🇺🇸Donald Trump

45th and 47th President · 2017–2021, 2025– · Republican

Donald Trump is one of two U.S. presidents to serve two non-consecutive terms — the other being Grover Cleveland in the 1890s. He was the 45th president from 2017 to 2021, lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and then won the 2024 election to become the 47th president on January 20, 2025. He was also the first U.S. president impeached twice by the House (2019 and 2021) and the first former president to be convicted of a felony (2024, later to be sentenced without penalty).

Real Estate and Television

Trump was raised in Queens, New York, the son of real estate developer Fred Trump. He joined the family business after graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. Through the 1980s and 90s he became one of America's best-known developers — building Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, buying the Plaza Hotel, and filing for corporate bankruptcy multiple times on various casino and hotel projects. From 2004 to 2015 he hosted The Apprentice, which made him a national television personality with his signature phrase "You're fired."

2016 Election

Trump announced his presidential campaign in June 2015 and immediately dominated the Republican primary field of 17 candidates. His outsider persona, large rallies, and combative style won him the nomination. In the November 2016 general election, he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million but won the Electoral College 304–227 by narrowly carrying Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that had voted Democratic for decades.

First Term

Trump's first term featured a major 2017 tax cut, the appointment of three Supreme Court justices (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett), the USMCA trade agreement replacing NAFTA, the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab states, a trade war with China, and the killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. He was impeached twice by the House — in December 2019 on charges relating to Ukraine, and in January 2021 on charges of inciting the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Senate acquitted him both times.

2020 Loss and 2024 Comeback

Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. He disputed the outcome and his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, attempting to disrupt the certification of Biden's win. Trump was the first defeated president since Gerald Ford to run again. He survived two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign — at a Pennsylvania rally in July 2024 (where a bullet grazed his ear) and at his Florida golf course in September. He defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November 2024.

Second Term

Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president on January 20, 2025, with JD Vance as Vice President — held indoors at the Capitol Rotunda due to severe cold. On his first day he signed a large batch of executive actions on immigration, energy, trade, and federal workforce policy, and pardoned roughly 1,500 people who had been charged in connection with the January 6 attack. His second term is ongoing as of this writing.

Trump Trivia

• Trump and Grover Cleveland are the only two presidents elected to non-consecutive terms.
• He was the first U.S. president to be impeached twice and the first to be criminally convicted (on New York state charges in May 2024).
• At 78 at his second inauguration, Trump was the oldest person ever inaugurated president — surpassing Biden.
• JD Vance, his Vice President, is the first Vice President with an Ivy League law degree (Yale).
• Trump is the first president since Theodore Roosevelt to have been shot during a political event (though Roosevelt was a former president campaigning for a third term at the time).

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