Donald Trump
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| Donald Trump | |
| Known for | 45th President of the United States |
|---|---|
| Birth | June 14, 1946 |
| Death | |
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is a third-generation real estate developer who was the forty-fifth president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
He was the first U.S. president to have never had any experience in public service or the military before being elected, the first U.S. president to be impeached twice, and the first ex-president of the U.S. to be indicted of a crime.
In regards to criminal indictments, he was indicted of a crime four times. He was indicted by the U.S. state of New York, by the U.S. state of Georgia, and by the U.S. federal government twice.
He was preceded as President by Barack Obama and succeeded by Joe Biden.
Early life
Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York to Fred and Mary Trump (née MacLeod).
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1968.
Trump Organization
In 1971, Donald Trump became president of E. Trump & Son, the real-estate business that his father and his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Christ Trump, founded in 1927.
Donald Trump renamed it the Trump Organization around 1973. He successfully expanded the business into building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, and golf courses, as well as licensing the use of the Trump brand.
On December 6, 2022, The Trump Organization was convicted on 17 criminal charges of financial fraud.
The Art of the Deal and Trump: The Game
The Art of the Deal, a book that described how he made deals in his business was credited to Donald Trump and written by the journalist Tony Schwartz. It was released in 1984. The latter was paid $250,000 USD and half of the $1.1 million USD of sales of the book. Schwartz said in July 2016 that Trump's only contribution to the book was to remove a few critical moments that criticized his business colleagues.
Trump: The Game, a 1989 Milton Bradley board game, was produced as a result of the sales of the book. It sold eight hundred thousand units for total sales of $20 million USD, although only forty percent of the expected two million units were sold. After the success of The Apprentice, Parker Brothers re-released the game in 2004 with changes to match the aesthetic of the television series.
Donald Trump stated in 1989 that he would give his portion of the sales of the board game to charity. An article written by the journalist Christina Wilkie, published by The Huffington Post in 2016, stated that none of the $1 million USD Donald Trump stated by Trump could be substantiated to have been given to charity.
Donald J. Trump Foundation
Donald Trump founded a charitable organization, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, in 1988.
Trump admitted he used the money donated to the foundation for his own personal use, and in November 2019, he reached a settlement in a civil lawsuit against the charity. As a result of the settlement, Trump had to pay $2 million as restitution as well as reimburse $11,525 to the foundation. The foundation had to undergo court-ordered dissolution.
A total of $1.8 million USD was in the foundation's bank account, including the reimbursement. This money was paid to eight charities in December 2019.
Film and television appearances and The Apprentice
Donald Trump became a familiar face in the United States as he appeared as himself in several film and television productions as well as in advertisements from the 1980s to the 2000s.
Television producer Mark Burnett approached Trump to host a reality television series, and in 2004, The Apprentice first aired. It was a reality series wherein people apply to ostensibly work for the Trump Organization. Five more yearly television seasons were produced before the show was retooled with celebrity contestants. The Celebrity Apprentice, hosted by Trump, aired for seven seasons.
Donald Trump's final The Celebrity Apprentice season aired in 2015 as he was running for President of the United States. Due to the racist statements he made during his campaign, Trump was fired from the series. Trump was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger and it continued for one more season as The New Celebrity Apprentice in 2017.
A tabletop game version, The Apprentice Game, was released by Parker Brothers in 2004.
Appearances in video games
Donald Trump's name, appearance, and voice were licensed for the 2002 video game Donald Trump's Real Estate Tycoon.
Although Trump makes money from licensing his likeness, anything that is done in the official capacity of running for federal office, or while in federal office, in the United States is public domain. Because of this, the likeness of Donald Trump was included in the 2012 video game The Political Machine 2012, the 2016 video game The Political Machine 2016, and the 2020 video game The Political Machine 2020.
Unsuccessful ventures
Trump ventured into several unsuccessful businesses, which led to six bankruptcies. His casino businesses filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection five times, in 1991, 1992, 2004, 2009, and 2014. Plaza Hotel in New York City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1992.
Use of the Internet to spread misinformation
Donald Trump used Twitter and Facebook to spread misinformation. Misinformation stated by Donald Trump was also spread to other platforms by other users.
The false conspiracy theory that Barack Obama, the first African-American president, was ineligible for the position due to being born in Africa, when he was in fact born in the US state of Hawaii, was spread by Donald Trump on Twitter. According to ABC News, Donald Trump tweeted or retweeted this conspiracy theory at least 67 times from 2011 until his ban from Twitter on January 8, 2021.
In 2015, Trump retweeted another false conspiracy about Barack Obama that was started by a website that regularly posted conspiracy theories and misleading content, Breitbart News Network. The false conspiracy theory claimed Barack Obama supported the Islamist terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
In 2016, during his ultimately successful campaign for President of the United States, Donald Trump promoted several conspiracies against his opponents.
Trump mentioned an unfounded conspiracy theory in a Fox News interview that was started by the National Enquirer. This conspiracy theory, which was further spread through Twitter, stated that US Senator Ted Cruz's father was involved in Lee Harvey Oswald's murder of US president John F. Kennedy.
Trump retweeted false conspiracy theories that Seth Rich, an employee of the Democratic National Committee, was murdered because he sent documents to WikiLeaks that were damaging to Hillary Clinton's ultimately unsuccessful campaign for President of the United States.
Trump revived a false conspiracy in an interview with The Washington Post that was started in the 1994 conspiracy film, The Clinton Chronicles. This conspiracy theory, which was further spread through Twitter, inferred that the July 1993 suicide of then-deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was actually a murder that was carried out by, or covered up by, then-President Bill Clinton and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.
Presidency
Donald Trump was sworn in as the President of the United States on January 21, 2017.
Use of the Internet to spread misinformation while in office
In 2017, the unfounded QAnon conspiracy theory started when anonymous individual or individuals used the name "Q" to spread baseless conspiracies about a criminal cabal of Democrats and celebrities would be thwarted by President Trump. Donald Trump retweeted the conspiracy and alluded to it several times before fully embracing it at his rallies and on his Truth Social platform in 2022.
In 2019, Donald Trump tweeted the false conspiracy theory that sexual predator Jeffery Epstein didn't commit suicide in prison, but was instead murdered by Bill Clinton.
In 2020, Donald Trump ran his ultimately unsuccessful re-election campaign for President of the United States. As had done in 2016, Trump retweeted various conspiracy theories against his opponents.
A false conspiracy theory was pushed by Trump, which was further spread through Twitter at a press conference. As he had done with Barack Obama, who was the first African-American President of the United States, Donald Trump erroneously stated that Kamala Harris, who would become the first African-American and Asian-American Vice President of the United States, wasn't born in the United States and thus wasn't eligible to become vice president.
Also in 2020, Trump tweeted a false conspiracy theory that then-MSNBC host Joe Scarborough murdered Lori Klausutis, a woman who worked in Scarborough's Florida office when he served as a United States Representative for the first district of Florida.
First impeachment
Donald Trump held back military equipment that the United States Congress approved to be sent to Ukraine in their fight against invasion by Russia. He wanted the then-president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to give him information related to an unfounded conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory stated that when he was Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine. This pressure was supposedly meant to cause the firing of the top prosecutor of Ukraine to protect Biden's son Hunter, who worked for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, from being investigated.
When the news that Donald Trump held back Congress-approved equipment in an effort to get help from a foreign power to find information against his likely opponent in the upcoming election, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced articles of impeachment.
Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives but was acquitted by the Senate.
Second impeachment
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump held a rally where he told his supporters to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from doing his constitutional duty to approve the electoral college votes for Joe Biden.
Although he had a single line in his speech about marching "peacefully and patriotically", the rest of his speech, and those of other speakers at the rally, told the Trump supporters to be angry, fight, and prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office.
After the rally, Donald Trump's supporters attempted an insurrection on the United States Capitol building where a hangman's noose was set up and people were shouting "Hang Mike Pence". A riot broke out when the Trump supporters broke into the Capitol building and members of Congress, along with Vice President Mike Pence and his family, were ushered to safety. Ultimately seven people died in connection with the riot, and one-hundred-thirty-eight police officers were injured.
Donald Trump waited one-hundred-eighty-seven minutes to tell the rioters to disperse. While the riot was happening, Trump used social media, including telling the rioters "You are loved". This led to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram banning him on their platforms over fears that he would incite more violence.
Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced articles of impeachment related to the failed riot by Donald Trump's supporters.
Like the first impeachment, Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives but was acquitted by the Senate.
Post-presidency
After losing to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, Donald Trump falsely claimed that widespread election fraud caused the election to be stolen from him.
He continued to spread this false conspiracy theory post-presidency.
Founding of Truth Social
Due to being banned from the major social media platforms, Donald Trump formed Trump Media & Technology Group with then-Representative Devin Nunes of California as its chief executive officer in February 2022.
Trump Media & Technology Group released Truth Social, a social network with a user base comprised mostly of people with a far-right political ideology, for iOS on February 21, 2022. On May 20, 2022, Truth Social was updated so that it could be used via the web. On August 30, 2022, Google stated that it would not approve Truth Social for release for Android on Google Play due to a violation of its policies prohibiting physical threats and incitement to violence. However, after stronger content moderation policies were implemented, Truth Social was approved by Google for release on Google Play on October 12, 2022.
Donald Trump's social media accounts were reinstated on Twitter on November 19, 2022, on Facebook and Instagram on January 25, 2023, and on YouTube on March 17, 2023. After his YouTube ban was lifted, Trump began posting on Facebook and YouTube again.
Criminal charges
First indictment
Donald Trump was indicted by the state of New York on March 30, 2023, on thirty-four felony counts of falsifying business records. It related to a $130,000 payment that was made in 2016 while running for President to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from selling her story about an alleged affair with Trump.
Second indictment
Trump received his second indictment, and his first federal indictment, on June 9, 2023. It charged the former president with thirty-seven felony counts related to illegally keeping classified documents, showing classified documents to people without security clearances, and instructing a staffer of Trump's Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, to destroy evidence by deleting video footage at the estate. Three more felony counts, for a total of forty, were added to the indictment on July 27, 2023, related to classified documents Trump showed people without security clearances at his Bedminster, New Jersey resort.
Third indictment
Trump was indicted for a third time, and for a second time federally, on August 3, 2023. The former president was charged with four felony counts related to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which led to the deadly attempted insurrection of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Fourth indictment
Trump was indicted for a fourth time, and for the second time by a U.S. state, on August 14, 2023. He was one of the nineteen people charged in an indictment by the state of Georgia with forty-one felony counts related to attempts to coerce Georgia officials to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
