Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, politician, television personality,...
Donald Trump
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American
businessman, television personality, author, and politician. Since 1971,
he has been Chairman of
The Trump Organization, which is the principal
holding company for his real estate ventures and other business interests. He is also the
presumptive nominee of the
Republican Party in the
2016 presidential election.
Trump graduated from the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. Having worked in his father
Fred Trump's
real estate and construction firm while attending college, he assumed
control of that family business in 1971, later renaming it The Trump
Organization. During his career, Trump has built hotels, casinos, golf
courses, the
Manhattan neighborhood
Riverside South and numerous other developments,
many of which bear his name, including
Trump Entertainment Resorts (now owned by
Carl Icahn). He has made the Trump name a valuable and distinct
brand. His name appears on such iconic brands as
Trump Vodka,
Trump Steaks and the
Trump Shuttle. He
briefly sought the
Reform Party's nomination in
the 2000 presidential election, withdrawing prior to any primary contests, although he won two primaries after his withdrawal. Listed by
Forbes among the wealthiest 400 of
The World's Billionaires, Trump and his businesses, as well as his three marriages, have for decades received prominent media exposure. He hosted
The Apprentice, a popular
reality television show on
NBC, from 2004 to 2015.
On June 16, 2015, Trump announced
his candidacy for president as a Republican, and quickly emerged as the front-runner for
his party's nomination. His platform includes measures to combat
illegal immigration, opposition to many
free-trade agreements that he regards as unfair, often
non-interventionist
views on foreign policy, and a proposal to temporarily ban immigration
to the United States from countries with a proven history of terrorism
against the United States, until the government has perfected its
ability to screen out potential terrorists. His statements in interviews
and at campaign rallies have often been controversial, with the rallies
sometimes accompanied by
protests or riots.
Trump won the highest number of states and votes in the primaries, culminating with a victory in
Indiana on May 3, whereupon his remaining Republican rivals suspended their campaigns, and Republican chairman
Reince Priebus declared him to be the party's presumptive nominee. Several weeks later, on May 26, the
Associated Press reported that Trump had earned the 1,237 delegates needed to
secure the nomination.
Early life
Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in
Jamaica Estates, Queens, a neighborhood in
New York City.
[3][4] He was the fourth of five children of Mary (née MacLeod; 1912–2000), a homemaker and
philanthropist,
[5] and
Fred Trump (1905–1999), a real estate developer.
His mother, Mary, was born in
Tong on the Isle of
Lewis in
Scotland.
[6] She emigrated to the United States in 1930 at age 18, and worked as a domestic servant for over four years.
[7][8] She met Fred Trump and they were married in 1936, settling in
Jamaica Estates, Queens. Fred Trump eventually became one of the city's biggest real estate developers.
[5][9] Mary Anne Trump was
naturalized as a U.S. citizen on March 10, 1942.
[7][8]
His father, Fred, was born in
Woodhaven, Queens, to
Frederick and
Elizabeth (née Christ) Trump, immigrants from
Kallstadt,
Germany.
[10] Frederick worked as a successful
restaurateur during the
Klondike Gold Rush.
[11][nb 1] In a 1976
New York Times biographical profile,
[13] and again in his 1987 book,
The Art of the Deal, Trump incorrectly stated that his grandfather Frederick Trump was of
Swedish origin,
[14][15]
an assertion that his father Fred Trump made for many years ostensibly
because "he had a lot of Jewish tenants and it wasn't a good thing to be
German", according to a nephew identified as a family historian by
The New York Times.
[16] Donald Trump later acknowledged his German ancestry and served as
grand marshal of the 1999
German-American Steuben Parade in New York City.
[9]
Trump has one brother, Robert (born 1948), and two sisters:
Maryanne (born 1937) and Elizabeth (born 1942). Maryanne is a
United States federal judge on
senior status for the
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
[17] Another brother, Fred Jr. (1938–1981), died of complications from alcoholism.
[18]
The family had a two-story
Tudor Revival home on Wareham Place in Jamaica Estates,
[19] where Trump lived while attending
The Kew-Forest School.
At Kew-Forest, Fred Trump served as a member of the Board of Trustees.
Due to behavior problems, Trump left the school at age 13 and was
enrolled in the
New York Military Academy (NYMA).
[20]
In 1983, Fred told an interviewer that Donald "was a pretty rough
fellow when he was small". Trump finished eighth grade and high school
at NYMA.
[21] During his senior year, Trump participated in marching drills and wore a uniform, attaining the rank of
captain.
[22] In 2015, he told a biographer that NYMA gave him "more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military".
[23]
Trump attended
Fordham University in
the Bronx for two years. He entered the
Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the
University of Pennsylvania, as Wharton then offered one of the few real estate studies departments in U.S. academia.
[24] While there, he worked at the family's company, Elizabeth Trump & Son, named for
his paternal grandmother.
[25] Trump graduated from Wharton in 1968 with a
bachelor's degree in
economics.
[26][27]
Trump was not drafted into the
Vietnam War, for several reasons: student deferments, a
medical deferment, and then a lucky high number in the
draft lottery.
[28] While in college, he obtained four student deferments.
[28]
He was deemed fit for service based upon a military medical examination
in 1966, and was briefly classified as fit by a local draft board in
1968, but was then medically disqualified later in 1968.
[28] Trump has attributed his medical deferment to "
heel spurs" in both feet according to a 2015 biography.
[23] Selective Service records from the
National Archives confirm that Trump received the medical deferment and eventually received a high selective service lottery number in 1969.
[29][nb 2] Trump explained: "I actually got lucky because I had a very high draft number".
[29]
Business career
Trump has said that when he graduated from college in 1968, he was worth about US$200,000 (equivalent to $1,021,000 in 2015).
[30]
At age 23, he made an unsuccessful commercial foray into show business,
investing $70,000 to become co-producer of the 1970 Broadway comedy
Paris Is Out!.
[31] Trump began his real estate career at his father's company,
[32] Elizabeth Trump and Son,
[33] which focused on middle-class rental housing in the New York City
boroughs of
Brooklyn,
Queens, and
Staten Island. During his
undergraduate study, one of Trump's first projects had been the revitalization of the foreclosed Swifton Village apartment complex in
Cincinnati,
Ohio, which his father had purchased for $5.7 million in 1962.
[34]
Fred and Donald Trump became involved in the project and, with a
$500,000 investment, turned the 1,200-unit complex's occupancy rate from
34% to 100%. Trump oversaw the company's 14,000 apartments across
Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.
[35] In 1972, The Trump Organization sold Swifton Village for $6.75 million.
[36][37]
In 1971, Trump moved to
Manhattan, where he became involved in larger construction projects, and used attractive
architectural design to win public recognition.
[38] Trump initially came to public attention in 1973 when he was accused by the
Justice Department of violations of the
Fair Housing Act in the operation of 39 buildings.
[39] After an unsuccessful countersuit filed by attorney
Roy Cohn,
[39]
Trump settled the charges in 1975 without admitting guilt, saying he
was satisfied that the agreement did not "compel the Trump organization
to accept persons on welfare as tenants unless as qualified as any other
tenant."
[40]
Several years later the Trump Organization was again in court for
violating terms of the settlement; Trump denied the charges and there is
no indication that he was found guilty.
[39][41]
Trump promoted Penn Central's rail yard on
30th Street as a site for New York City's planned
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in 1975. He estimated his company could have completed the project for $110 million,
[42]
but, while the city chose his site, it rejected his offer and Trump
received a broker's fee on the sale of the property instead.
Trump's first big deal in Manhattan
[43] was development of the
Penn Central Transportation Company property, which was in bankruptcy. This included the 60th Street
rail yard on the
Hudson River—later developed as
Riverside South—as well as the land around
Grand Central Terminal, for which he paid $60 million with no money down.
[43][44] A key element of the deal was the building of the
Grand Hyatt Hotel
in 1978 near Grand Central Station, which would replace the aging
Commodore property, and which would help bring Trump to public
prominence. Part of this deal was a $1 million loan that Donald's father
Fred's Village Construction Corp. made to help repay draws on a Chase
Manhattan credit line that Fred had arranged for Trump as he built the
hotel. Fred Trump was a silent partner in the initiative, due to his
reputation having been damaged in New York real estate circles after
investigations into windfall profits and other abuses in his real estate
projects, making Trump the front man in the deal. According to
journalist Wayne Barrett, Fred's two-decade friendship with a top
Equitable officer, Ben Holloway, helped convince them to agree to the
project.
[43]
Repairs on the
Wollman Rink in
Central Park, built in 1955, were started in 1980 by a
general contractor unconnected to Trump, with an expected
2 1⁄2-year
construction schedule, but were not completed by 1986. Trump took over
the project, completed it in three months for $1.95 million, which was
$750,000 less than the initial budget, and then operated the rink for
one year with all profits going to charity.
[45]
Wollman Rink in
Central Park, about which Trump said, "it was something we really put a lot of oomph into. [...] and we're proud of it."
[45]
In 1988, Trump acquired the
Taj Mahal Casino in
Atlantic City,
New Jersey, in a transaction with
Merv Griffin and
Resorts International.
[46] The acquisition was funded by significant bank borrowing;
[47]
by 1989, Trump was unable to meet loan payments. Although he secured
additional loans and postponed interest payments, increasing debt
brought the Taj Mahal to bankruptcy in 1991.
[47] Banks and
bondholders, facing potential losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, opted to
restructure
the debt. The Taj Mahal emerged from bankruptcy on October 5, 1991,
with Trump ceding 50 percent ownership in the casino to the bondholders
in exchange for lowered interest rates and more time to pay off the
debt.
[48] He also sold his financially challenged
Trump Shuttle airline and his 282-foot
megayacht, the
Trump Princess.
[49]
The late 1990s saw a resurgence in Trump's financial situation. The
will of Trump's father, who died in 1999, divided an estate estimated at
$250–300 million
[16] equally among his four surviving children.
In 2001, Trump completed
Trump World Tower, a 72-story residential tower across from the
United Nations Headquarters.
[50] Also, he began construction on
Trump Place, a multi-building development along the
Hudson River. Trump continued to own commercial space in
Trump International Hotel and Tower, a 44-story mixed-use (hotel and
condominium) tower on
Columbus Circle, and also continued to own millions of square feet of other prime
Manhattan real estate.
[51]
By 2014, Trump retained 10% ownership of
Trump Entertainment Resorts, which owns the
Trump Taj Mahal and
Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, both in Atlantic City. In that year, Trump Entertainment Resorts entered
Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed Trump Plaza indefinitely. Billionaire
Carl Icahn
purchased the company in 2016, acquiring Trump Taj Mahal; Icahn kept
Trump's name on the building even though Trump no longer had any
ownership.
[52]
According to a July 2015 press release from his campaign manager,
Trump's "income" for the year 2014 was $362 million ("which does not
include dividends, interest, capital gains, rents and royalties").
[53] His disclosure filings for the year 2015 revealed that his total gross revenue was in excess of $611 million.
[54] According to
Fortune
magazine, the $362 million figure as stated on his FEC filings is not
"income" but gross revenue before salaries, interest payments on
outstanding debt, and other business-related expenses; Trump's net
income was "most likely" about one-third of that.
[55][56]
According to public records, Trump received a $302 New York tax rebate
in 2013 (and in two other recent years) given to couples earning less
than $500,000 per year, who submit as proof their federal tax returns.
[56] Trump's campaign manager has suggested that Trump's tax rebate was an error.
[56] Trump has not publicly released his federal tax returns, saying he would not do so because of ongoing
IRS audits.
[57][58]
Trump has
licensed his name and image
for the development of many real estate projects. Trump-branded
properties, which are not owned by Trump, including two Trump-branded
real estate projects in Florida have gone into foreclosure.
[59] The Turkish owner of
Trump Towers Istanbul,
who pays Trump for the use of his name, was reported in December 2015
to be exploring legal means to dissociate the property after the
candidate's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United
States.
[60]
Trump has also licensed his name to son-in-law
Jared Kushner's fifty story Trump Bay Street, a
Jersey City luxury development that has raised $50 million of its $200 million capitalization largely from wealthy
Chinese nationals who, after making an initial down payment of $500,000 in concert with the government's expedited
EB-5 visa program, can usually be expected to obtain U.S. permanent residency for themselves and their families after two years.
[61] A spokesperson clarified that Trump is a partner with
Kushner Properties only in name licensing and not in the building's financing.
[61]
An analysis of Trump's business career by
The Economist
in 2016, concludes that his "...performance [from 1985 to 2016] has
been mediocre compared with the stock market and property in New York",
noting both his successes and bankruptcies. Any such analysis is
difficult because, as the newspaper observed, "Information about Mr
Trump’s business is sketchy. He doesn't run a publicly listed firm..."
Trump's early successes were partly commingled with those of his father
so they omit them claiming, "The best long-term starting point is 1985,
when Mr Trump first appeared in the rankings without his father."
[62] A subsequent analysis by the
Washington Post concluded that "Trump is a mix of braggadocio, business failures, and real success."
[63]
Headquarters at Trump Tower
Trump Tower, a 58-story, mixed-use
skyscraper on
Fifth Avenue in
Midtown Manhattan, was developed by Trump and the
Equitable Life Assurance Company, and was designed by architect
Der Scutt of
Swanke Hayden Connell.
[64] Trump Tower houses both the primary
penthouse condominium residence of Donald Trump and the
headquarters of The Trump Organization.
[65] Trump Tower is also the name of buildings that The Trump Organization has built in
Baku, Azerbaijan;
Istanbul, Turkey, and several other places.
Trump Tower occupies the former site of the architecturally significant
Bonwit Teller flagship store, demolished in 1980.
[66][67] There was controversy when valuable
Art Deco bas-relief sculptures on its facade, which were supposed to go to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, were destroyed during the demolition process.
[66][67]
In addition, the demolition of the Bonwit Teller store was criticized
for a contractor's use of some 200 undocumented Polish immigrant
workers, who, during the rushed demolition process, were reportedly paid
4–5 dollars per hour for work in 12-hour shifts.
[68][69]
Trump testified in 1990 that he rarely visited the site and was unaware
of the illegal workers, some of whom lived at the site and who were
known as the "Polish Brigade". A judge ruled in 1991 that the builders
engaged in "a conspiracy to deprive the funds of their rightful
contribution", referring to the pension and welfare funds of the labor
unions.
[70] However, on appeal, parts of that ruling were overturned,
[71] and the record became sealed when the long-running labor lawsuit was settled in 1999, after 16 years in court.
[68][69]
The building includes shops, cafés, offices, and residences. Its five-level atrium features a 60-foot-high
waterfall spanned by a suspended walkway, below a skylight.
[72] Trump Tower was the setting of the
NBC television show
The Apprentice including a fully functional
television studio set.
[73]
Finances and commercial ventures
Bankruptcies of four businesses
Trump has never filed for
personal bankruptcy, but hotel and casino businesses of his have been declared
bankrupt four times between 1991 and 2009 to re-negotiate debt with banks and owners of stock and bonds.
[74][75] Because the businesses used
Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they were allowed to operate while negotiations proceeded. Trump was quoted by
Newsweek in 2011 saying, "I do play with the bankruptcy laws—they're very good for me" as a tool for trimming debt.
[76][77]
According to a report by
Forbes in 2011, the four bankruptcies were the result of over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City:
Trump Taj Mahal (1991),
Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino (1992), Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (2004), and
Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009).
[78][79]
Trump said "I've used the laws of this country to pare debt. … We'll
have the company. We'll throw it into a chapter. We'll negotiate with
the banks. We'll make a fantastic deal. You know, it's like on
The Apprentice. It's not personal. It's just business."
[80] He indicated that many "great entrepreneurs" do the same.
[78]
Beauty pageants
From 1996 until 2015, when he sold his interests,
[81] Trump owned part or all of the
Miss Universe,
Miss USA, and
Miss Teen USA beauty pageants.
Among the most recognized beauty pageants in the world, the Miss
Universe pageant was founded in 1952 by the California clothing company
Pacific Mills.
[82]
In 2002, Trump was dissatisfied with how
CBS scheduled his pageants, and took both Miss Universe and Miss USA to
NBC, where the shows thrived. In 2006, Miss USA winner
Tara Conner
tested positive for cocaine, but Trump let her keep the crown, for the
sake of giving her a second chance. That decision by Trump was
criticized by
Rosie O'Donnell,
which led to a very blunt and personal rebuttal by Trump criticizing
O'Donnell. In 2012, Trump won a $5 million court award against a
contestant who claimed the show was rigged.
[83]
In 2015, NBC and
Univision
both ended their business relationships with the Miss Universe
Organization after Trump's presidential campaign kickoff speech on June
16, in which he said about Mexico: "They’re sending people that have a
lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re
bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I
assume, are good people."
[84][85]
Trump subsequently filed a $500 million lawsuit against Univision,
alleging a breach of contract and defamation. In his statement about the
lawsuit against Univision, Trump said, "Nothing that I stated was
different from what I have been saying for many years. I want strong
borders, and I do not support or condone illegal immigration. There is a
high level of crime occurring in this country due to unchecked illegal
immigration. This is a major security issue for the United States...."
[86][87]
On September 11, 2015, Trump announced that he had become the sole
owner of the Miss Universe Organization by purchasing NBC's stake, and
that he had "settled" his lawsuits against the network,
[88] though it was unclear whether Trump had yet filed lawsuits against NBC.
[89] He sold his own interests in the pageant shortly afterwards, to
WME/
IMG.
[81]
As for the $500 million lawsuit against the Hispanic network Univision,
that lawsuit was settled in February 2016, but terms of the settlement
were not disclosed.
[90]
Branding and licensing
Trump has marketed his name on a large number of building projects as
well as commercial products and services, achieving mixed success doing
so for himself, his partners, and investors in the projects.
[91][92] His external entrepreneurial and investment ventures include
Trump Financial
(a mortgage firm), Trump Sales and Leasing (residential sales), Trump
International Realty (a residential and commercial real estate brokerage
firm),
The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative (a for profit business education company, formerly called the
Trump University),
[1]
Trump Restaurants (located in Trump Tower and consisting of Trump
Buffet, Trump Catering, Trump Ice Cream Parlor, and Trump Bar),
GoTrump[2] (an online travel search engine
[93][94][95]), Select By Trump (a line of coffee drinks),
[96] Trump Drinks (an energy drink for the Israeli and Palestinian markets)
[97][98][99][100] Donald J. Trump Signature Collection (a line of menswear, men's accessories, and watches), Donald Trump The Fragrance (2004),
SUCCESS by Donald Trump (a second fragrance launched by The Trump Organization and the Five Star Fragrance Company released in March 2012),
Trump Ice bottled water, the former
Trump Magazine,
[101] Trump Golf, Trump Chocolate, Trump Home (home furnishings),
[102] Trump Productions
(a television production company), Trump Institute, Trump: The Game
(1989 board game with a 2005 re-release version tied to The Apprentice),
[94] Donald Trump's Real Estate Tycoon (a business simulation game),
Trump Books,
Trump Model Management,
Trump Shuttle,
Trump Mortgage, Trump Network (a multi-level vitamin, cosmetic, and
urinalysis marketing company),
[103][104] Trump Vodka,
[102][105][106] Trump Steakhouse
[93][107] and
Trump Steaks.
[94] In addition, Trump reportedly received $1.5 million for each one-hour presentation he did for
The Learning Annex.
[108] Trump also endorsed
ACN Inc., a multi-level marketing
telecommunications company. He has spoken at ACN International Training Events at which he praised the company's founders, business model and video phone.
[109] He earned a total $1.35 million for three speeches given for the company, amounting to $450,000 per speech.
[110]
In 2011,
Forbes' financial experts estimated the value of the Trump
brand at $200 million. Trump disputes this valuation, saying that his brand is worth about $3 billion.
[111] Many developers pay Trump to market their properties and to be the public face for their projects.
[112] For that reason, Trump does not own many of the buildings that display his name.
[112] According to
Forbes,
this portion of Trump's empire, actually run by his children, is by far
his most valuable, having a $562 million valuation. According to
Forbes,
there are 33 licensing projects under development including seven
"condo hotels" (the seven Trump International Hotel and Tower
developments). In June 2015, Forbes pegged the Trump brand at USD$125
million
[113] as retailers like
Macy's Inc. and
Serta Mattresses
began dropping Trump branded products, with Macy's saying they are
"disappointed and distressed by recent remarks about immigrants from
Mexico."
[114][115]
Football and boxing
In 1983, Trump purchased the
New Jersey Generals for the inaugural season of the
United States Football League (USFL). Trump and the Generals hired former
New York Jets head coach
Walt Michaels to replace
Chuck Fairbanks. Before the inaugural season began, Trump sold the franchise to
Oklahoma oil magnate J. Walter Duncan. Then, prior to the 1984 season, Duncan sold the team back to Trump.
[116][117]
The USFL played its first 1983, 1984, and 1985 seasons during the
summer. Trump convinced the majority of the owners of other USFL teams
to move the USFL 1986 schedule to the fall, directly opposite the
National Football League
(NFL), arguing that it would eventually force a merger with the NFL;
owners of any USFL teams included in a merger would see their investment
increase significantly.
[118]
In 1985, the
Houston Gamblers merged into the Generals, adding such stars as quarterback
Jim Kelly and wide receiver
Ricky Sanders. Trump retained a 50 percent interest in the merged team.
[119] Michaels was fired, replaced with former Gamblers coach
Jack Pardee, who planned to bring the Gamblers' high-powered
run and shoot offense
with him. However, the USFL's "Dream Team" never took the field. The
1986 season was cancelled after the USFL won a minimal verdict (of less
than four dollars) in an
antitrust lawsuit against the NFL; the USFL folded soon afterward.
[120]
Following the USFL experience, Trump remained involved with sports,
operating golf courses in several countries, and almost buying the
Buffalo Bills football team.
[120] He also hosted several boxing matches in Atlantic City at the Trump Plaza, including
Mike Tyson's 1988 fight against
Michael Spinks, and at one time acted as a financial advisor for
Tyson.
[120][121][122]
Golf courses
The Trump Organization operates many
golf courses and resorts in the U.S. and around the world. The number of golf courses that Trump owns or manages is about 18, according to
Golfweek.
[123] Trump's personal financial disclosure with the
Federal Elections Commission revealed that his golf and resort revenue for the year 2015 was roughly $382 million.
[54][124]
In 2006, Trump bought the Menie Estate in
Balmedie,
Aberdeenshire, Scotland, creating a highly controversial
[125] golf resort, against the wishes of local residents, on an area designated as a
Site of Special Scientific Interest.
[126][127] A 2011 independent documentary,
You've Been Trumped,
by British filmmaker Anthony Baxter, chronicled the golf resort's
construction and the subsequent struggles between the locals and Donald
Trump.
[128] Despite Trump's promises of 6,000 jobs, a decade later, by his own admission, the golf course has created only 200 jobs.
[129]
In April 2014, Trump purchased the
Turnberry hotel and golf resort in
Ayrshire, Scotland, which is a regular fixture in
the Open Championship rota.
[130][131] In June 2015, Trump's appeal objecting to an offshore windfarm (
Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm) within sight of the golf links was denied.
[132]
In December 2015, Trump's attempt to prevent the windfarm being built
within sight of his golf course was dismissed by five justices at the
UK Supreme Court in the case of
Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers.
[133]
Investments
According to a July 2015 press release by Trump's campaign, a portion
of Trump's fortune is held in assets outside his holdings in The Trump
Organization, many of which were concentrated in financial markets. In
2011, Trump made a rare foray into the stock market after being
disappointed with the depressed American real estate market and facing
poor returns on
bank deposits.
He stated that he was not a stock market person, but he also stated
that prime real estate at good prices is hard to get. Among the stocks
Trump purchased, he stated he bought stock in
Bank of America,
Citigroup,
Caterpillar Inc.,
Intel,
Johnson & Johnson and
Procter & Gamble.
[134] In December 2012, Trump revealed that he also added shares of
Facebook to his stock portfolio.
[135] Trump also has US$9 million invested in hedge funds.
[136] He earned US$6.7 million from selling shares in Bank of America and an additional US$3.9 million from selling Facebook in 2014.
[113]
Net worth
Trump has claimed that his net worth is over ten billion dollars, whereas in 2015
Forbes estimated his net worth at 4.5 billion, and
Bloomberg estimated it at 2.9 billion, with the discrepancies due in part to the uncertainty of appraised property values.
[139] These estimates would make Trump one of the
richest politicians in American history. As of March 2016,
Forbes had him listed at #336 on its list of the world's most wealthy.
[140]
Trump was listed on the initial Forbes List of wealthy individuals in
1982 as having an estimated $200 million fortune, including a share of
his father's estimated $200 million net worth.
[141]
After several years on the list, Trump's financial indiscipline in the
1980s caused him to be dropped from 1990 to 1995, and reportedly obliged
him to borrow from his siblings' trusts in 1993;
[141] in 2005,
The New York Times referred to Trump's "verbal billions" in a skeptical article about Trump's self-reported wealth.
[141] At the time, three individuals with direct knowledge of Trump's finances told reporter
Timothy L. O'Brien
that Trump's actual net worth was between $150 and $250 million, though
Trump then publicly claimed a net worth of $5 to $6 billion.
[141]
Claiming libel, Trump sued the reporter (and his book publisher) for $5
billion, lost the case, and then lost again on appeal; Trump refused to
turn over his unredacted tax returns despite his assertion they
supported his case.
[142]
In a sworn deposition, Trump testified that he once borrowed $9.6
million from his father, calling it "a very small amount of money", but
could not recall when he did so;
[143] Trump has since told campaign audiences he began his career with "a small loan of one million dollars" from his father,
[143] which he paid back with interest: "it has not been easy for me", Trump told one New Hampshire crowd.
[144]
In April 2011, amidst speculation whether Trump would run as a candidate in the U.S. presidential election of 2012,
Politico
quoted unnamed sources close to him stating that, if Trump should
decide to run for president, he would file "financial disclosure
statements that [would] show his net worth [was] in excess of $7 billion
with more than $250 million of cash, and very little debt."
[145]
Although Trump did not run as a candidate in the 2012 elections, his
"professionally prepared" 2012 financial disclosure was published in his
book which claimed a $7 billion net worth.
[146]
Estimates of Trump's
net worth have fluctuated along with real estate valuations: in 2015,
Forbes pegged it as $4 billion,
[148] while the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (which scrutinized Trump's
FEC filings) estimated a net worth of $2.9 billion.
[149]
On June 16, 2015, just prior to announcing his candidacy for president
of the United States, Trump released to the media a one-page prepared
financial disclosure statement "from a big accounting firm—one of the
most respected"
[150] stating a net worth of $8,737,540,000.
[151] "I'm really rich", Trump said.
[150] Forbes called the nearly $9 billion figure a "100%" exaggeration.
[152] In June 2015,
Business Insider
published Trump's June 2014 financial statement, noting that $3.3
billion of that total is represented by "Real Estate Licensing Deals,
Brand and Branded Developments", described by
Business Insider as "basically [implying] that Trump values his character at $3.3 billion."
[153]
In July 2015, Federal election regulators released new details of
Trump's self-reported wealth and financial holdings when he became a
Republican presidential candidate, reporting that his assets are worth
above $1.4 billion, which includes at least $70 million in stocks, and a
debt of at least $265 million.
[154][155] Mortgages on Trump's major properties—including Trump Tower,
40 Wall Street, and the
Trump National Doral
golf course—each fall into the "above $50 million" range, the highest
reportable category on FEC filings, with Trump paying interest rates
ranging from 4% to 7.125%.
[156] (Mortgages on those three properties were separately reported as $100 million, $160 million, and $125 million in 2013.
[157]) Other outstanding Trump mortgages and debts are pegged to current market interest rates.
[156] A 2012 report from Trump's accounting firm estimated $451.7 million in debt and other collateral obligations.
[157] Filings in 2015 revealed debt of $504 million, according to
Fortune magazine.
[55]
A July 2015 campaign press release, issued one month after Trump
announced his presidential run, said that the FEC filing "was not
designed for a man of Mr. Trump's massive wealth"
[156] and that his "net worth is in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS" (emphasis in original document).
[155][158]
However, Trump has testified that "my net worth fluctuates, and it goes
up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings—even my
own feelings."
[159] On the same day, Trump's own stated estimates of his net worth have varied by as much as $3.3 billion.
[141] Trump has also acknowledged that past exaggerated estimates of his wealth have been "good for financing".
[160] Forbes
has said that although Trump "shares a lot of information with us that
helps us get to the figures we publish," he "consistently pushes for a
higher net worth—especially when it comes to the value of his personal
brand."
[152] Forbes
reduced its estimate of Trump's net worth by $125 million following
Trump's controversial 2015 remarks about Mexican illegal immigrants,
which ended Trump's business contracts with
NBCUniversal,
Univision,
Macy's,
Serta,
PVH Corporation, and Perfumania.
[161] An internal
Young & Rubicam
study of Trump's brand favorability among high-income consumers showed
"plummeting" ratings at the end of 2015, suggesting that Trump's various
businesses could face market difficulties and financing challenges in
the future.
[162]
Taxes
Trump has released financial information,
[53][54] but has not
released his tax returns,
[163] saying that he will do so before the 2016 election if an ongoing
audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is completed covering tax returns for the years 2009 thru 2016.
[58][164] Former Republican Presidential candidate
Mitt Romney
is among those who have questioned Trump's purported wealth and his
unwillingness to release his tax returns, suggesting Trump might be wary
of revealing a potential electoral "bombshell".
[165][166][167][168] Trump responded by disclosing the existence of the ongoing audit.
[57][169][170]
Trump later said that the government has audited him too many times,
and he speculated about possible reasons for auditing him again now,
saying that perhaps it was because he is a "strong Christian", though he
added "I don't think it applies".
[171]
Trump says he will not yet release records for audited years that he
had "passed" because such records "mesh" and "interrelate" with current
disputed IRS filings. Tax attorneys are generally sympathetic to wanting
tax returns kept private until an audit is completed. High income
individuals are audited more frequently than the average taxpayer, but
it is unusual for an individual to be audited for several consecutive
years.
[57][172][173] When asked by journalist
George Stephanopoulos
if he would reveal his tax rate, Trump replied: "It's none of your
business, you'll see it when I release. But I fight very hard to pay as
little tax as possible".
[173][174][175]
Trump Taj Mahal
The
Trump Taj Mahal is a
casino on the boardwalk in
Atlantic City, New Jersey,
United States. The casino was opened by then-owner Donald Trump in
April 1990, and was built at a total cost of nearly one billion dollars.
Financed with $675 million in
junk bonds[176] at a 14% interest rate, the project entered
Chapter 11 bankruptcy the following year,
[80] with Trump ceding 50% equity ownership to bondholders.
[176][177] The property was repurchased in 1996 and consolidated into
Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts,
which filed for bankruptcy in 2004 with $1.8 billion in debt, filing
again for bankruptcy five years later with $50 million in assets and
$500 million in debt. The restructuring ultimately left Trump with 10%
ownership in the Trump Taj Mahal and other Trump casino properties.
[177]
Trump served as chairman of the organization, which was renamed Trump
Entertainment Resorts, from mid-1995 until early 2009, and served as CEO
from mid-2000 to mid-2005.
[178]
Its sister property,
Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino,
closed in September 2014. In November 2014, the Trump Taj Mahal
threatened to close and cease casino and hotel operations by the end of
the year if the union would not drop its appeal of the casino's
bankruptcy ruling, rebuffing their demand for continued health insurance
and pension coverage. On December 18, 2014 the Trump Taj Mahal reached
an agreement with its union and kept the casino open, but did not
restore the contested benefits. In February 2016, the Trump Taj Mahal
and Trump Entertainment Resorts were purchased by billionaire
Carl Icahn and exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
[52]
Trump University
Trump University LLC (formerly the Trump Wealth Institute;
[179] later named Trump Entrepreneur Initiative LLC) was an American
for-profit education
company that ran a real estate training program from 2005 until at
least 2010. After multiple lawsuits, it is now defunct. It was founded
by Donald Trump and his associates, Michael Sexton and Jonathan
Spitalny, in 2004.
[180]
The company offered courses in real estate, asset management,
entrepreneurship, and wealth creation, charging fees ranging from $1,500
to $35,000 per course.
[181]
The State of New York has filed a lawsuit against the re-named "Trump
Entrepreneur Initiative" (New York regulators decided the word
"university" was misleading
[182][183][184]) for allegedly illegal business practices,
[181][185][186][187] while
class action lawsuits proceed against him including two under jurisdiction of U.S. District Court Judge
Gonzalo P. Curiel in California.
[188][189][190]
Entertainment media
Trump has twice been nominated for an
Emmy Award and has made appearances as a caricatured version of himself in television series and films.
[191] He has also played an oil tycoon in
The Little Rascals. Trump is a member of the
Screen Actors Guild and receives an annual pension of more than $110,000.
[192][193] He has been the subject of comedians,
flash cartoon artists, and online caricature artists. Trump also had his own daily
talk radio program called
Trumped!.
[194][195][196]
The Apprentice
In 2003, Trump became the
executive producer and host of the
NBC reality show The Apprentice,
in which a group of competitors battled for a high-level management job
in one of Trump's commercial enterprises. Contestants were successively
"fired" and eliminated from the game. In 2004, Trump filed a
trademark application for the
catchphrase "
You're fired."
[3][4][5]
For the first year of the show, Trump earned $50,000 per episode
(roughly $700,000 for the first season), but following the show's
initial success, he was paid $1 million per episode.
[197]
In a July 2015 press release, Trump's campaign manager claimed that
NBCUniversal had paid him $213,606,575 for his 14 seasons hosting the
show,
[53] although the network did not verify the claim.
[198] In 2007, Trump received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to television (
The Apprentice).
[92][199]
Along with British TV producer
Mark Burnett, Trump was hired as host of
The Celebrity Apprentice,
in which well-known stars compete to win money for their charities.
While Trump and Burnett co-produced the show, Trump stayed in the
forefront, deciding winners and "firing" losers.
On February 16, 2015, NBC announced that they would be renewing
The Apprentice for a 15th season.
[200]
Eleven days later, Trump stated that he was "not ready" to sign on for
another season because of the possibility of a presidential run.
[201] Despite this, on March 18, NBC announced they were going ahead with production.
[202]
On June 29, after widespread negative reaction stemming from Trump's
campaign announcement speech, NBC released a statement saying, "Due to
the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants,
NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump,"
apparently ending Trump's role in
The Apprentice.
[203]
Filmography
Trump Model Management
In 1999, Trump founded a modeling company,
Trump Model Management, which operates in the
SoHo neighborhood of New York City.
[211]
Together with another Trump company, Trump Management Group LLC, Trump
Model Management has brought nearly 250 foreign fashion models into the
U.S. to work in the fashion industry since 2000.
[212]
In 2014, president of Trump Model Management Corrine Nicolas, other
managers, and the company were sued by one of the agency's former
models, Alexia Palmer, alleging racketeering, breach of contract, mail
fraud, and violating immigrant wage laws.
[213] The case was dismissed from federal court in March 2016.
[214]
World Wrestling Entertainment
Trump is a
World Wrestling Entertainment fan and friend of WWE owner
Vince McMahon. He has hosted two
WrestleMania events in the
Trump Plaza and has been an active participant in several of the shows.
[215] Trump's Taj Mahal in Atlantic City was host to the
1991 WBF Championship (which was owned by WWE, known at the time as the "World Wrestling Federation"). He also appeared in
WrestleMania VII. He was interviewed by
Jesse Ventura ringside at
WrestleMania XX.
[216]
Trump appeared at
WrestleMania 23 in a match called "The Battle of the Billionaires."
[215] He was in the corner of
Bobby Lashley, while Vince McMahon was in the corner of Lashley's opponent
Umaga with
Stone Cold Steve Austin as the special guest referee.
[215] The deal was that either Trump or McMahon would have their head shaved if their competitor lost.
[215] Lashley won the match, and so McMahon got the haircut.
[215]
On June 15, 2009, as
part of a storyline, McMahon announced on
Monday Night Raw that he had "sold" the show to Trump.
[215]
Appearing on screen, Trump declared he would be at the following
commercial-free episode in person and would give a full refund to the
people who purchased tickets to the arena for that night's show.
[215] McMahon "bought back"
Raw the following week for twice the price.
[215]
Trump was inducted into the celebrity wing of the
WWE Hall of Fame in 2013, at
Madison Square Garden for his contributions to the promotion. He made his sixth WrestleMania appearance the next night.
[217]
Politics
Trump has described his political leanings and positions in various ways over time.
[218][219][220] Politico has described his positions as "eclectic, improvisational and often contradictory".
[220] He has listed several different party affiliations over the years,
[220][221] and has also run as a
Reform Party candidate.
[221] The positions that he has revised or reversed include stances on
progressive taxation,
abortion, and
government involvement in health care.
[220]
Political affiliations
Trump's party affiliation has changed over the years. Although his
party affiliation prior to 1987 is unclear, Trump was an early supporter
of Republican
Ronald Reagan for U.S. President in the late 70s.
[222] In 1987 he registered as a Republican until 1999. He then switched to the
Reform Party for three years and ran a
presidential exploratory campaign for its nomination. After his run, Trump left the party in 2001 due to the involvement of
David Duke,
Pat Buchanan and
Lenora Fulani within the party.
[223] From 2001 to 2009 he was a Democrat and then switched back to the Republican Party in 2009 after endorsing Republican
John McCain for President.
[224]
In December 2011, Trump became an Independent for five months, before
returning to the Republican Party, where he has pledged to stay.
[225][226]
Trump has made contributions to campaigns of both Republican Party
and Democratic Party candidates, with the top ten recipients of his
political contributions being six Democrats and four Republicans.
[227] After 2011, his campaign contributions were more favorable to Republicans than to Democrats.
[228] In February 2012, Trump endorsed Republican
Mitt Romney for President.
[229] When asked in 2015 which recent President he prefers, Trump picked Democrat
Bill Clinton over the Republican
Bushes.
[230][231]
Involvement in politics, 1988–2015
Trump floated the idea of running for president in 1988, 2004, and 2012, and for
Governor of New York in 2006 and 2014, but did not enter those races.
[232][233]
He was considered as a potential running mate for George H. W. Bush on
the Republican Party's 1988 presidential ticket but lost out to future
Vice President
Dan Quayle. There is dispute over whether Trump or the Bush camp made the initial pitch.
[234]
In 1999, Trump filed an
exploratory committee to seek the presidential nomination of the
Reform Party in 2000.
[235][236] A July 1999 poll matching him against likely Republican nominee
George W. Bush and likely Democratic nominee
Al Gore showed Trump with seven percent support.
[237]
Though he dropped out of the race due to party infighting, Trump still
won the party's California and Michigan primaries after dropping out.
[238][239][240][241]
In February 2009, Trump appeared on
The Late Show with David Letterman, and spoke about the
automotive industry crisis of 2008–10. He said that "instead of asking for money",
General Motors "should go into bankruptcy and work that stuff out in a deal".
[242]
As Trump publicly speculated about seeking the
2012 Republican presidential nomination, a
Wall Street Journal/NBC
News poll released in March 2011 found Trump leading among potential
contenders, one point ahead of former Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney.
[245] A
Newsweek
poll conducted in February 2011 showed Trump within a few points of
Barack Obama, with many voters undecided in the November 2012 general
election for president of the United States.
[246] A poll released in April 2011 by
Public Policy Polling
showed Trump having a nine-point lead in a potential contest for the
Republican nomination for president while he was still actively
considering a run.
[247][248] His moves were interpreted by some media as possible promotional tools for his reality show
The Apprentice.
[249][250][251]
In April 2011, Trump waded into the controversy about President
Barack Obama's proof of
eligibility as a natural born citizen: "His grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth, okay?"
[252][253][254] Trump's claim was based upon an incomplete transcript filed years earlier in a court case.
[253][255][256] Trump also questioned whether Obama's grades alone warranted entry to his
Ivy League schools, and called for release of school records,
[257] plus release of a long form birth certificate.
[258][259] Two days later, the
White House sought to put the longstanding matter to rest with release of the long form.
[260] Trump said he hoped it "checks out", and expressed pride about his role.
[261]
When asked years later where Obama was born, Trump said: "I really
don't know. I mean, I don't know why he wouldn't release his records.
But you know, honestly, I don't want to get into it".
[262][263]
Trump’s strengths as a potential candidate in the 2012 presidential
election included being a businessman, not being a politician, not
talking like a politician, and not thinking like a politician.
[264] He generally had polled at or below 17 percent among the crowded field of possible Republican candidates.
[264] On May 16, 2011, Trump announced he would not run for president in the 2012 election, while also saying he would have won.
[249]
In 2013, Trump was a featured speaker at the
Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
[265]
During the lightly-attended early-morning speech, Trump said that
President Obama gets "unprecedented media protection", he spoke against
illegal immigration, and advised against harming Medicare, Medicaid and
Social Security.
[266][267]
Also in 2013, he spent over $1 million to research a possible run for president of the United States.
[268] In October 2013, New York Republicans circulated a memo suggesting Trump should run for governor of the state in 2014, against
Andrew Cuomo;
Trump said in response that while New York had problems and taxes were
too high, running for governor was not of great interest to him.
[269] He also made statements denying climate change that were discordant with the
opinion of the scientific community.
[270] In February 2015, Trump opted not to renew his television contract for
The Apprentice, generating speculation that he might run for president in 2016.
[271]
Presidential campaign, 2016
On June 16, 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for
President of the United States at
Trump Tower in
New York City. Trump drew attention to
domestic issues such as
illegal immigration,
offshoring of American jobs, the
U.S. national debt, and
Islamic terrorism, and announced his campaign slogan, "
Make America Great Again."
[272] Trump ran as a self-described
conservative, particularly in
fiscal and
religious matters. His campaign emphasises
American patriotism, with disdain for
political correctness.
[273][274][275]
In the primary election, the Republican establishment widely opposed Trump's candidacy, doubting his chances of winning the
general election and fearing he could cause significant harm to the image of the
Republican Party.
[276]
During the primaries, political contenders described him as "divisive",
"unserious", and a "bully", denouncing the personal attacks he makes on
journalists, politicians, and competing candidates.
[277][278][279]
However, Trump's candidacy succeeded with Republican primary voters,
partly because of widespread media coverage, his ability to largely
self-finance his campaign without reliance on
super PACs, frequent
endorsements, and the perception that he "tells it like it is".
[280][281] As of June 2016, about 4% of his campaign was funded by
super PACs.
[282]
Trump has generally employed strong rhetoric.
[283]
He has supported Christian groups in the U.S., claiming that he will
reverse unfavorable tax treatments preventing them from expressing
themselves in the political arena and promising to revive a more
widespread use of the phrase "
Merry Christmas" instead of "
Happy Holidays" in department stores. Other issues he highlights include taking care of military
veterans, making the military "strong", aggressive bombing of the Mideast terrorist group
ISIS, surveillance of certain mosques in the U.S., and making
trade agreements more favorable to American workers.
[284][285][286]
Primaries
Trump entered a large field of candidates consisting of 16 other
Republican candidates campaigning for the nomination, the largest
presidential field in American history.
[287] By early 2016, the race had mostly centered on Donald Trump and
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.
[288] On
Super Tuesday,
Trump won the majority of the delegates and remained the front-runner
throughout the primaries. By March 2016, Trump reached over 50% in
national support from Republican primary voters and became poised to win
the Republican nomination.
[289] After a landslide win in
Indiana on May 3, 2016, which prompted the remaining candidates
Ted Cruz and
John Kasich to suspend their presidential campaigns,
RNC Chairman
Reince Priebus
declared Trump the presumptive nominee. Finishing in June 2016 with
nearly 14 million votes, Trump broke the all-time record for winning the
most primary votes in the history of the
Republican Party.
[293]
General election
After becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Trump's focus shifted to the
general election, urging remaining primary voters to "save their vote for the general election."
[294] Trump began targeting
Hillary Clinton, who became the presumptive
Democratic nominee on June 6, 2016, and continued to campaign across the country under police protection. One month before the
Republican National Convention,
Secret Service agents thwarted an assassination attempt on Trump by a 20-year-old man
illegally residing in the U.S. during one of his rallies in
Las Vegas.
[298]
Political positions
Trump has described his political positions in various and often contradictory ways over time.
[218][220][299] Politifact
writes that it is difficult to determine Trump's stance on issues,
given his frequent changes in position and "his penchant for using
confusing, vague and even contradictory language."
[300] Politico has described his positions as "eclectic, improvisational and often contradictory."
[220] Trump's political positions are widely described by the media as
"populist".
[301][302]
Social issues
Some political analysts describe Trump as a "
moderate" regarding
LGBT rights and
abortion.
[306] Trump describes himself as
pro-life and would ban late-term abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or health.
[307] He is in favor of cutting federal funding for
Planned Parenthood.
[308] Trump supports the
Second Amendment and is opposed to
gun control in general.
[309] He supports fixing the
federal background check system so that criminal and mental health records are always put into the system.
[310] Trump opposes
legalizing recreational marijuana but supports legalizing
medical marijuana.
[311]
Trump has stated that he supports "traditional marriage".
[312] He has described himself as a "friend" of the
LGBT community and has not committed to reversing the June 2015
Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling that legalized
same-sex marriage nationwide.
[315]
Regarding the ruling, he said: "I would have preferred states, you
know, making the decision and I let that be known. But they made the
decision. [...] So, at a certain point you have to be realistic about
it."
[307][313] Trump has demonstrated his support of
capital punishment both through his campaign speeches about
killings of police officers,
[316] and through full-page ads he purchased favoring
capital punishment in New York during the 1989
Central Park jogger case.
[317]
Healthcare and education
Trump favors replacing the
Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as "Obamacare") with a different
free-market plan
that would allow health insurance to be sold across state lines, enable
individuals to deduct health insurance premiums, expand health savings
accounts, and give more control of Medicaid to the states.
[318]
He has voiced support for a single-payer healthcare system in the past,
but distanced himself from the idea during his 2016 campaign.
[319] Trump favors getting rid of backlogs and waitlists which are the focus of the
Veterans Health Administration scandal.
In a statement, he said he believes that Veterans Affairs facilities
need to be upgraded with recent technology, hire more veterans to treat
other veterans, increase support of female veterans, and create
satellite clinics within hospitals in rural areas.
[320] Trump has stated his support for
school choice and local control for primary and secondary schools.
[321] He opposes the
Common Core State Standards Initiative for primary and secondary schools,
[307][322] and has called Common Core "a disaster" that must be ended.
[323]
Trade
Trump identifies as a "
free trader", but says that trade must be "reasonably fair".
[324] His campaign's tax plan calls for reducing the
corporate tax rate to 15% concurrent with the elimination of various loopholes and deductions.
[325] During the Republican Party Primary, Trump said that the
minimum wage should not be raised because increasing it would hurt America's economic competitiveness.
[326]
However, since becoming the presumptive nominee for Republican
candidate for President he has stated that he is open to raising the
minimum wage, saying: "I haven't decided in terms of numbers. But I
think people have to get more."
[327]
Foreign policy
Trump has been described as
non-interventionalist[328][329] and
nationalist.
[330] He supports increasing U.S. military defense spending,
[330] but favors decreasing U.S. spending on
NATO.
[331] Trump has at various times said he favored and opposed sending US ground forces to defeat the
Islamic State.
[218] He supports expanded use of aggressive interrogation techniques, including
waterboarding "and a hell of a lot worse", with terrorists.
[332][333]
Trump tentatively endorsed ("Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time
it was done correctly.") a future invasion of Iraq in 2002.
[334]
There is no public record of him opposing the war until 2003, after it
was well under way. By 2004 he was public in his criticism of the war.
[335] In 2008, Trump said that
George W. Bush should have been impeached for the
invasion of Iraq.
[336]
In 2013, he repeatedly referred to the war as a "mess" and in December
2013 also said that "People are questioning invading Iraq in the first
place".
[337] On February 13 during
Republican Presidential debates,
Trump called the war "a big, fat mistake" and alleged that "They lied.
They said there were weapons of mass destruction -- there were none. And
they knew there were none."
[338][339] He criticized the impact of the war on the region: "[W]e should have never been in Iraq, we have destabilized the
Middle East."
[339] On February 18, 2016, he said that by the time the invasion occurred, he had become an opponent.
[340] In June 2016, Trump claimed he was among the earliest opponents of the war.
[341]
Regarding the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict,
Trump has stated the importance of being a neutral party during
potential negotiations, while also having stated that he is "a big fan
of Israel."
[342] He supports Israeli
settlement construction in the West Bank.
[343] He endorsed Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in 2013.
[342] Trump has been critical of
Pakistan, comparing it to North Korea, describing it as "probably the most dangerous country" in the world, and saying that
Pakistan's nuclear weapons posed a "serious problem." He has advocated improving relations with
India as a "check" to Pakistan.
[344]
Environmental issues
Trump has said that the
EPA is a "disgrace" and has promised to cut its budget.
[345] He has called
global warming "a total hoax", claiming at one point that it was perpetrated by the Chinese to harm American businesses.
[312][346]
Immigration policies
Trump's proposed policies on immigration has been one his most highly
discussed policies during the campaign. While many of Trump's policies
appeal to
working-class
voters, some have come under scrutiny by several experts on immigration
who question the effectiveness and affordability of his plans.
[347][348]
Trump has emphasized U.S. border security, but says that his specific
proposals during the campaign are flexible suggestions. Trump vows to
strenghten the
Mexico–United States border by building a substantial wall in order to keep out
illegal immigrants, a wall which Trump promises Mexico will pay for.
[349][350] Trump would also create a "deportation force" to deport around
11 million people illegally residing in the U.S., stating "Day 1 of my presidency, [illegal immigrants] are getting out and getting out fast."
[351] During Trump's campaign,
U.S. naturalization
applications spiked by 14 percent, creating speculation illegal
immigrants are rushing to become U.S. citizens out of fear of being
deported if Trump becomes President.
[352] Trump also opposes
birthright citizenship, arguing people born in the United States shouldn't automatically be granted U.S. citizenship.
[353]
One of Trump's most controversial proposals was a temporary ban on foreign Muslims entering the United States.
[358] This proposal by Trump came in response to a wave of radical Islamic
terrorist attacks in Europe, with Trump stating that
Belgium and
France had been blighted by the failure of Muslims in these countries to integrate, and that living in
Brussels was like living in a "hellhole" because of its dire state in Muslim assimilation.
[359] The proposal came under heavy scrutiny, with critics saying such a ban would go against American values, or against the
Constitution.
[363]
Trump later modified his position by stating that the temporary ban
would apply to people originating from countries with a proven history
of terrorism against the United States or its allies.
[364] Trump has said that the ban would be lifted once the government has perfected its ability to screen out potential terrorists.
[365]
According to political writer
Steve Benen, unlike past political leaders, Trump has not kept
fringe theories and their supporters at arm's length.
[366] Political writer
Jack Shafer
says that Trump may be a "fairly conventional American populist when it
comes to his policy views", but he has a revolutionary ability to
attract
free media attention, sometimes by making outrageous comments.
[367][368]
Although Trump has refused to discuss his past comments on Obama's
proof of citizenship during the campaign, he has not shied away from other topics that attract fringe theorists.
[369] Among others, Trump has alluded to the theory that President Obama is
secretly a Muslim,
[370][371] the
unfounded notion that vaccine doses cause
autism if administered too quickly in succession,
[372][373] and the
conspiracy theory that former Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia might not have died of natural causes but was murdered.
[374]
Personal life
Trump's eldest daughter
Ivanka in 2011
Trump's second-oldest son
Eric in 2010
Family
Trump has had three marriages, the first two ending in divorce, which have been publicized in the
tabloid media.
[375] His personal life has also gained extensive coverage in the
mainstream media.
[376]
Trump married his first wife,
Czech model
Ivana Zelníčková, at age 30 on April 7, 1977 at the
Marble Collegiate Church in
Manhattan.
[377] They had three children: sons
Donald, Jr. (born December 31, 1977) and
Eric (born January 6, 1984) and daughter
Ivanka (born October 30, 1981). Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka now serve as executive vice presidents of
The Trump Organization.
[378]
Ivana became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1988, with Trump at her side.
[379] Trump is popularly known as "The Donald", a nickname perpetuated by the media after Ivana referred to him as such in a 1989
Spy magazine cover story.
[380][381] By early 1990, Trump's troubled marriage to Ivana and long-running affair with actress
Marla Maples had become fodder for the tabloid press.
[15][382]
The couple divorced in 1991; then in October of that year his mother
was mugged, and in November he helped a stranger who was being mugged.
[383][384]
In 1992, he sued Ivana for not honoring a gag clause in their divorce
agreement by disclosing facts about him in her best-selling book, and
Trump won a gag order.
[385][386][387] In 2015, Ivana said that she and Donald "are the best of friends".
[388]
Maples gave birth to their daughter Tiffany on October 13, 1993. They married two months later on December 20, 1993.
[389] The couple formally separated in May 1997,
[390] with their divorce finalized in June 1999.
[391][392]
Trump's wife
Melania at a campaign event in 2016
In 1998, Trump began a relationship with
Slovenian-born fashion model
Melania Knauss.
[393][394] They became engaged in April 2004
[395] and were married on January 22, 2005 at
Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, on the island of
Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception at Trump's
Mar-a-Lago estate.
[396][397][398] In 2006, Melania became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
[394] In March 2006, she gave birth to their son whom they named Barron William Trump.
[399][400] (Trump had previously used the pseudonym "John Baron" or "Barron" in some business deals and for other purposes.
[13][68][401][402]) Having spoken the language since his childhood, Barron is fluent in
Slovenian.
[403] In a February 2009 interview on ABC's news program
Nightline,
Trump commented that his love for his business had made it difficult
for his first two wives to compete with his affection for work.
[404]
Trump has eight grandchildren: five via his son Donald Jr.,
[405][406][407] and three via his daughter Ivanka.
[408][409][410]
His brother Fred Jr. predeceased his father Fred, and, shortly after
the latter died in 1999, Fred III's wife gave birth to a son with
serious medical problems. Trump and his family offered to pay the
medical bills through Fred Sr.'s company (Fred Sr. freely provided
medical coverage to his family through his company for decades).
[411]
Fred III then sued the family for allegedly having used "undue
influence" on a dementia-stricken Fred Sr. to get Fred III and his
sister Mary a reduced share from their grandfather's will, but Trump
attributed the reduced share to his father's dislike of Fred III's
mother, and Trump stopped the aid for Fred III's son. The aid was
resumed by court order pending outcome of the lawsuit, which was then
settled.
[412][413]
Religious views
Trump is a
Presbyterian.
[414] Trump said he began going to church at the
First Presbyterian Church in the
Jamaica neighborhood in
Queens, when he was younger.
[clarification needed][415] Trump attended Sunday school and had his
confirmation at that church.
[415]
In an April 2011 interview on the
700 Club,
he commented: "I'm a Protestant, I'm a Presbyterian. And you know I've
had a good relationship with the church over the years. I think religion
is a wonderful thing. I think my religion is a wonderful religion."
[416][417] Trump told a 2015 South Carolina campaign audience he attends
Marble Collegiate Church,
where he married his first wife Ivana in 1977. Marble has said that,
though Trump has a longstanding history with the church, he is a
Presbyterian and not an active member of Marble.
[415] Trump has said that although he participates in
Holy Communion,
he has not asked God for forgiveness for his sins. He stated, "I think
if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't
bring God into that picture."
[418]
In 1983, the Reverend
Norman Vincent Peale, described in a
New York Times
profile as Trump's "pastor" and "family minister", said that Trump was
"kindly and courteous in certain business negotiations and has a
profound streak of honest humility."
[21] Trump calls his own book
The Art of the Deal
(1987) "my second favorite book of all time," and has told campaign
audiences: "Do you know what my first is? The Bible! Nothing beats the
Bible."
[419][420] Declining to name his favorite
Bible verse, Trump said "I don't like giving that out to people that you hardly know."
[415]
Trump maintains relationships with several prominent national
Evangelical Protestant and other
Christian leaders, including
Tony Perkins and
Ralph Reed.
[421] During his 2016 presidential campaign, he received a blessing from
Greek Orthodox priest
Emmanuel Lemelson.
[422]
Trump has ties to the
Jewish-American community.
[423] At an
Algemeiner Journal awards ceremony honoring him with the Algemeiner Liberty Award, he was asked about having
Jewish grandchildren. In reference to daughter
Ivanka, who
converted to
Judaism before her marriage to
Jared Kushner,
Trump said: "Not only do I have Jewish grandchildren, I have a Jewish
daughter; and I am very honored by that ... it wasn't in the plan but I
am very glad it happened."
[424]
Controversy involving the Pope
In February 2016, while on his way home following a visit to Mexico,
Pope Francis said the following:
[425][426]
A person who thinks only about building walls—wherever they may
be—and not building bridges, is not Christian. ...I'd just say that this
man [Trump] is not Christian if he said it this way. ...We must see if
he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.
Trump responded that it was "disgraceful" for the Pope to question
his faith, and suggested that the Mexican government was "using the Pope
as a pawn" for political purposes, "because they want to continue to
rip off the United States."
[427][428][429] Trump said that "if and when" the
Islamic State (ISIL)
attacks the Vatican, the Pope would have "wished and prayed" Trump were
President because under Trump's leadership, such an attack would not
happen.
[428][429]
Shortly thereafter, Director of the
Holy See Press Office Federico Lombardi
insisted that the Pope was "in no way" launching an attack on Donald
Trump nor was he trying to sway voters by declaring someone who
advocates building walls isn't Christian.
[430]
The spokesman said that "the Pope has made it clear that he would not
enter into the [presidential] election campaign in the United States",
and indeed the headlines in the United States had gone considerably
beyond what the Pope had actually said.
[431]
After the clarification by Lombardi, Trump retracted his criticism of
the Pope: "I don't think this is a fight," said Trump. "I think he said
something much softer than was originally reported by the media."
[432]
Other personal information
Trump has never done drugs, or smoked cigarettes, and has always
heeded a warning from his older brother (an alcoholic) to not drink
alcohol.
[433][434][435] He also has
germaphobic tendencies, and therefore prefers not to shake hands.
[436]
On
The Howard Stern Show
in 1997, Trump discussed with Stern the risk of getting diseases from
dating, and agreed with Stern's characterization of dating as Trump's
"personal Vietnam".
[437][438] Trump said he felt "like a great and very brave soldier", but added, "This is better than Vietnam".
[437][439]
Trump has hinted about "experiences" with married women.
[440] He was rumored to have dated models such as
Carla Bruni in the early 1990s
[441][442] and
Kara Young in the mid to late 1990s
[443]—although Bruni denied the rumors, stating that she had met Trump only once.
[444] He allegedly "bombarded"
Princess Diana with expensive flowers after her 1996 divorce from
Prince Charles,
[445] and has said that he would have liked to have courted that "genuine princess".
[446] He sometimes gave the impression that Diana and/or Charles had an interest in his properties, which they apparently did not.
[401][447]
In an interview with director
Errol Morris in 2002, Trump told him that
Citizen Kane
was his favorite movie. In his personal analysis of the film, Trump
believes that the message of the film is that "wealth isn't
everything...because [Kane] had the wealth, but he didn't have
happiness." Furthermore, Trump explained his meaning of the dinner table
scene: "The table [keeps] getting larger and larger and larger, with
[Kane] and his wife getting further and further apart as he got
wealthier and wealthier....perhaps, I can understand that."
[448]
Appearances in popular culture
Prior to 2015
Even before Trump's very highly-publicized presidential campaign that
began in 2015, he often appeared in popular culture. Trump has been
depicted in the
Doonesbury comic strip by
Garry Trudeau since 1987.
[449][450] The depictions prompted an unfavorable response from Trump.
[451][452]
Trump and members of his family have been parodied on
Saturday Night Live since 1988, and he has hosted the show twice, in April 2004 and November 2015.
[453] The 2015 episode had the highest ratings of a
Saturday Night Live episode since December 21, 2013.
[454]
You've Been Trumped, a 2011 documentary film by
Anthony Baxter, follows the development of a Scottish golf resort.
[102][455][456][457][458][459] When it was announced that the documentary was to be given its UK television première on
BBC Two on October 21, 2012,
[460] Trump's lawyers contacted the
BBC
to demand that the film should not be shown, claiming it was defamatory
and misleading. The screening went ahead, with the BBC defending the
decision and stating that Trump had refused the opportunity to take part
in the film.
[461]
In 2011, the rapper
Mac Miller released a
song named after Trump,
about becoming as rich as him. Trump requested royalties from the song
for using his name, starting a feud between himself and Miller.
[462]
During and after 2015
On February 10, 2016,
Funny or Die released a parody film called
Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal: The Movie.
[463]
On
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,
Stephen Colbert
would frequently feature a caricature of Trump called "Cartoon Donald
Trump". Colbert's reasoning for including a cartoon version of Trump is
because he felt like that Trump had resorted to "almost cartoonish
tactics".
[464] Meanwhile, on
Jimmy Kimmel Live!,
Jimmy Kimmel wrote two
Dr. Seuss-like
books: "Winners aren't Losers" and its sequel "Winners Still Aren't
Losers". Both of these books were featured when Trump was the guest
star. On the show, Kimmel would read it out loud to Trump, having Trump
read the last word on both occasions.
[465][466]
Further legal matters
Over the course of his career, Trump has been involved in a number of
lawsuits beyond those already mentioned, including over 150 lawsuits in
US federal courts and over 150 lawsuits in Broward County Court (in
Florida) since 1983.
[467][468][469] Some of the lawsuits have been initiated by Trump as
plaintiff, and others have been initiated by others against him as
defendant.
Particularly in the real estate industry, litigation is common for
enforcing contracts and resolving business disputes, though Trump's
opponents have said his litigiousness is not a trait that conservatives
should support.
[470][471]
Trump as plaintiff or defendant
In the 1980s, Trump was sued for allegedly trying to force out tenants to enable demolition,
[472] but the matter was settled and the demolition cancelled.
[473] In 1988, Trump paid $750,000 to settle the civil penalties in an antitrust lawsuit stemming from stock purchases.
[474]
In the 1990s, a business analyst predicted that the
Taj Mahal
would soon fail, and he then lost his job; the analyst sued Trump for
allegedly having an unlawful role in the firing, and that matter was
settled confidentially out of court.
[475] After a helicopter crashed, killing three executives of his New Jersey hotel casino business, Trump sued the manufacturers,
[476] and that case was dismissed.
[477] Trump Plaza
was fined $200,000 for moving African-American and female employees
away from a racist and sexist gambler to accommodate him, but Trump was
not evidently investigated, nor held personally liable, and said he
would not even recognize that gambler.
[478] Also during that decade, Trump's father, Fred Trump, made an unlawful loan to
Trump's Castle to help it make a mortgage payment, and the casino was required to pay a $30,000 fine, but his son was not penalized.
[479]
Also in the 1990s, Trump sued business partner
Jay Pritzker for allegedly collecting excessive fees, and the matter was settled.
[480][481][482] Boarding house owner
Vera Coking
sued for damage during construction of an adjacent casino, and later
dropped the suit against Trump while settling with his contractor; she
also prevailed against Trump and other developers in an
eminent domain case.
[483][484][485] In the late 1990s, Donald Trump and rival Atlantic City casino owner
Stephen Wynn
engaged in an extended legal conflict during the planning phase of new
casinos Wynn had proposed to build, and the cases were ultimately
settled.
[486][487][488]
In the 2000s, Trump was charged with lobbying for government
rejection of proposed casinos that would compete with his casinos, and
he paid $250,000 to settle resulting fines.
[489][490] When one of his companies was charged by the
SEC
with poor financial reporting, Trump's attorney said the culprit had
been dismissed, and that Trump had personally been unaware of the
matter.
[491][492][493] Following litigation with
Leona Helmsley that started in the 1990s regarding control of the
Empire State Building,
[494][495] Trump in 2002 sold his share in that building to rivals of Helmsley.
[496][497]
Also in the 2000s, Trump sued former business partner Richard Fields
for allegedly saying he still consulted for Trump, Fields counter-sued,
[498][499][500][501][502] and the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.
[503] The town of
Palm Beach fined Trump for building an 80-foot (24-meter) pole for the
American flag at his
Mar-a-Lago
property, Trump then sued, and a settlement required Trump to donate
$100,000 to veterans' charities, while the town agreed to let Trump
enroll out-of-towners in his social club, and permitted a 10-foot
shorter flagpole elsewhere on his lawn.
[504] When the California city of
Rancho Palos Verdes thwarted luxury home development on a landslide-prone area owned by Trump, he sued,
[505][505] and the city agreed to permit extensions for some 20 more proposed luxury homes.
[506][507]
Trump sued a law firm he had used, Morrison Cohen, for using his name,
for providing news links at its website, and for charging excessive
fees,
[77] after which the firm halved the fees, and the court ruled that the links were allowable.
[508] And, in the late 2000s, Trump was sued by investors in the canceled
Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico;
[509] Trump said he had merely been a spokesperson,
[509][510] and he settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.
[511]
Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago
In the 2010s, the Trump Organization licensed a hotel and condo project in
Fort Lauderdale, but the
bursting of the real estate bubble led Trump to dissolve the deal, after which the project defaulted, investors sued,
[512] and Trump was caught in the ongoing lawsuits because he had participated in advertising.
[91][513] Trump personally guaranteed $40 million to secure a $640 million loan for
Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, and when
Deutsche Bank tried to collect it, Trump sued the bank for harming the project and his reputation,
[514] and the bank then agreed to extend the loan term by five years.
[515] The
Supreme Court of Scotland
rejected Trump's suits against the nation of Scotland, in which Trump
had alleged that the country was illegally building a wind farm near his
golf course and planned hotel.
[516][517]
Also in the 2010s, Trump sued the former
Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin after she alleged that the
Miss USA 2012 pageant was rigged,
[518] and a federal judge upheld the settlement obliging her to pay Trump $5 million.
[518][519][520] Trump sued
Palm Beach County for pressuring the
FAA to direct air traffic over his home.
[521] He also sued chefs
Geoffrey Zakarian and
José Andrés, the latter saying there was no merit in Trump's allegation that he backed out of a deal at the
Old Post Office Pavilion.
[522][523][524][525] Trump sued the town of
Ossining, New York over the property tax valuation on his golf course there,
[526][526][527] after separately being sued for modifying a drainage system that allegedly damaged a library, public pool, and park facilities.
[527]
In connection with a Trump presidential campaign event at Trump Tower
in New York City, five men sued Trump whose security staff allegedly
punched one of them.
[528][529] Deborah Garcia, a restaurant worker at
Trump SoHo, claims that Trump illegally withheld
tips from employees, while the Trump Organization advises her to instead sue their alleged employer, a third-party contractor.
[530]
Alleged links to organized crime
Journalists
David Cay Johnston and
Wayne Barrett,
the latter of whom wrote an unauthorized 1992 Trump biography, have
claimed that Trump and his companies did business with New York and
Philadelphia families linked to the
Italian-American Mafia.
[531][532] A reporter for the
Washington Post
writes, "he was never accused of illegality, and observers of the time
say that working with the mob-related figures and politicos came with
the territory."
[533]
Campaign contributions
According to a New York state report, Trump circumvented corporate
and personal campaign donation limits in the 1980s—although no laws were
broken—by donating money to candidates from 18 different business
subsidiaries, rather than donating primarily in his own name.
[533][534]
Trump told investigators he did so on the advice of his lawyers. He
also said the contributions were not to curry favor with
business-friendly candidates, but simply to satisfy requests from
friends.
[533][535]
Awards and honors
Trump receiving the 2015
Marine Corps–Law Enforcement Foundation's annual Leadership Award in
recognition for his contributions to American military education
programs.
- In 1983, Israel's Tree of Life award for outstanding contributions to Israel-United States relations.[536]
- 1990 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his role in Ghosts Can't Do It.[537]
- Gaming Hall of Fame (class of 1995)[538]
- 2007 Muhammad Ali Entrepreneur Award[539]
- NY Ride of Fame (class of 2010)[540]
- Trump was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration (Hon. D.B.A.), in 2010 by Robert Gordon University.[541]
However, this degree was revoked on December 9, 2015 because Trump had
made "a number of statements that are wholly incompatible with the ethos
and values of the university."[542]
- Honorary Doctor of Business (Hon. D.B.), 2012, Liberty University[543][544]
- WWE Hall of Fame (class of 2013) [545]
- Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame[546]
- Liberty Award, in 2015 at the Algemeiner Jewish 100 Gala in honor of his positive contributions to Israel–United States relations.[547]
- Key to the City of Doral, Florida, 2015[548][549]
- Commandant of the Marine Corps Leadership Award, 2015, Marine Corps–Law Enforcement Foundation[550]
- New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame (inducted November 12, 2015)[551]
Books authored
- Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987), co-written with Tony Schwartz, ISBN 978-0-345-47917-4
- Trump: Surviving at the Top (1990), ISBN 978-0-394-57597-1
- Trump: The Art of Survival (1991), ISBN 978-0-446-36209-2
- Trump: The Art of the Comeback (1997), co-written with Kate Bohner, ISBN 978-0-8129-2964-5
- The America We Deserve (2000), with Dave Shiflett, ISBN 1-58063-131-2
- Trump: How to Get Rich (2004), ISBN 978-0-345-48103-0
- The Way to the Top: The Best Business Advice I Ever Received (2004), ISBN 978-1-4000-5016-1
- Trump: Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life (2004), ISBN 978-0-345-48140-5
- Trump: The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received (2005), ISBN 978-0-307-20999-3
- Why We Want You to be Rich: Two Men – One Message (2006), co-written with Robert Kiyosaki, ISBN 978-1-933914-02-2
- Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life (2007), co-written with Bill Zanker, ISBN 978-0-06-154783-6
- Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies (2007), ISBN 978-1-4016-0255-0
- Trump 101: The Way to Success (2007), ISBN 978-0-470-04710-1
- Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success (2008), ISBN 978-0-470-19084-5
- Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life (2009), ISBN 978-0-7624-3856-3
- Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich—and Why Most Don't (2011), co-written with Robert T. Kiyosaki, ISBN 978-1-61268-095-8
- Time to Get Tough: Making America No. 1 Again (2011), ISBN 978-1-59698-773-9
- Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (2015), ISBN 978-1-5011-3796-9
See also
Notes
US$4.5 billion (May 2016)[1]
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