Donald J. Trump (First Term)

45th President of the United States
Term: 2017-2021
Born: June 14, 1946

Donald John Trump served as the 45th President of the United States after a career in real estate development, branding, and television. Entering office without prior elected political or military service, Trump campaigned as a populist outsider on an "America First" platform emphasizing immigration enforcement, trade protection, and skepticism of multilateral institutions.

His first term produced sweeping tax reform, significant deregulation, a major reshaping of the federal judiciary, and shifts in trade policy toward tariffs and bilateral renegotiation. His administration also navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerated vaccine development under Operation Warp Speed, brokered the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab states, and negotiated the USMCA trade agreement replacing NAFTA. He was impeached twice by the House of Representatives — the first president to be impeached twice — and acquitted by the Senate both times. His first term ended amid unprecedented disputes over the 2020 presidential election.

Path to Power: Business and Political Rise

Born in Queens, New York, Trump attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1968. He joined his family's real estate firm and expanded into commercial skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, golf courses, and entertainment properties. His businesses experienced multiple bankruptcies — six corporate chapter filings between 1991 and 2009 — though Trump himself was not personally bankrupted. His national celebrity grew substantially through his role as host of The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice on NBC.

In June 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. He won the primary against a large field by channeling widespread anti-establishment sentiment. In the general election, he defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by winning the Electoral College 304-227, despite losing the national popular vote by approximately 2.9 million votes. He became the fifth president in American history to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote.

Tax Reform

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, signed December 22, was the largest overhaul of the U.S. tax code since 1986. It permanently cut the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% and made temporary reductions to individual income tax rates across most brackets, with those individual provisions set to expire in 2025. Supporters credited the corporate cuts with stimulating business investment; critics argued the benefits flowed disproportionately to corporations and high-income individuals, and that the resulting revenue loss would increase the national deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the law would add approximately $1.9 trillion to the national debt over ten years.

Trade Policy

Trump imposed significant tariffs on imports from China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, and other trading partners, arguing that previous trade arrangements had disadvantaged American workers. The tariffs on Chinese goods escalated through 2018-2019 in what became known as the U.S.-China trade war. China responded with retaliatory tariffs on American agricultural and industrial exports, and a partial "Phase One" deal was reached in January 2020.

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), signed in January 2020, replaced NAFTA with updated provisions on automotive content rules, intellectual property, digital trade, and labor standards. The deal was ratified by the Senate with significant bipartisan support.

Judicial Appointments

Trump appointed three Supreme Court Justices during his first term: Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 — whose confirmation hearings were exceptionally contentious following sexual assault allegations he denied — and Amy Coney Barrett in October 2020, confirmed just eight days before the presidential election. The three appointments established a 6-3 conservative majority on the Court that subsequently, among other significant decisions, overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in June 2022.

He also appointed 54 federal circuit court judges and 174 federal district court judges during his first term, fundamentally reshaping the federal judiciary.

Foreign Policy

Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement (formally completed in November 2020), the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), as well as from the World Health Organization during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He held three summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — unprecedented direct engagement between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader — without achieving binding agreements on denuclearization.

The Abraham Accords, signed September 15, 2020, normalized diplomatic and commercial relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. The agreements represented the first Arab-Israeli normalization agreements since the Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and were widely regarded as a significant diplomatic achievement.

COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic, which reached the United States in early 2020, dominated the final year of Trump's first term. The administration's response included restricting travel from China in late January 2020, invoking the Defense Production Act, coordinating distribution of personal protective equipment, and — most significantly — launching Operation Warp Speed in May 2020, a public-private partnership that accelerated vaccine development through parallel production and procurement guarantees. Multiple vaccines received Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA by December 2020, in less than a year from the virus's identification — an unprecedented timeline built on both Warp Speed funding and decades of prior mRNA research.

The administration's handling of the pandemic — including public statements that at times minimized the threat, disputes with public health officials, and inconsistent messaging on mask-wearing — was widely criticized. More than 400,000 Americans died of COVID-19 during Trump's first term.

Criminal Justice Reform

The First Step Act, signed December 21, 2018, was a significant bipartisan achievement. The law reduced mandatory minimum sentences for certain nonviolent drug offenses, expanded the federal "safety valve" allowing judges more sentencing discretion, and increased support for prisoner reentry programs. It passed 87-12 in the Senate and represented the most significant federal criminal justice reform in decades.

Impeachments

Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 18, 2019, on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to interactions with Ukraine — specifically, allegations that he had withheld congressionally approved military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden. The Senate acquitted him in February 2020, with the vote on abuse of power being 52-48 for acquittal — the closest any Senate acquittal vote has come to conviction in presidential impeachment history — and one Republican senator (Mitt Romney) voting to convict on one article.

He was impeached a second time on January 13, 2021, on a single charge of incitement of insurrection. The Senate acquitted him in February 2021, though 57 senators voted to convict — a majority, though short of the two-thirds required. Seven Republican senators voted to convict, the most members of a president's own party to vote for conviction in any presidential impeachment trial.

January 6, 2021

On January 6, 2021, following months of public and legal challenges to the 2020 election results — all of which failed in court — Trump held a rally near the White House at which he urged supporters to march to the Capitol, where Congress was certifying the Electoral College results. A mob broke into the Capitol building, interrupting the certification process for several hours and resulting in multiple deaths, hundreds of injuries, and more than a thousand criminal prosecutions.

Trump was subsequently impeached by the House for incitement of insurrection. He was acquitted by the Senate. Independent investigations, including by a bipartisan House Select Committee that issued a final report in December 2022, concluded that Trump had engaged in an unprecedented effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In August 2023, Trump was indicted on federal charges related to the 2020 election and January 6 — the first former U.S. president to face federal criminal charges. Those charges were ultimately dismissed in 2024 after the Supreme Court's Trump v. United States decision on presidential immunity substantially narrowed the case.

Personal Life

Trump married Ivana Zelníčková in 1977; they divorced in 1991. He married Marla Maples in 1993; they divorced in 1999. He married Melania Knauss in 2005. Melania Trump was born in Slovenia and became the second foreign-born First Lady in American history, after Louisa Adams. Trump has five children from his three marriages.

Historical Context: The 47th President

Trump won the 2024 presidential election against Vice President Kamala Harris, becoming the first former president since Grover Cleveland to win non-consecutive terms, and — unlike his 2016 victory — also won the national popular vote in 2024, making him the first president to win the presidency while losing the popular vote and then later win while winning the popular vote. His second term, as the 47th president, began January 20, 2025, and is addressed in the following entry in this series.

Myth vs. History

The 2020 Presidential Election Results Were Overturned in Court
Dozens of legal challenges brought by the Trump campaign and its allies were dismissed or rejected by state and federal courts across the country, including by judges appointed by Trump himself, and by the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. State officials — including Republican election officials in key contested states — certified the results. Congress certified the Electoral College outcome on January 7, 2021, establishing Joe Biden's victory with 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232.

Operation Warp Speed Developed COVID Vaccines Without Prior Scientific Foundation
Operation Warp Speed provided critical federal coordination, logistics, risk guarantees, and billions in government investment that dramatically accelerated the normal vaccine timeline. However, the underlying mRNA technology rested on decades of research conducted across academic institutions, private biotechnology firms, and government research bodies — including federally funded work at the National Institutes of Health. Both the government investment and the prior scientific foundation were essential.

An Impeached President Is Automatically Removed from Office
Impeachment by the House of Representatives is a formal charging process — the constitutional equivalent of an indictment. Removal from office requires a separate trial in the Senate, where conviction requires a two-thirds majority. Trump was impeached twice and acquitted twice, completing his four-year first term. He is the only president to have been impeached twice.

Historical Significance

Donald Trump's first presidency altered the modern political landscape in ways that are still being assessed. His tax legislation, judicial appointments, and trade policy produced lasting structural changes. His populist style and willingness to challenge institutional norms — in immigration, trade, alliances, and democratic procedures — reshaped both major political parties and the terms of American political debate.

His administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the events surrounding the 2020 election will be among the most heavily debated aspects of his legacy. The January 6 Capitol breach and its aftermath represent an episode without clear precedent in the post-Civil War history of American presidential transitions. Whether his presidency marks a durable realignment of American politics or a distinctive episode within longer-term trends remains, at this relatively short historical distance, genuinely uncertain.