Election to the presidency
2016 electoral vote results
On November 8, 2016, Trump received 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Clinton. The official counts were 304 and 227 respectively, after defections on both sides. Trump received nearly 2.9 million fewer popular votes than Clinton, which made him the fifth person to be elected president while losing the popular vote. Clinton was ahead nationwide, with 65,853,514 votes (48.18%) compared to Trump's 62,984,828 votes (46.09%).
Trump's victory was considered a stunning political upset by most observers, as polls had consistently shown Hillary Clinton with a nationwide – though diminishing – lead, as well as a favorable advantage in most of the competitive states. Trump's support had been modestly underestimated throughout his campaign, and many observers blamed errors in polls, partially attributed to pollsters overestimating Clinton's support among well-educated and nonwhite voters, while underestimating Trump's support among white working-class voters. The polls were relatively accurate, but media outlets and pundits alike showed overconfidence in a Clinton victory despite a large number of undecided voters and a favorable concentration of Trump's core constituencies in competitive states.
Trump won 30 states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which had been considered a blue wall of Democratic strongholds since the 1990s. Clinton won 20 states and the District of Columbia. Trump's victory marked the return of a Republican White House combined with control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump is the wealthiest president in U.S. history, even after adjusting for inflation, and the oldest person to take office as president. He is also the first president who did not serve in the military or hold elective or appointed government office prior to being elected. Of the 43 previous presidents, 38 had held prior elective office, two had not held elective office but had served in the Cabinet, and three had never held public office but had been commanding generals.
Protests
Some rallies during the primary season were accompanied by protests or violence, both inside and outside the venues. Trump's election victory sparked protests across the United States, in opposition to his policies and his inflammatory statements. Trump initially tweeted that these were "professional protesters, incited by the media" and "unfair", but later "Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country."
In the weeks following Trump's inauguration, massive anti-Trump demonstrations took place, such as the Women Marches, which gathered 2,600,000 people worldwide, including 500,000 in Washington alone. Marches against his travel ban began across the country on January 29, 2017, just nine days after his inauguration.
2020 presidential campaign
Trump signaled his intention to run for a second term by filing with the FEC within a few hours of assuming the presidency. This transformed his 2016 election committee into a 2020 reelection one. Trump marked the official start of the campaign with a rally in Melbourne, Florida, on February 18, 2017, less than a month after taking office. By January 2018, Trump's reelection committee had $22 million in hand, and it had raised a total amount exceeding $67 million by December 2018. Trump became the Republican nominee on August 24, 2020. Trump's re-election campaign saw declining poll numbers by mid-2020, reflecting dissatisfaction with his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread racial justice protests following the killing of George Floyd.
Starting in spring 2020, Trump began to sow doubts about the election, repeatedly warning that the election would be "rigged" and claiming without evidence that the expected widespread use of mail balloting would produce "massive election fraud". When the House of Representatives voted for a $25 billion grant to the post office, to allow them to handle the expected surge in mail voting, Trump said he would not agree to the grant because he wanted to prevent any increase in voting by mail. In what The New York Times called an "extraordinary breach of presidential decorum", Trump raised the idea on July 30 of delaying the election. He has refused to say whether he will accept the results of the election if he loses.
Campaign advertisements in July focused on crime, claiming that cities would descend into lawlessness if Biden won the presidency. Several sources described his campaign message as shifting to "racist rhetoric" in an attempt to reclaim voters lost from his base.
Presidency
Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2017. During his first week in office, he signed six executive orders: interim procedures in anticipation of repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, unlocking the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline construction projects, reinforcing border security, and beginning the planning and design process to construct a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Upon inauguration, Trump delegated the management of his real estate business to his sons Eric and Don Jr. His daughter Ivanka resigned from the Trump Organization and moved to Washington, D.C., with her husband Jared Kushner. She serves as an assistant to the President, and he is a Senior Advisor in the White House.
On January 31, Trump nominated U.S. Appeals Court judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court seat held by Justice Antonin Scalia until his death on February 13, 2016.
Domestic policy
Economy and trade
The economic expansion that began in June 2009 continued through Trump's first three years in office. This ended in February 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a recession. Throughout his presidency, Trump has repeatedly and falsely characterized the economy as the best in American history (at least four U.S. presidents have presided over better economies).
In December 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which permanently cut the corporate tax rate to 21 percent, temporarily lowered personal tax brackets until 2025, increased child tax credit, doubled the estate tax exemption to $11.2 million, and limited the state and local tax deduction to $10,000.
Trump is a skeptic of multilateral trade deals, as he believes they indirectly incentivize unfair trade practices that then tend to go unpoliced. He favors bilateral trade deals, as they allow one party to pull out if the other party is believed to be behaving unfairly. Trump favors neutral or positive balances of trade over negative balances of trade, also known as a "trade deficit". Trump adopted his current skeptical views toward trade liberalization in the 1980s, and he sharply criticized NAFTA during the Republican primary campaign in 2015. He withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and launched a trade war with China by sharply increasing tariffs on 818 categories (worth $50 billion) of Chinese goods imported into the U.S. On several occasions, Trump has said incorrectly that these import tariffs are paid by China into the U.S. Treasury.
Despite a campaign promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years, Trump as president has approved large increases in government spending, as well as the 2017 tax cut. As a result, the American government's budget deficit has increased by almost 50%, to nearly $1 trillion in 2019. In 2016, the year before Trump took office, the U.S. national debt was around $19 trillion; by mid-2020, it had increased to $26 trillion under the Trump administration.
In April 2020, the official unemployment rate shot up to 14.7% due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was an underestimation of the actual unemployment rate, but still was the highest level of unemployment since 1939.
Energy and climate
Trump rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Since his election Trump has made large budget cuts to programs that research renewable energy and has rolled back Obama-era policies directed at curbing climate change. In June 2017, Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, making the U.S. the only nation in the world to not ratify the agreement. At the 2019 G7 summit, Trump skipped the sessions on climate change but said afterward during a press conference that he is an environmentalist.
Trump has rolled back federal regulations aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, water pollution, and the usage of toxic substances. One example is the Clean Power Plan. He relaxed environmental standards for federal infrastructure projects, while expanding permitted areas for drilling and resource extraction, such as allowing drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Trump also weakened protections for animals. Trump's energy policies aimed to boost the production and exports of coal, oil, and natural gas.
Government size and deregulation
Trump's early policies have favored rollback and dismantling of government regulations. He has signed 15 Congressional Review Act disapproval resolutions to allow Congress to repeal executive regulations, the second President to sign any such resolutions after the first CRA resolution was passed in 2001, and the first President to sign more than one such resolution. During his first six weeks in office, he delayed, suspended or reversed ninety federal regulations.
On January 30, 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13771, which directed that for every new regulation administrative agencies issue "at least two prior regulations be identified for elimination". Agency defenders expressed opposition to Trump's criticisms, saying the bureaucracy exists to protect people against well-organized, well-funded interest groups.
Health care
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to repeal and replace Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or "Obamacare"). Shortly after taking office, he urged Congress to repeal and replace it. In May of that year, the House voted to repeal it. His first action as president was Executive Order 13765, which increased flexibility "to the maximum extent permitted by law" for the Cabinet to issue waivers, deferrals, and exemptions for the law while attempting to give states more flexibility. Executive Order 13813 was subsequently issued, designed to reduce regulations imposed under Obamacare by increasing competition. Trump has expressed a desire to "let Obamacare fail," and the Trump administration has cut the ACA enrollment period in half and drastically reduced funding for advertising and other ways to encourage enrollment. The 2017 tax bill effectively repealed the ACA's individual health insurance mandate in 2019, and a budget bill Trump signed in 2019 repealed the Cadillac plan tax, medical device tax, and tanning tax. As president, Trump has falsely claimed he saved the coverage of pre-existing conditions provided by ACA, while his administration declined to challenge a lawsuit that would eliminate it. As a 2016 candidate, Trump promised to protect funding for Medicare and other social safety-net programs, but in January 2020 he suggested he was willing to consider cuts to such programs.
Social issues
Trump favored modifying the 2016 Republican platform opposing abortion, to allow for exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and circumstances endangering the health of the mother. He has said he is committed to appointing "pro-life" justices. He says he personally supports "traditional marriage" but considers the nationwide legality of same-sex marriage a "settled" issue. Despite the statement by Trump and the White House saying they would keep in place a 2014 executive order from the Obama administration which created federal workplace protections for LGBT people, in March 2017, the Trump administration rolled back key components of the Obama administration's workplace protections for LGBT people.
Trump supports a broad interpretation of the Second Amendment and says he is opposed to gun control in general, although his views have shifted over time. Trump opposes legalizing recreational marijuana but supports legalizing medical marijuana. He favors capital punishment, as well as the use of waterboarding and "a hell of a lot worse" methods.
Pardons and commutations
In August 2017, Trump pardoned former sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was awaiting sentencing for contempt of court in a class action that alleged racial profiling.
In March 2018, he pardoned former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, who had been found guilty of taking classified photographs of a submarine.
In April 2018 he pardoned Scooter Libby, a political aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby had been convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements to the FBI.
In May 2018 he granted a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson, a black boxer who had been convicted in 1913 for traveling across state lines with his white girlfriend.
In June 2018 he pardoned conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza, who had made illegal political campaign contributions. That month he also commuted the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a non-violent drug trafficking offender, following a request by celebrity Kim Kardashian.
In February 2020, Trump pardoned white-collar criminals Michael Milken, Bernard Kerik, and Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., and commuted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's 14-year corruption sentence.
In July 2020, Trump commuted the 40-month prison sentence for his friend and adviser Roger Stone, who had been soon due to report to jail for his actions during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections. The sentencing judge had previously described that Stone was "prosecuted for covering up for the president" – Trump himself. A month before the commutation, Trump had declared that Stone "can sleep well at night!"
Immigration
Trump's proposed immigration policies were a topic of bitter and contentious debate during the campaign. He promised to build a more substantial wall on the Mexico–United States border to keep out illegal immigrants and vowed Mexico would pay for it. He pledged to massively deport illegal immigrants residing in the United States, and criticized birthright citizenship for creating "anchor babies". He said deportation would focus on criminals, visa overstays, and security threats. As president, he frequently described illegal immigration as an "invasion" and conflated immigrants with the gang MS-13, though research shows undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than native-born Americans.
Trump has attempted to drastically escalate immigration enforcement. Some of the results are harsher immigration enforcement policies against asylum seekers from Central America than any modern U.S. president before him, and a significantly increased usage of migrant detentions and deportations. This was accompanied by the Trump administration's mandating in 2018 that immigration judges must complete 700 cases a year to be evaluated as performing satisfactorily.
In other immigration policies, Trump has from 2018 onwards deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the U.S. Mexico border, in 2019 was allowed by the Supreme Court to stop most Central American migrants from seeking U.S. asylum, and from 2020 used the public charge rule to restrict immigrants using government benefits from getting permanent residency via green cards. Trump has continually reduced the number of allowed refugees into the country; when Trump took office the annual limit was 110,000, in 2019 Trump set a limit of 18,000, a record low for the U.S. refugee program. Additional restrictions implemented by the Trump administration caused (potentially long-lasting) bottlenecks in processing refugee applications, resulting in fewer refugees accepted compared to the allowed limits.
Travel ban
Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, Trump made a controversial proposal to ban Muslim foreigners from entering the United States until stronger vetting systems could be implemented. He later reframed the proposed ban to apply to countries with a "proven history of terrorism".
On January 27, 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13769, which suspended admission of refugees for 120 days and denied entry to citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days, citing security concerns. The order took effect immediately and without warning. Confusion and protests caused chaos at airports. Sally Yates, the acting Attorney General, directed Justice Department lawyers not to defend the executive order, which she deemed unenforceable and unconstitutional; Trump immediately dismissed her. Multiple legal challenges were filed against the order, and on February 5 a federal judge in Seattle blocked its implementation nationwide. On March 6, Trump issued a revised order, which excluded Iraq, gave specific exemptions for permanent residents, and removed priorities for Christian minorities. Again federal judges in three states blocked its implementation. On June 26, 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban could be enforced on visitors who lack a "credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States".
The temporary order was replaced by Presidential Proclamation 9645 on September 24, 2017, which permanently restricts travel from the originally targeted countries except Iraq and Sudan, and further bans travelers from North Korea and Chad, along with certain Venezuelan officials. After lower courts partially blocked the new restrictions, the Supreme Court allowed the September version to go into full effect on December 4, 2017, and ultimately upheld the travel ban in a June 2019 ruling.
Family separation at border
The Trump administration has separated more than 5,400 migrant children from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border while the families attempted to enter the U.S. The Trump administration sharply increased the number of family separations at the border starting from the summer of 2017, before an official policy was announced in 2018; this was not reported publicly until January 2019.
In April 2018, the Trump administration announced and enacted a "zero tolerance" immigration policy, whereby every adult illegally crossing the border would be criminally prosecuted. This resulted in family separations, as the migrant adults were put in criminal detention for prosecution, while the migrant children were taken away as unaccompanied alien minors. The children would be brought to immigration detention, immigrant shelters, tent camps, or metal cages, with the stated aim of releasing them to relatives or sponsors. Administration officials described the policy as a deterrent against illegal immigration. Previous administrations had no such policy of generally separating migrant families with children.
The policy of family separations sparked public outrage, and resulted in demands from Democrats, Republicans, Trump allies, and religious groups that the policy be rescinded. Trump reacted by falsely asserting that his administration was merely following the law, blaming Democrats, when in fact this was his administration's policy. More than 2,300 children were separated as a result of the "zero tolerance policy", the Trump administration revealed in June 2018.
Although Trump originally argued that the issue could not be solved via executive order, he proceeded to sign an executive order on June 20, 2018, mandating that migrant families be detained together, unless the administration judged that doing so would harm the child. On June 26, 2018, a federal judge concluded that the Trump administration had "no system in place to keep track of" the separated children, nor any effective measures for family communication and reunification; the judge ordered for the families to be reunited, and family separations stopped, except in the cases where the parent(s) are judged unfit to take care of the child, or if there is parental approval.
4,370 children were separated from July 2017 to June 2018, reported the Trump administration in October 2019. Even after the June 2018 federal judge order, the Trump administration continued to practice family separations, with more than a thousand migrant children separated.
Migrant detentions
Overcrowded conditions for migrant families detained in Weslaco, Texas were reported by inspectors from the federal government in June 2019.
The Trump administration has taken a harsher approach than previous administrations regarding migrant detentions, by allowing no exemptions for detention unlike the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. While the Obama administration already employed a high level of detentions and deportations for migrants, the Trump administration took it to a significantly higher level. In April 2018, Trump ordered an end to the "catch and release" policy which released illegal immigrants from detention pending a court hearing.
Government inspectors from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General conducted spot-checks of migrant detention centers in June 2018, finding that U.S. Customs and Border Protection "in many instances" violated federal guidelines for detaining migrant children for too long before passing them to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Meanwhile, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Kevin McAleenan said in March 2019 there was a "border security and a humanitarian crisis", with the system for handling migrants already at a "breaking point" due to an increase in migrants. The government inspectors released further reports in May 2019 and July 2019 of migrants being detained under conditions failing federal standards. They reported migrants enduring prolonged detention, "dangerous overcrowding", poor hygiene and food standards. In June 2019 and July 2019, lawyers, a certified doctor, and lawmakers visited the migrant detention facilities, reporting a lack of supervision, traumatized children, and many sick migrants respectively.
The treatment of the detained migrants resulted in public indignation by July 2019. Also that month, Trump reacted to criticism of the migrant detentions by declaring that U.S. Border Patrol was doing a "great job", and if the migrants were unhappy about the conditions of the detention facilities, "just tell them not to come." Meanwhile, Vice President Pence visited an overcrowded facility, where he reacted by saying "this is tough stuff" and the system is "overwhelmed".
In August 2019, the administration attempted to change the 1997 Flores Agreement that limits detention of migrant families to 20 days; the new policy allowing indefinite detention was blocked before it would go into effect.
2018–2019 federal government shutdown
On December 22, 2018, the federal government was partially shut down after Trump declared that any funding extension must include $5.6 billion in federal funds for a U.S.–Mexico border wall to partly fulfill his campaign promise. The shutdown was caused by a lapse in funding for nine federal departments, affecting about one-fourth of federal government activities. Trump said he would not accept any bill that did not include funding for the wall, and Democrats, who control the House, said they would not support any bill that does. Senate Republicans have said they will not advance any legislation Trump would not sign. In earlier negotiations with Democratic leaders, Trump commented that he would be "proud to shut down the government for border security".
The shutdown caused an estimated 380,000 government employees to be furloughed, while an estimated 420,000 government employees worked without getting paid; most of the affected workers missed two paychecks. The shutdown resulted in a permanent loss of $3 billion to the U.S. economy, estimated the Congressional Budget Office. A plurality of Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown, polls showed; the percentage increased as the shutdown continued, to around 50%. Trump's approval ratings also dropped.
On January 25, 2019, the Senate and the House unanimously approved a temporary funding bill that provided no funds for the wall but would provide delayed paychecks to government workers. Trump signed the bill that day, ending the shutdown at 35 days. It was the longest U.S. government shutdown in history.
Since the government funding was temporary, another shutdown loomed. On February 14, 2019, the Senate and the House approved a funding bill that included $1.375 billion for 55 miles of border fences, in lieu of Trump's intended wall. Trump signed the bill on February 15, 2019, just hours before another shutdown would begin.
National emergency regarding the southern border
On February 15, 2019, after Trump received from Congress only $1.375 billion for border fencing after demanding $5.7 billion for the Trump wall, he declared a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States, in hopes of getting another $6.7 billion without congressional approval, using funds for military construction, drug interdiction, and money from the Treasury. In doing so, Trump acknowledged that he "didn't need to" declare a national emergency, but he "would rather do it much faster".
Congress twice passed resolutions to block Trump's national emergency declarations, but Trump twice vetoed them, and Congress did not have enough votes override Trump's veto. Trump's decision to divert other government funding to fund the wall resulted in legal challenges. In July 2019, the Supreme Court allowed Trump to use $2.5 billion (originally meant for anti-drug programs) from the Department of Defense to build the Trump wall. In December 2019, a federal judge stopped the Trump administration from using $3.6 billion of military construction funds for the Trump wall.
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