 |
| Donald Trump loves his flag |
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