Trump, Donald John

Trump, Donald John,

By 1994, Trump had eliminated a huge portion of his $900 million personal debt and reduced substantially his nearly $3.5 billion in business debt. Forced to relinquish the Trump Shuttle (bought in 1989), he retained Trump Tower in New York City and control of his three casinos in Atlantic City. In 1999, Trump toyed with running for president on the Reform partyReform party,
in the United States, political party founded in 1995 by H. Ross Perot as an alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties. The Reform party's aims originally included mandating high ethical standards for the president and Congress, balancing the budget,
..... Click the link for more information.  ticket. From 2004 to 2014, Trump starred in his own business-themed reality television show. He also cofounded a for-profit educational company, best known as Trump University, that offered real-estate and other courses, mainly from 2005 to 2010; several lawsuits that accused the company of fraud were settled in 2016.

Crippling debt payments forced his casinos into bankruptcy again in 2004. Trump's stake in the company was greatly reduced when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2005; he also was no longer its CEO. In 2009 the casino company again declared bankruptcy, and Trump agreed to reduce his stake to 10%. The Atlantic City casinos subsequently closed or were sold, and Trump sold his stake in them. He continues to have significant real estate and hotel holdings including golf courses, but many real estate projects bearing his name are only licensing deals. Among his other holdings are a television production company; from 1996 to 2015, he owned several beauty pageants. The Trump Foundation, accused in a lawsuit by New York state of having been misused to promote Trump's businesses and 2016 presidential campaign, agreed in 2018 to dissolve and distribute its assets under judicial supervision.

Trump was again a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2011, and notoriously and repeatedly questioned President Obama's citizenship, but he chose not to run. In 2015 he became a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He subsequently became the front-runner—and a controversial figure—during the primaries and secured the Republican nod, choosing Indiana's governor, Mike PencePence, Mike
(Michael Richard Pence), 1959–, U.S. politician, b. Columbus, Ind., grad. Hanover College, 1981, Indiana Univ. law school, 1986. A Republican, he twice ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives before he won the first of his six terms in 2000.
..... Click the link for more information. , as his running mate. Trump was hurt in the divisive general election campaign by his tendency to verbally abuse critics (which had also alienated Republicans in the primaries) and by accusations of sexual misconduct, but the Republican ticket defeated Democrats Hillary ClintonClinton, Hillary Rodham
, 1947–, U.S. senator and secretary of state, wife of President Bill Clinton, b. Chicago, grad. Wellesley College (B.A. 1969), Yale Law School (LL.B., 1973). After law school she served on the House panel that investigated the Watergate affair.
..... Click the link for more information.  and Tim KaineKaine, Tim
(Timothy Michael Kaine), 1958–, U.S. politician, b. St. Paul, Minn., B.A. Univ. of Missouri, 1979, J.D. Harvard, 1983. After a clerkship, he was a lawyer in private practice, and taught legal ethics as an adjunct professor (1988–94) at the Univ.
..... Click the link for more information.  (although it lost the popular vote by the largest percentage since 1876).

In office, Trump moved to limit the impact of Obama's 2010 health-care legislation, though he was unable to win passage of legislation to replace it; he later took other actions, including ending insurance company subsidies for health insurance plans, designed to undermine it. Revelations that Russia had meddled in the U.S. election, hoping to influence it in Trump's favor, became a recurring issue during his presidency. Michael Flynn, his national security adviser, was forced to resign after less than a month in office when it was learned Flynn had lied about post-election contacts with Russian officials. After the president fired FBI director James ComeyComey, James Brien, Jr.,
1960–, American law enforcement official, b. Yonkers, N.Y., grad. William and Mary, 1982, Univ. of Chicago Law School, 1985. He was assistant U.S.
..... Click the link for more information.  over the investigation into Russian interference, a special counsel (former FBI director Robert MuellerMueller, Robert Swan, 3d,
1944–, American law enforcement official, b. New York City, B.A. Princeton, 1966, M.A. New York Univ., 1967, J.D. Univ. of Virginia School of Law, 1973.
..... Click the link for more information. ) was named to lead it. Subsequently it was learned that Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign manager had met (2016) with a lawyer who claimed to have information from the Russian government on Hillary Clinton, and it was later learned that the Trump organization had continued to pursue a Moscow high-rise deal during the campaign. Flynn and other campaign personnel, as well as Russians and Russian companies, were indicted by Mueller beginning in late 2017, and the Justice Dept., FBI, and Mueller's investigation became the object of denunciations by Trump and some Republicans. Flynn, Michael Cohen (a lawyer for Trump), and a number of other indictees subsequently pleaded guilty to various charges. Ultimately, Mueller's investigation found (Mar., 2019) insufficient evidence of conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia but did detail contacts between the campaign and Russia and the campaign's hope to benefit from Russian interference in the election. It did not exonerate the president from obstruction of justice (though the attorney general did) and noted that there had been lying to investigators by some parties and that some of Trump's aides refused to carry out his orders relating to the investigation when their actions could have constituted obstruction.

In 2017 the administration suffered several controversies of its own making, including a travel ban on several largely Muslim nations (later expanded to a few other nations) that faced court challenges because remarks by Trump and other administration figures concerning Muslims raised religious bias issues (the final version of the ban was upheld in 2018); Trump's accusation, despite a lack of evidence, that Obama's administration had wiretapped him; and many other of his comments, some public, some reported, that led many to regard the president as racially prejudiced. The Trump administration's most significant legislative success in its first year was the passage of an income tax overhaul in Dec., 2017; a budget with significant spending increases was adopted in Mar., 2017.

Internationally, President Trump quickly withdrew the country from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Pacific Rim trade pact. Continued missile and nuclear weapons testing by North Korea in 2017 led to tensions with the new administration that did not ease until 2018, and Syrian government poison gas attacks in 2017–18 provoked retaliatory U.S. missile strikes and created tensions between the United States and Russia. Trump also withdrew the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord; decided to increase U.S. forces in Afghanistan and not set a timetable for withdrawal, and also to maintain a U.S. force in Syria after Islamic StateIslamic State
(IS), Sunni Islamic militant group committed to the establishment of an Islamic caliphate that would unite Muslims in a transnational, strict-fundamentalist Islamic state.
..... Click the link for more information.  was largely defeated there and in Iraq; and stopped certifying Iran's compliance with the multinational nuclear agreement and then (2018) withdrew from it, prompting criticism from U.S. allies who were also party to the accord. In 2018, his administration announced that it would reduce U.S. funding of UN peacekeeping forces and end funding the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees; it also moved to hamstring dispute settlement by the World Trade Organization, and announced it would withdraw from the the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty over Russia's alleged noncompliance (formalized in 2019) and from the Universal Postal Union over favorable postage rates for China.

In 2018, tariffs were imposed or proposed by the Trump administration on some imported products; many were aimed at China, which (like most other nations affected by the tariffs) retaliated with tariffs on U.S. products, leading to concerns about a possible trade war. Many nations affected by the tariffs were U.S. allies, and tensions over the tariffs were paralleled by tensions within the G7 and NATO between other member nations and the Trump administration, which emphasized rectifying perceived trade and financial inequities, with Trump often denouncing or denigrating leaders of allied nations. Trump at times took a friendlier approach with traditional foes of the United States, as in his 2018 meetings with North Korea's Kim Jung Un and Russia's Putin, but he also restored economic sanctions on Iran (albeit with significant temporary exemptions on oil purchases for a number of countries, including China). In the second half of 2018 his administration secured agreements with Mexico and Canada to modify some aspect of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump's unexpected order in Dec., 2018, to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria led to the resignation of his defense secretary and drew concern from Republicans in Congress and from U.S. allies.

During 2018 Trump's relationship with the those members of the press whose coverage was not supportive grew increasingly acrimonious, and his denunciation of some journalists and companies as enemies of the people was widely criticized. In the 2018 congressional and state elections, Trump campaigned actively for a number of Republican candidates, and notably denounced groups of migrants from Latin America, many of whom were seeking asylum, as a threat to the United States. During the campaign he ordered U.S. troops to the border with Mexico, and after the election he ordered that illegal immigrants be denied the right to apply for asylum, as was permitted under U.S. law. His party retained control of the Senate, where many races were in states he carried in 2016, but lost control of the House and a number of governorships.

Trump, having agreed to continuing funding for the government but also having previously threatened to shut down the government over funding for a wall on the Mexican border, demanded in late 2018 Congress provide several billion dollars for the wall and forced a partial government shutdown, which became the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. After the shutdown ended without providing significant funding for the wall, Trump declared (Feb., 2019) a national emergency in a move bypass Congress and transfer government funds to wall construction. Trump met with North Korea's Kim again in Feb., 2019, but this followup meeting failed to produce any agreement on North Korea's denuclearization.

Bibliography

See his autobiographies (1987, 1991, 1997; their accuracy has been questioned); biography by T. L. O'Brien (2005); studies by W. Barrett (1991), G. Blair (2000), M. D'Antonio (2015), D. C. Johnston (2016), M. Kranish and M. Fisher (2016), M. Singer (2016), J. Green (2017), and B. Woodward (2018).