Donald Trump, 74 years old.

Born June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York, son of Fred and Mary Anne Trump. After World War II, Fred Trump created his fortune in building affordable housing for middle-income families on the East Coast.

Trump first attended Fordham University before transferring to Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in economics in 1968, he began working for E. Trump & Son, a family business. 

Donald Trump is described by his campaign website as the “very definition of the American success story” and he is now setting his standards in business for the United States of America.

In 1971, he gained control over the business and renamed it The Trump Organization, where he got into real estate with a $1 million loan from his father. From there, Donald Trump went on to acquire business such as Trump Towers, casinos in Atlantic City and golf courses.

While expanding these businesses, he filed for bankruptcy four times. 

“Hundreds of companies have filed for bankruptcy,” he said, according to PolitiFact. “I used the law four times and made a tremendous thing. I’m in business. I did a very good job.”

In 2004, Donald Trump hosted a reality TV show called “The Apprentice,” which had 14 seasons and won an Emmy. 

Throughout his life, he has had a multitude of sexual misconduct allegations against him from people he has worked with during his career. While running for president in 2016, there was audio footage of him saying when he sees “beautiful women” he can’t help but kiss them and “Grab ’em by the p*ssy. You can do anything.” 

Prior to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, he never had an elected or appointed position in a government office. After announcing his candidacy in 2015, Trump coined the promise to “Make America Great Again,” or MAGA. The four-letter acronym has grown to represent many different things to many different people. 

How the president carries out his duties has been criticized for being unprecedented or championed for going against the establishment. One common practice of a president is the release of their taxes. Donald Trump refused to release his taxes to the public until the New York Times published an investigation of his finances.

The investigation found that Donald Trump paid no taxes in 11 of the 18 years between 2000 and 2017. For the past decade, he has been under audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding the legitimacy of the tax refund he received for claiming huge financial losses.

The tax refund was worth $72.9 million, and varying on the ruling, could cost him over $100 million. The year he won the presidency, Donald Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in comparison to the Obamas in 2015 who paid $81,472 total in taxes.

After four years, Donald Trump now campaigns for his reelection on his promises made and the promises kept. Instead of listing policies and plans for his second presidential term, the Trump website showcases “President Donald J. Trump’s Accomplishments to keep America great.”

COVID-19

Just as the Trump presidency is unlike any other presidency in the past, the administration has also faced challenges no other president has had before: COVID-19. Since the virus entered the U.S. at the beginning of the year, America has spent most of 2020 attempting to flatten the curve of infection. Throughout this process, the Trump administration has remained consistent in attributing the pandemic to China. 

In late January, he restricted most of those traveling from mainland China, with exceptions for U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents and close family. The restriction was a part of Trump’s promise of taking action at the borders to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the U.S., according to a statement issued on March 20. 

Trump has spent much of the pandemic working to reopen the country for business by allocating authority to the state governors to address COVID-19 as they see fit for their state, as stated in a White House notice issued on April 16. Since this, cases in America have hit over 7.58 million and deaths have surpassed 212,000. Trump, as well as other members of his staff, have tested positive for COVID-19. 

“I will never hesitate to take any necessary steps to protect the lives, health and safety of the American people. I will always put the wellbeing of America first,” Trump said, according to the White House website.

Taxes and the Economy

Creating a strong economy is a core part of Trump’s MAGA message. Trump’s push for reopening the country is in an attempt to resuscitate the 2020 economy from a recession. Prior to the pandemic, U.S. poverty hit a record low in 2019, its fifth year on a consecutive decline.

Congress passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which was the first major tax reform signed in 30 years. It provides tax relief for 82 percent of middle-class families and nearly doubled the standard deduction according to the campaign website.

The Jobs Act also cuts taxes for small businesses by 20 percent, totaling $415 billion in tax relief for small business owners and repeals Obamacare, which is described as a “burdensome individual mandate.” 

The Tax Cut Act lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, one of the highest in the industrialized world, according to the promise kept website.

Health care 

Trump has worked to improve access to affordable and quality health care in multiple ways, according to the campaign website. The Trump administration provided more than $1 billion in 2017 to improve access to health care in rural communities for 2.5 million people while allowing for short-term limited duration plans to be extended up to 12 months. According to the website, in part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Trump repealed the individual mandate that forced people to buy expensive insurance and taxed those who could not afford it, disproportionately hurting 80 percent of those affected who made less than $50,000.

In 2017, Trump directed The Department of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid crisis as a public health emergency. During the 2017 fiscal year, Health and Human Services invested nearly $900 million in opioid-specific funding.

Education 

Trump promotes school choice. As a priority during the 2018 fiscal year, his budget requested $1 billion in funding to “Furthering Option of Children to Unlock Success Grants” for public school choice while requesting $250 million to promote private school choice, according to his website.

The Trump administration implemented the Every Student Succeeds Act, which 35 states and the District of Columbia have adopted. According to the website, the act is to “empower states with the flexibility they need to educate their students.”

His administration implemented year-round Pell Grants, opposed to limiting grants to spring and fall semester, primarily impacting low-income students. Programs such as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid have been “reformed” to improve accessibility for students, according to the campaign website. 

Racial Equality

Trump has claimed to have done more for the Black community than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Under the Trump administration, poverty rates among the Black community fell from 22 percent to 21.2 percent. The First Step Act, signed into law in 2018, resulted in more than 3,000 Americans being released from prison and 90 percent of those were Black Americans. Trump signed legislation to increase federal funding for Historically Black College Universities by 13 percent. 

During the first presidential debate, Trump was asked if he would condemn white supremacists and he responded by attacking far left groups.

When searching on the promises kept website for “racial equity,” “racial equality” and “equality,” the webpages currently read “President Donald J. Trump Accomplishments” followed by a blank page for all three searches.

LGBTQ+ equality

The Trump administration rolled back on civil rights protections for transgender patients against discrimination by doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies. The Trump campaign recently announced a LGBTQ coalition. 

When searching on the promises kept website for “LGBTQ+ equity” and  “LGBTQ+ equality,” the webpages currently read “President Donald J. Trump Accomplishments” followed by a blank page for all searches.

Criminal justice/Law enforcement

After the killing of George Floyd and an increased focus on the Black Lives Matter movement, law and order became a growing concern for the administration. Prior to his election, Trump paid for an ad in four New York papers requesting the death penalty for five Black and Latino men who were accused of attacking a woman in Central Park. Once the accusations were disproved, Trump refrained from apologizing for his ad. 

“What has happened to law and order …?” Trump said in the ad. “Let our politicians give back our police department’s power to keep us safe. Unshackle them from the constant chant of ‘police brutality,’ which every petty criminal hurls immediately at an officer who has just risked his or her life to save another’s.”

Trump has continued to show support for law enforcement throughout his presidency, promising to work with local law enforcement to protect American communities. The ways in which he has done this, according to his websites, are announcing more than $98 million grant funding through the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, allocating 802 additional full-time law enforcement officers. Trump also signed an executive order regarding local law enforcement access to surplus equipment, such as armor vehicles.

The Trump administration has made the dismantlement of the gang MS-13 as a part of his promise of confronting organized crime. This has become a priority for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. There have been more than 4,000 MS-13 and 18th Street gang members charged in Central America and the United States. President Trump and the Department of Justice have aggressively confronted the “organized crime” of street gangs to the criminal cartels, according to the website. 

Immigration

Trump’s promise regarding immigration is protecting the American people and our homeland, according to his website. Trump has called on Congress to fund a wall along the border of the U.S. and Mexico, to close loopholes that enable illegal immigration, to end chain migration and to rid of visa lottery programs.

The Trump administration claims the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) lacks legal authorization and has cut back on the program in an “orderly fashion” after the assessment of the Department of Justice (DOJ). 

The Deferred Action for Parents in American was repealed under the Trump administration and has declared a national emergency to enforce security on the border. Since Trump’s inauguration through the 2019 fiscal year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested 269,419 unauthorized immigrants and on his first day in office, he signed an executive order disqualifying sanctuary cities from receiving federal grants. 

Trump also signed three executive orders intended to slow international criminal organizations, including drug cartels and gangs and preventing violence against law enforcement. 

“As a candidate, I promised to restore law and order to our country, and our federal law enforcement agencies are following through on that pledge. We will spare no resource in fighting so that every American child can grow up free from violence and fear,” Trump said, according to the White House website.

National Security

Trump promised to protect America and its allies by rebuilding the military. 

“President Trump is rebuilding our military, defeating terrorist organizations, and confronting rogue nations to protect America and our allies,” according to the promises kept website.

Among the list of achievements for National Security and Defense are increasing defense spending and reversing the defense sequester while expanding on the military capacity and modernizing its capabilities. 

Trump granted the Secretary of Defense and military commanders the authority to make decisions “without micromanagement from Washington,” according to the website.

The Trump administration provided the Defense Department nearly $1.5 trillion in the past two National Defense Authorization Acts. Trump also announced the creation of the United States Space Force as a new branch of the military.

As foreign relationships, Trump became the first sitting U.S president to enter North Korea, meeting with the Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un on multiple occasions. The Treasury Department implemented a variety of sanctions on North Korean individuals and entities as a part of the Maximum Pressure campaign.

Gun rights

Trump has championed Second Amendment rights and has received endorsements from the National Rifle Association. In the endorsement, it was stated Trump has done more than any president to protect Second Amendment rights. In the past, Trump has advocated for legislation providing “stronger background check” for gun users after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas. 

“In other words, Democrats want to disarm law-abiding Americans while allowing criminal aliens to operate with impunity,” Trump said at the NRA-ILA leadership forum in 2019. “But that will never happen as long as I’m your president. Not even close. I promise to defend the Second Amendment rights of every American, and I always will.  I’ll never let you down.  Never let you down. I haven’t so far, and I won’t.  Because as the famous saying goes, when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Very simple.”

Trump has addressed issues surrounding mental illness as a contributing factor to mass shootings and gun violence.

“Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger, not the gun,” Trump said. 

Land and Agriculture 

Trump signed a 2018 farm bill that provides funding for the United States Department of Agriculture. The bill extends farm support programs and improves crop insurance. Trump authorized over $12 billion in aid assistance for American farmers facing tariffs imposed by other countries. 

In attempts to eliminate the U.S. trade deficit with China, Trump set tariffs on China and accused them of unfair trading practices. In retaliation, China responded with tariffs on U.S. products.

“To end these chronic trading abuses, my administration took necessary and very lawful action to protect America’s economy, security, and farms,” Trump said in 2019. “We’re taking swift action to remedy all of the injustice that’s been done over the years — in particular, you could say with our farmers. They’re patriots. They stood up and they were with me.

“They didn’t say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t do this because we’re going to have a bad year.’ Because they’ve had 20 bad years if you really look. You take a look at those charts way back — longer than that. It’s just been a steady spiral down. So we will ensure that our farmers get the relief they need and very, very quickly. It’s a good time to be a farmer; we’re going to make sure of that.”

Abortion

According to his website, Trump is the most “fearless” pro-life president in American history and has taken historic action to protect every American life by urging Congress to pass legislation banning late-term abortions. The Trump administration issued a ruling prohibiting Title X grants recipients from counseling patients with abortions. Trump was the first president to address the annual March for Life rally.

Supreme Court appointment

In 2016, Trump promised to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat. Since then he has successfully appointed two Supreme Court justices and recently nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trump has appointed 146 federal judges, 43 circuit court judges, 99 district court judges and two judges for the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Environmental issues

According to the White House website, American energy policies must be a balance of environmental protection with economic growth to encourage innovation, discovery and prosperity. 

According to the promises kept website, Trump signed an executive order banning oil drilling off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Since being elected, the Trump administration approved the right of way allowing the Keystone oil sand pipeline to be built across U.S. soil and has increased coal exports by more than 60 percent during his first year in office.

“We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will Make America Great Again!” Trump said.