Biography of Donald Trump - The 45th President of USA

Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946 to a Presbyterian family in Queens, New York. Trump grew up in Jamaica, Queens and attended the Kew - Forest School from Kindergarten to 7th grade. However, after his parents found out he had made frequent trips to Manhattan without their permission, they sent him to the New York Military academy at age 13. In 1964, Trump enrolled at Fordham University, which is a private research university. After two years he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

While at Wharton he worked at the family business, Elizabeth Trump and Son. In May of 1968 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics. He was about 22 at the time. After his father had become the chairmen of the board in 1971, Trump was promoted to the president of the company and renamed it the Trump Organization. In 1973, he and his father got into a matter with Justice Department when they contended in a lawsuit that their company systematically discriminated against African Americans who wished to rent apartments. Under an agreement reached in 1975, the Trumps made no admission of wrongdoing and made the Urban League, which was an organization that advocates on behalf of African Americans and racial discrimination in the United States, an intermediary for qualified minority applicants.

Trump said he career in business began with “a small loan of one million dollars.” So in 1978, Trump launched his Manhattan real estate business purchasing a 50 percent stake at the derelict Commodore Hotel located next to Grand Central Terminal. This purchase was largely funded by a 70 million dollar construction loan made between his father and the Hyatt hotel chain. When the remodeling was finished, the hotel opened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt Hotel. That same year, Trump was granted permission to to develop the Trump Tower, a 58 story high, 664 feet skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. So to make space for the massive skyscraper, some undocumented Polish workers demolished the historical Bonwit Teller store, including some art deco features that had been previously marked for preservation. The building was completed in 1983 and houses both the primary penthouse condominium residence of Trump and the headquarters of The Trump Organization and was put by Architecture critic, Paul Goldberger as “the most pleasant interior public space to be completed in New York for some years.” In 1985, Trump acquired the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida for 10 million dollars. While also using a wing of the estate as a home, Trump turned Mar-a-Lago into a private club. In order to join you must pay an initial fee of $200,000 along with annual dues.

Donald Trump has written multiple books, one of the most popular being “Trump: The Art of the Deal” in which Trump is credited co - author with Tony Schwartz who has stated he did all the writing. Tony Schwartz would later say he regretted being involved in the writing of the book. The Art of the Deal reached number 1 on New York Times Best Seller and stayed there for thirteen weeks, and altogether held a position for 48 weeks. The book is mainly about Trump’s early life and building the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Trump Tower. The book also contains 11 major points for success in business. Trump’s steps are, think Big, protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself, maximize your options, know your market, use your leverage, enhance your location, get the word out, fight back, deliver the goods, contain the cost, have fun. The book has received additional attention, during Trump’s 2016 campaign for the presidency of United States of America. He cited this book as one of his favorite books, second only to the bible.

Since the election of 1988 Trump has been lightly discussed as a potential presidential candidate. But this speculation reached an all-time high in early 2011 when Trump began to take a lead in polls among Republican candidates in the 2012 election. However, Trump announced in May of 2011 that he would not be running in the 2012 election. Trump formally announced his Candidacy on June 16, 2015 where he had a campaign speech and rally. In his speech, Trump drew attention to domestic issues such as offshoring of American jobs, the U.S. national debt, and more, making his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” and running as a republican. This announcement surprised many people, as Trump had no experience in the Government and was just a businessman. Following the announcement, most of media focused on Trump’s comment on illegal immigration. His statement was very controversial and led several companies to cut ties with him such as, NBC, Macy’s, Univision and Nascar. This will happen many times in Trump’s presidency in which he says controversial remarks and goes “under fire” by the media. Trump has also promised that he would start the building of a border wall and tighten border security which received many mixed reactions with the majority of democrats against it and the majority of republicans for it. Trump had high poll numbers during the primaries and a high popularity among republican and leaning-republican minority voters.

On July 15, 2016, Trump officially announced via Twitter that he had chosen Mike Pence as his running mate. As the results came in on election night of November 8th, 2016, Trump won multiple states that were speculated to go to Clinton. His victory was widely described as a “stunning upset.” Hillary Clinton received over 2.9 million more votes than Trump, making Trump the 5th president to lose the popular vote, and the biggest loss for someone who has won the election. At this time, Trump has been president for 2 years and will be in office until 2020 where there will be a re - election to see if he will be in office for another four years.