Web Page: TRUMPISM:
Donald J. Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.
Born into a wealthy family in New York City, Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became the president of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it the Trump Organization, and began acquiring and building skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses.
He launched side ventures, many licensing the Trump name, and filed for six business bankruptcies in the 1990s and 2000s. From 2004 to 2015, he hosted the reality television show The Apprentice, bolstering his fame as a billionaire. Presenting himself as a political outsider, Trump won the 2016 presidential election against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.
During his first presidency, Trump imposed a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, expanded the Mexico–United States border wall, and enforced a family separation policy on the border. He rolled back environmental and business regulations, signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and appointed three Supreme Court justices.
In foreign policy, Trump withdrew the U.S. from agreements on climate, trade, and Iran's nuclear program, and initiated a trade war with China.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020, he downplayed its severity, contradicted ealth officials, and signed the CARES Act. After losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Trump attempted to overturn the result, culminating in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021. He was impeached:
In 2023, Trump was found liable in civil cases for sexual abuse and defamation and for business fraud. He was found guilty of falsifying business records in 2024, making him the first U.S. president convicted of a felony.
After winning the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris, he was:
A racketeering case related to the 2020 election in Georgia is pending.
Trump began his second presidency by initiating mass layoffs of federal workers.
He imposed tariffs on nearly all countries at the highest level since the Great Depression and signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
His administration's actions—including:
High-profile cases have underscored his broad interpretation of the unitary executive theory and have led to significant conflicts with the federal courts.
In 2025, he authorized airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Since 2015, Trump's leadership style and political agenda—often referred to as Trumpism [see further down]—have reshaped the Republican Party's identity.
Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racist or misogynistic, and he has made false or misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to an extent unprecedented in American politics.
Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. After his first term, scholars and historians ranked him as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Early life and education
At New York Military Academy, 1964
Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in the New York Cityborough of Queens, the fourth child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. He is of German and Scottish descent. He grew up with his older siblings, Maryanne, Fred Jr., and Elizabeth, and his younger brother, Robert, in a mansion in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens.
Fred Trump paid his children each about $20,000 a year, equivalent to $265,000 a year in 2024. Trump was a millionaire in inflation-adjusted dollars by age eight.
Trump attended the private Kew-Forest School through seventh grade. He was a difficult child and showed an early interest in his father's business. His father enrolled him in New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, to complete secondary school. The academy pushed students into sports and drilled the imperative of winning.
Trump played a year of varsity football and soccer, and three years of baseball. In baseball, he emerged as a co-captain, cleanup batter, and excellent first baseman—even so, he exaggerated his athletic prowess. In high school his grades improved to a B average.
Trump considered a show business career but instead, to be closer to home, enrolled at Fordham University in 1964. He dropped ROTC officer training after one year, and played indifferent football, squash, and tennis.
His Fordham friends introduced him to golf. His junior year he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, most often commuting to his father's office on weekends, and graduating in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in economics. In college he was not the top student he sometimes claimed to be.
By the time he went to Wharton—where he does not appear in a list of those receiving honors—he was eyeing a career in real estate.
He was exempted from the draft during the Vietnam War due to a claim of bone spurs in his heels. Notwithstanding five years in military school, he had no interest in going to war.
Growing up, he considered his father and the family's pastor, Norman Vincent Peale, to be his mentors. His father told him repeatedly that he was "a king" and to be "a killer". Peale preached self-confidence as the impetus for prosperity.
Business career
Main articles: Business career of Donald Trump and The Trump Organization
Further information:
Real estate
Starting in 1968, Trump was employed at Trump Management, his father's real estate company, which managed the middle-class apartment complexes Fred had built in Queens, Staten Island, and Brooklyn.
His main tasks were collecting rent and making repairs for about five years.
Captivated by its glamor and riches, Trump asked his father to expand to Manhattan where prices were at least three orders of magnitude higher, but his father was content in the outer boroughs.
In 1971, he moved to Manhattan where he planned to move the business and commuted to his father's office. That year, his father made himself chairman and Trump president, overseeing 48 private corporations and 15 family partnerships. Trump renamed the disparate businesses to a single umbrella, the Trump Organization.
Roy Cohn, Trump's most important early influence after his father, was his fixer, lawyer, and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s. Cohn taught Trump to think that life is transactional.
In 1973, Cohn helped Trump countersue the U.S. government for $100 million (equivalent to $708 million in 2024) over its charges that Trump's properties had discriminated against Black applicants and tenants.
Trump's counterclaims were dismissed, and the government's case was settled with the Trumps signing a consent decree agreeing to desegregate.
Four years later, the Trumps again faced the courts when they were found in contempt of the decree. Helping Trump projects, Cohn was a consigliere whose Mafia connections controlled construction unions. In 1979, Cohn introduced political consultant Roger Stone to Trump, who enlisted Stone's services to deal with the federal government.
Trump moved from his studio to a penthouse with a view and got a real estate broker's license in the mid-1970s. Before age thirty, he showed his propensity for litigation, no matter the outcome and cost; even when he lost, he described the case as a win.
Over three decades as of 2018, Trump had been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits, liens, and other filings, often filed for nonpayment against him by employees, contractors, real estate brokers, and his own attorneys.
Between 1991 and 2009, Trump filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for six of his businesses:
In 1992, Trump, his siblings Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert, and his cousin John W. Walter formed All County Building Supply & Maintenance Corp, each with a 20 percent share. The company had no offices and is alleged to have been a shell company for paying the vendors providing services and supplies for Trump's rental units, then billing those services and supplies to Trump Management with markups of 20–50 percent and more.
The owners shared the proceeds generated by the markups. The increased costs were used to get state approval for increasing the rents of his rent-stabilized units. In January 1994, the siblings formed Apartment Management Associates and took over the management fees formerly collected by Trump Management.
As well as inflating rents, the schemes served to transfer assets from Fred Trump to his children and nephew and lower the tax burden.
Manhattan and Chicago developments
Pictured below: In 1985 with a model of one of his aborted Manhattan development projects
Donald J. Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.
Born into a wealthy family in New York City, Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became the president of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it the Trump Organization, and began acquiring and building skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses.
He launched side ventures, many licensing the Trump name, and filed for six business bankruptcies in the 1990s and 2000s. From 2004 to 2015, he hosted the reality television show The Apprentice, bolstering his fame as a billionaire. Presenting himself as a political outsider, Trump won the 2016 presidential election against Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.
During his first presidency, Trump imposed a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, expanded the Mexico–United States border wall, and enforced a family separation policy on the border. He rolled back environmental and business regulations, signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and appointed three Supreme Court justices.
In foreign policy, Trump withdrew the U.S. from agreements on climate, trade, and Iran's nuclear program, and initiated a trade war with China.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020, he downplayed its severity, contradicted ealth officials, and signed the CARES Act. After losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Trump attempted to overturn the result, culminating in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021. He was impeached:
- in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress,
- and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection;
- the Senate acquitted him both times.
In 2023, Trump was found liable in civil cases for sexual abuse and defamation and for business fraud. He was found guilty of falsifying business records in 2024, making him the first U.S. president convicted of a felony.
After winning the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris, he was:
- sentenced to a penalty-free discharge,
- and two felony indictments against him:
A racketeering case related to the 2020 election in Georgia is pending.
Trump began his second presidency by initiating mass layoffs of federal workers.
He imposed tariffs on nearly all countries at the highest level since the Great Depression and signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
His administration's actions—including:
- intimidation of political opponents and civil society,
- deportations of immigrants,
- and extensive use of executive orders
- —have drawn over 300 lawsuits challenging their legality.
High-profile cases have underscored his broad interpretation of the unitary executive theory and have led to significant conflicts with the federal courts.
In 2025, he authorized airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Since 2015, Trump's leadership style and political agenda—often referred to as Trumpism [see further down]—have reshaped the Republican Party's identity.
Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racist or misogynistic, and he has made false or misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to an extent unprecedented in American politics.
Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. After his first term, scholars and historians ranked him as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Early life and education
At New York Military Academy, 1964
Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in the New York Cityborough of Queens, the fourth child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. He is of German and Scottish descent. He grew up with his older siblings, Maryanne, Fred Jr., and Elizabeth, and his younger brother, Robert, in a mansion in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens.
Fred Trump paid his children each about $20,000 a year, equivalent to $265,000 a year in 2024. Trump was a millionaire in inflation-adjusted dollars by age eight.
Trump attended the private Kew-Forest School through seventh grade. He was a difficult child and showed an early interest in his father's business. His father enrolled him in New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, to complete secondary school. The academy pushed students into sports and drilled the imperative of winning.
Trump played a year of varsity football and soccer, and three years of baseball. In baseball, he emerged as a co-captain, cleanup batter, and excellent first baseman—even so, he exaggerated his athletic prowess. In high school his grades improved to a B average.
Trump considered a show business career but instead, to be closer to home, enrolled at Fordham University in 1964. He dropped ROTC officer training after one year, and played indifferent football, squash, and tennis.
His Fordham friends introduced him to golf. His junior year he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, most often commuting to his father's office on weekends, and graduating in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in economics. In college he was not the top student he sometimes claimed to be.
By the time he went to Wharton—where he does not appear in a list of those receiving honors—he was eyeing a career in real estate.
He was exempted from the draft during the Vietnam War due to a claim of bone spurs in his heels. Notwithstanding five years in military school, he had no interest in going to war.
Growing up, he considered his father and the family's pastor, Norman Vincent Peale, to be his mentors. His father told him repeatedly that he was "a king" and to be "a killer". Peale preached self-confidence as the impetus for prosperity.
Business career
Main articles: Business career of Donald Trump and The Trump Organization
Further information:
Real estate
Starting in 1968, Trump was employed at Trump Management, his father's real estate company, which managed the middle-class apartment complexes Fred had built in Queens, Staten Island, and Brooklyn.
His main tasks were collecting rent and making repairs for about five years.
Captivated by its glamor and riches, Trump asked his father to expand to Manhattan where prices were at least three orders of magnitude higher, but his father was content in the outer boroughs.
In 1971, he moved to Manhattan where he planned to move the business and commuted to his father's office. That year, his father made himself chairman and Trump president, overseeing 48 private corporations and 15 family partnerships. Trump renamed the disparate businesses to a single umbrella, the Trump Organization.
Roy Cohn, Trump's most important early influence after his father, was his fixer, lawyer, and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s. Cohn taught Trump to think that life is transactional.
In 1973, Cohn helped Trump countersue the U.S. government for $100 million (equivalent to $708 million in 2024) over its charges that Trump's properties had discriminated against Black applicants and tenants.
Trump's counterclaims were dismissed, and the government's case was settled with the Trumps signing a consent decree agreeing to desegregate.
Four years later, the Trumps again faced the courts when they were found in contempt of the decree. Helping Trump projects, Cohn was a consigliere whose Mafia connections controlled construction unions. In 1979, Cohn introduced political consultant Roger Stone to Trump, who enlisted Stone's services to deal with the federal government.
Trump moved from his studio to a penthouse with a view and got a real estate broker's license in the mid-1970s. Before age thirty, he showed his propensity for litigation, no matter the outcome and cost; even when he lost, he described the case as a win.
Over three decades as of 2018, Trump had been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits, liens, and other filings, often filed for nonpayment against him by employees, contractors, real estate brokers, and his own attorneys.
Between 1991 and 2009, Trump filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for six of his businesses:
- the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan,
- the casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey,
- and the Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts company.
In 1992, Trump, his siblings Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert, and his cousin John W. Walter formed All County Building Supply & Maintenance Corp, each with a 20 percent share. The company had no offices and is alleged to have been a shell company for paying the vendors providing services and supplies for Trump's rental units, then billing those services and supplies to Trump Management with markups of 20–50 percent and more.
The owners shared the proceeds generated by the markups. The increased costs were used to get state approval for increasing the rents of his rent-stabilized units. In January 1994, the siblings formed Apartment Management Associates and took over the management fees formerly collected by Trump Management.
As well as inflating rents, the schemes served to transfer assets from Fred Trump to his children and nephew and lower the tax burden.
Manhattan and Chicago developments
Pictured below: In 1985 with a model of one of his aborted Manhattan development projects
Trump attracted public attention in 1978 with the launch of his family's first Manhattan venture: the renovation of the derelict Commodore Hotel, adjacent to Grand Central Terminal.
The financing was facilitated by a $400 million city property tax abatement arranged for him by his father who also, jointly with Hyatt, guaranteed a $70 million bank construction loan. The hotel reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and that same year, he obtained rights to develop Trump Tower, a mixed-use skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan.
Trump Tower houses the headquarters of the Trump Corporation and Trump's PAC and was his primary residence until 2019. In 1988, Trump acquired the Plaza Hotel with a loan from a consortium of 16 banks. The hotel filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992, and a reorganization plan was approved a month later, with the banks taking control of the property.
In 1995, Trump defaulted on over $3 billion of bank loans, and the lenders seized the Plaza Hotel along with most of his other properties in a "vast and humiliating restructuring" that allowed him to avoid personal bankruptcy.
The lead bank's attorney said of the banks' decision that they "all agreed that he'd be better alive than dead". In 1996, Trump acquired and renovated the mostly vacant 71-story skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, later rebranded as the Trump Building.
In the early 1990s, he won the right to develop a 70-acre (28 ha) tract in the Lincoln Square neighborhood near the Hudson River. Struggling with debt from other ventures in 1994, he sold most of his interest in the project to Asian investors, who financed the project's completion, Riverside South.
Trump's last major construction project was the 92-story mixed-use Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, which opened in 2008. In 2024, The New York Times and ProPublica reported that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating whether he had twice written off losses incurred through construction cost overruns and lagging sales of residential units in the building he had declared to be worthless on his 2008 tax return.
Atlantic City casinos
The financing was facilitated by a $400 million city property tax abatement arranged for him by his father who also, jointly with Hyatt, guaranteed a $70 million bank construction loan. The hotel reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and that same year, he obtained rights to develop Trump Tower, a mixed-use skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan.
Trump Tower houses the headquarters of the Trump Corporation and Trump's PAC and was his primary residence until 2019. In 1988, Trump acquired the Plaza Hotel with a loan from a consortium of 16 banks. The hotel filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992, and a reorganization plan was approved a month later, with the banks taking control of the property.
In 1995, Trump defaulted on over $3 billion of bank loans, and the lenders seized the Plaza Hotel along with most of his other properties in a "vast and humiliating restructuring" that allowed him to avoid personal bankruptcy.
The lead bank's attorney said of the banks' decision that they "all agreed that he'd be better alive than dead". In 1996, Trump acquired and renovated the mostly vacant 71-story skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, later rebranded as the Trump Building.
In the early 1990s, he won the right to develop a 70-acre (28 ha) tract in the Lincoln Square neighborhood near the Hudson River. Struggling with debt from other ventures in 1994, he sold most of his interest in the project to Asian investors, who financed the project's completion, Riverside South.
Trump's last major construction project was the 92-story mixed-use Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, which opened in 2008. In 2024, The New York Times and ProPublica reported that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating whether he had twice written off losses incurred through construction cost overruns and lagging sales of residential units in the building he had declared to be worthless on his 2008 tax return.
Atlantic City casinos
In 1984, Trump opened Harrah's at Trump Plaza, a hotel and casino, with financing and management help from the Holiday Corporation. It was unprofitable, and he paid Holiday $70 million in May 1986 to take sole control.
In 1985, he bought the unopened Atlantic City Hilton Hotel and renamed it Trump Castle. Both casinos filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1992.
Trump bought a third Atlantic City venue in 1988, the Trump Taj Mahal (see picture above). It was financed with $675 million in junk bonds and completed for $1.1 billion, opening in April 1990.
He filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1991. Under the provisions of the restructuring agreement, he gave up half his initial stake and personally guaranteed future performance.
To reduce his $900 million of personal debt, he sold the Trump Shuttle airline; his mega-yacht, the Trump Princess, which had been leased to his casinos and kept docked; and other businesses.
In 1995, Trump founded Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts (THCR), which assumed ownership of the Trump Plaza. THCR purchased the Taj Mahal and the Trump Castle in 1996 and went bankrupt in 2004 and 2009, leaving him with 10 percent ownership. He remained chairman until 2009.
Golf clubs
In 1985, Trump acquired the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. In 1995, he converted the estate into a private club with an initiation fee and annual dues. He continued to use a wing of the house as a private residence. He declared the club his primary residence in 2019. He began building and buying golf courses in 1999, owning 17 golf courses by 2016.
Licensing the Trump name
See also: List of things named after Donald Trump
The Trump Organization often licensed the Trump name for consumer products and services, including foodstuffs, apparel, learning courses, and home furnishings. Over 50 licensing or management deals involved Trump's name, generating at least $59 million for his companies.
By 2018, only two consumer goods companies continued to license his name. During the 2000s, Trump licensed his name to residential property developments worldwide, 40 of which were never built.
Side ventures
See also: Donald Trump and American football
In 1970, Trump invested $70,000 of his father's wealth to receive billing as coproducer of a Broadway comedy—and lost the money.
After making low-ball bids for the New York Mets and the Cleveland Indians baseball teams, in 1983 for about $6 million, he purchased the New Jersey Generals, a team in the United States Football League.
The league folded after the 1985 season, largely due to his attempt to move to a fall schedule (when it would have competed with the National Football League [NFL] for audience) and his attempt to force a merger with the NFL by bringing an antitrust suit.
Trump and his Plaza Hotel hosted several boxing matches at the Atlantic City Convention Hall.
In 1989 and 1990, he lent his name to the Tour de Trump cycling stage race, an attempt to create an American equivalent of European races such as the Tour de France or the Giro d'Italia.
From 1986 to 1988, he purchased significant blocks of shares in various public companies while suggesting that he intended to take over the company and then sold his shares for a profit, leading some observers to think he was engaged in greenmail. The New York Times found that he initially made millions of dollars in such stock transactions, but "lost most, if not all, of those gains after investors stopped taking his takeover talk seriously"
In 1988, Trump purchased the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle, financing the purchase with $380 million (equivalent to $1.01 billion in 2024) in loans from a syndicate of 22 banks. He renamed the airline Trump Shuttle and operated it until 1992. He defaulted on his loans in 1991, and ownership passed to the banks.
In 1996, he purchased the Miss Universe pageants, including Miss USA and Miss Teen USA. Due to disagreements with CBS about scheduling, he took both pageants to NBC in 2002. In 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work as producer of Miss Universe.
NBC and Univision dropped the pageants in June 2015 in reaction to his comments about Mexican immigrants.
Pictured below: Trump's Star on Hollywood Boulevard:
In 2005, Trump cofounded Trump University, a company that sold real estate seminars for up to $35,000. After New York State authorities notified the company that its use of "university" violated state law (as it was not an academic institution), its name was changed to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative in 2010.
In 2013, the State of New York filed a $40 million civil suit against Trump University, alleging that the company made false statements and defrauded consumers. Additionally, two class actions were filed in federal court against Trump and his companies. Internal documents revealed that employees were instructed to use a hard-sell approach, and former employees testified that Trump University had defrauded or lied to its students. Shortly after he won the 2016 presidential election, he agreed to pay a total of $25 million to settle the three cases.
Foundation
Main article: Donald J. Trump Foundation
The Donald J. Trump Foundation was a private foundation established in 1988. From 1987 to 2006, Trump gave his foundation $5.4 million, which had been spent by the end of 2006. After donating a total of $65,000 in 2007–2008, he stopped donating any personal funds to the charity, which received millions from other donors, including $5 million from Vince McMahon.
The foundation gave to:
In 2016, The Washington Post reported that the charity had committed several potential legal and ethical violations, including self-dealing and tax evasion.
Also in 2016, the New York attorney general stated the foundation had violated state law by soliciting donations without submitting to required annual external audits and ordered it to cease its fundraising activities in New York immediately. Trump's team announced in December 2016 that the foundation would be dissolved.
In June 2018, the New York attorney general's office filed a civil suit against the foundation, Trump, and his adult children, seeking $2.8 million in restitution and additional penalties.
In December 2018, the foundation ceased operation and disbursed its assets to other charities. In November 2019, a New York state judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million to a group of charities for misusing the foundation's funds, in part to finance his presidential campaign.
Legal affairs and bankruptcies
Main article: Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump
According to a review of state and federal court files conducted by USA Today in 2018, Trump and his businesses had been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions. While he has not filed for personal bankruptcy, his over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection six times between 1991 and 2009. They continued to operate while the banks restructured debt and reduced his shares in the properties.
During the 1980s, more than 70 banks had lent Trump $4 billion. After his corporate bankruptcies of the early 1990s, most major banks, with the exception of Deutsche Bank, declined to lend to him. After the January 6 Capitol attack, the bank decided not to do business with him or his affiliated company in the future.
Wealth
Main article: Wealth of Donald Trump
Pictured: Trump's Estate Mar-a-Lago in Florida
In 2013, the State of New York filed a $40 million civil suit against Trump University, alleging that the company made false statements and defrauded consumers. Additionally, two class actions were filed in federal court against Trump and his companies. Internal documents revealed that employees were instructed to use a hard-sell approach, and former employees testified that Trump University had defrauded or lied to its students. Shortly after he won the 2016 presidential election, he agreed to pay a total of $25 million to settle the three cases.
Foundation
Main article: Donald J. Trump Foundation
The Donald J. Trump Foundation was a private foundation established in 1988. From 1987 to 2006, Trump gave his foundation $5.4 million, which had been spent by the end of 2006. After donating a total of $65,000 in 2007–2008, he stopped donating any personal funds to the charity, which received millions from other donors, including $5 million from Vince McMahon.
The foundation gave to:
- health- and sports-related charities,
- conservative groups,
- and charities that held events at Trump properties
In 2016, The Washington Post reported that the charity had committed several potential legal and ethical violations, including self-dealing and tax evasion.
Also in 2016, the New York attorney general stated the foundation had violated state law by soliciting donations without submitting to required annual external audits and ordered it to cease its fundraising activities in New York immediately. Trump's team announced in December 2016 that the foundation would be dissolved.
In June 2018, the New York attorney general's office filed a civil suit against the foundation, Trump, and his adult children, seeking $2.8 million in restitution and additional penalties.
In December 2018, the foundation ceased operation and disbursed its assets to other charities. In November 2019, a New York state judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million to a group of charities for misusing the foundation's funds, in part to finance his presidential campaign.
Legal affairs and bankruptcies
Main article: Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump
According to a review of state and federal court files conducted by USA Today in 2018, Trump and his businesses had been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions. While he has not filed for personal bankruptcy, his over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection six times between 1991 and 2009. They continued to operate while the banks restructured debt and reduced his shares in the properties.
During the 1980s, more than 70 banks had lent Trump $4 billion. After his corporate bankruptcies of the early 1990s, most major banks, with the exception of Deutsche Bank, declined to lend to him. After the January 6 Capitol attack, the bank decided not to do business with him or his affiliated company in the future.
Wealth
Main article: Wealth of Donald Trump
Pictured: Trump's Estate Mar-a-Lago in Florida
Trump has said he began his career with "a small loan of a million dollars" from his father and that he had to pay it back with interest. He borrowed at least $60 million from his father, largely did not repay the loans, and received another $413 million (2018 equivalent, adjusted for inflation) from his father's company.
Posing as a Trump Organization official named "John Barron", Trump called journalist Jonathan Greenberg in 1984, trying to get a higher ranking on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans. Trump self-reported his net worth over a wide range: from minus $900 million in 1990 to $10 billion in 2015.
In 2015, Forbes estimated his net worth at $4.5 billion, based on interviews with more than 80 sources. In 2025, the magazine estimated his net worth at $5.1 billion and ranked him the 700th wealthiest person in the world.
Media career
Main article: Media career of Donald Trump
See also: Bibliography of Donald Trump
Trump has published 19 books under his name, most written or cowritten by ghostwriters. His first book, The Art of the Deal (1987), was a New York Times Best Seller, and was credited by The New Yorker with making Trump famous as an "emblem of the successful tycoon". The book was ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz, who is credited as a co-author.
Trump had cameos in many films and television shows from 1985 to 2001. Trump acquired his style of politics from professional wrestling—with its staged fights and name-calling.
He sporadically appeared for the professional wrestling company WWE from the late 1980s including Wrestlemania 23 in 2007.
Starting in the 1990s, Trump appeared 24 times as a guest on the nationally syndicated Howard Stern Show.
He had his own short-form talk radio program, Trumped!, from 2004 to 2008.
From 2011 until 2015, he was a guest commentator on Fox & Friends.
In 2021, Trump, who had been a member since 1989, resigned from SAG-AFTRA to avoid a disciplinary hearing regarding the January 6 attack. Two days later, the union permanently barred him.
The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice
Main articles: The Apprentice (American TV series) and The Celebrity Apprentice
Producer Mark Burnett made Trump a television star when he created The Apprentice, which Trump hosted from 2004 to 2015 (including variant The Celebrity Apprentice).
On the shows, he was a superrich chief executive who eliminated contestants with the catchphrase "you're fired". The New York Times called his portrayal "a highly flattering, highly fictionalized version" of himself.
The shows remade Trump's image for millions of viewers nationwide. With the related licensing agreements, they earned him more than $400 million.
Early political aspirations
Further information: Political career of Donald Trump
Trump registered as a Republican in 1987; a member of the Independence Party, the New York state affiliate of the Reform Party, in 1999; a Democrat in 2001; a Republican in 2009; unaffiliated in 2011; and a Republican in 2012
In 1987, Trump placed full-page advertisements in major newspapers expressing his views on foreign policy and how to eliminate the federal budget deficit.
In 1988, he approached Lee Atwater, asking to be put into consideration to be Republican nominee George H. W. Bush's running mate. Bush found the request "strange and unbelievable".
Trump was a candidate in the 2000 Reform Party presidential primaries for three months before he withdrew in February 2000.
In 2011, Trump considered challenging President Barack Obama in the 2012 election. He spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February and gave speeches in states with early primaries. In May 2011, he announced that he would not run.
2016 presidential election
Main article: 2016 United States presidential election
Further information:
Trump announced his candidacy for the 2016 election in June 2015. He campaigned as a rich, successful businessman and an outsider without political experience, and claimed media bias against him. His campaign statements were often opaque and suggestive, and a record number were false.
He became the Republican front-runner in March 2016 and was declared the presumptive Republican nominee in May.
Picture below: Donald Trump Campaigning in Arizona:
Posing as a Trump Organization official named "John Barron", Trump called journalist Jonathan Greenberg in 1984, trying to get a higher ranking on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans. Trump self-reported his net worth over a wide range: from minus $900 million in 1990 to $10 billion in 2015.
In 2015, Forbes estimated his net worth at $4.5 billion, based on interviews with more than 80 sources. In 2025, the magazine estimated his net worth at $5.1 billion and ranked him the 700th wealthiest person in the world.
Media career
Main article: Media career of Donald Trump
See also: Bibliography of Donald Trump
Trump has published 19 books under his name, most written or cowritten by ghostwriters. His first book, The Art of the Deal (1987), was a New York Times Best Seller, and was credited by The New Yorker with making Trump famous as an "emblem of the successful tycoon". The book was ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz, who is credited as a co-author.
Trump had cameos in many films and television shows from 1985 to 2001. Trump acquired his style of politics from professional wrestling—with its staged fights and name-calling.
He sporadically appeared for the professional wrestling company WWE from the late 1980s including Wrestlemania 23 in 2007.
Starting in the 1990s, Trump appeared 24 times as a guest on the nationally syndicated Howard Stern Show.
He had his own short-form talk radio program, Trumped!, from 2004 to 2008.
From 2011 until 2015, he was a guest commentator on Fox & Friends.
In 2021, Trump, who had been a member since 1989, resigned from SAG-AFTRA to avoid a disciplinary hearing regarding the January 6 attack. Two days later, the union permanently barred him.
The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice
Main articles: The Apprentice (American TV series) and The Celebrity Apprentice
Producer Mark Burnett made Trump a television star when he created The Apprentice, which Trump hosted from 2004 to 2015 (including variant The Celebrity Apprentice).
On the shows, he was a superrich chief executive who eliminated contestants with the catchphrase "you're fired". The New York Times called his portrayal "a highly flattering, highly fictionalized version" of himself.
The shows remade Trump's image for millions of viewers nationwide. With the related licensing agreements, they earned him more than $400 million.
Early political aspirations
Further information: Political career of Donald Trump
Trump registered as a Republican in 1987; a member of the Independence Party, the New York state affiliate of the Reform Party, in 1999; a Democrat in 2001; a Republican in 2009; unaffiliated in 2011; and a Republican in 2012
In 1987, Trump placed full-page advertisements in major newspapers expressing his views on foreign policy and how to eliminate the federal budget deficit.
In 1988, he approached Lee Atwater, asking to be put into consideration to be Republican nominee George H. W. Bush's running mate. Bush found the request "strange and unbelievable".
Trump was a candidate in the 2000 Reform Party presidential primaries for three months before he withdrew in February 2000.
In 2011, Trump considered challenging President Barack Obama in the 2012 election. He spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February and gave speeches in states with early primaries. In May 2011, he announced that he would not run.
2016 presidential election
Main article: 2016 United States presidential election
Further information:
- Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign,
- 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries,
- and First presidential transition of Donald Trump
Trump announced his candidacy for the 2016 election in June 2015. He campaigned as a rich, successful businessman and an outsider without political experience, and claimed media bias against him. His campaign statements were often opaque and suggestive, and a record number were false.
He became the Republican front-runner in March 2016 and was declared the presumptive Republican nominee in May.
Picture below: Donald Trump Campaigning in Arizona:
Trump described NATO as "obsolete" and espoused views described by The Washington Post as noninterventionist and protectionist. His campaign platform emphasized renegotiating U.S.–China relations and free trade agreements such as NAFTA and strongly enforcing immigration laws.
Other campaign positions included:
According to an analysis in Political Science Quarterly, Trump made "explicitly racist and sexist appeals to win over white voters" during his 2016 presidential campaign. In particular, his campaign launch speech drew criticism for claiming Mexican immigrants were "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists"; in response, NBC fired him from Celebrity Apprentice.
Trump's FEC-required reports listed assets above $1.4 billion and outstanding debts of at least $315 million.
He did not release his tax returns, contrary to the practice of every major candidate since 1976 and his promises in 2014 and 2015 to do so if he ran for office. He said his tax returns were being audited, and that his lawyers had advised him against releasing them.
After a lengthy court battle to block release of his tax returns and other records to the Manhattan district attorney for a criminal investigation, including two appeals by Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court, in February 2021 the high court allowed the records to be released to the prosecutor for review by a grand jury.
In October 2016, portions of Trump's state filings for 1995 were leaked to a reporter from The New York Times. They show that he had declared a loss of $916 million that year, which could have let him avoid taxes for up to 18 years.
Trump won 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. After elector defections on both sides, the official count was 304 to 227. The fifth person to be elected president despite losing the popular vote, he received nearly 2.9 million fewer votes than Clinton, 46.3% to her 48.25%.
He was the only president who neither served in the military nor held any government office prior to becoming president. His election marked the return of a Republican undivided government. Trump's victory sparked protests in major U.S. cities.
First presidency (2017–2021)
Main article: First presidency of Donald Trump
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of the Donald Trump presidencies.
Early actions
See also:
Other campaign positions included:
- pursuing energy independence while opposing climate change regulations,
- modernizing services for veterans,
- repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act,
- abolishing Common Core education standards,
- investing in infrastructure,
- simplifying the tax code while reducing taxes,
- and imposing tariffs on imports by companies that offshore jobs.
- He advocated increasing military spending and extreme vetting or banning of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.
- He promised to build a wall on the Mexico–U.S. border and vowed that Mexico would pay for it.
- He pledged to deport millions of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S., and criticized birthright citizenship for incentivizing "anchor babies".
According to an analysis in Political Science Quarterly, Trump made "explicitly racist and sexist appeals to win over white voters" during his 2016 presidential campaign. In particular, his campaign launch speech drew criticism for claiming Mexican immigrants were "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists"; in response, NBC fired him from Celebrity Apprentice.
Trump's FEC-required reports listed assets above $1.4 billion and outstanding debts of at least $315 million.
He did not release his tax returns, contrary to the practice of every major candidate since 1976 and his promises in 2014 and 2015 to do so if he ran for office. He said his tax returns were being audited, and that his lawyers had advised him against releasing them.
After a lengthy court battle to block release of his tax returns and other records to the Manhattan district attorney for a criminal investigation, including two appeals by Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court, in February 2021 the high court allowed the records to be released to the prosecutor for review by a grand jury.
In October 2016, portions of Trump's state filings for 1995 were leaked to a reporter from The New York Times. They show that he had declared a loss of $916 million that year, which could have let him avoid taxes for up to 18 years.
Trump won 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. After elector defections on both sides, the official count was 304 to 227. The fifth person to be elected president despite losing the popular vote, he received nearly 2.9 million fewer votes than Clinton, 46.3% to her 48.25%.
He was the only president who neither served in the military nor held any government office prior to becoming president. His election marked the return of a Republican undivided government. Trump's victory sparked protests in major U.S. cities.
First presidency (2017–2021)
Main article: First presidency of Donald Trump
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of the Donald Trump presidencies.
Early actions
See also:
- First presidential transition of Donald Trump
- and First 100 days of Donald Trump's first presidency
Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. The day after his inauguration, an estimated 2.6 million people worldwide, including 500,000 in Washington, D.C., protested against him in the Women's Marches.
During his first week in office, Trump signed six executive orders, including:
Conflicts of interest
See also: First presidency of Donald Trump § Ethics
Before being inaugurated, Trump moved his businesses into a revocable trust, rather than a blind trust or equivalent arrangement "to cleanly sever himself from his business interests". He continued to profit from his businesses and knew how his administration's policies affected them.
Although he said he would eschew "new foreign deals", the Trump Organization pursued operational expansions in Scotland, Dubai, and the Dominican Republic
Lobbyists, foreign government officials, and Trump donors and allies generated hundreds of millions of dollars for his resorts and hotels.
Trump was sued for violating the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution, the first time that the clauses had been substantively litigated. One case was dismissed in lower court. Two were dismissed by the Supreme Court as moot after his term.
During the campaign, Trump had pledged to donate his presidential salary and profits from foreign patronage to the U.S. government. He donated his salary to federal agencies and publicized each donation until July 2020.
Federal agencies surveyed by The Washington Post in July 2021 reported not having received any gifts after that month.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reported in 2024 that he had donated $448,000 of an estimated $13.6 million in payments from foreign governments in his first term.
Domestic policy
Main articles:
Trump took office at the height of the longest economic expansion in American history, which began in 2009 and continued until February 2020, when the COVID-19 recession began.
In December 2017, he signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. It reduced tax rates for businesses and individuals and eliminated the penalty associated with the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. The Trump administration claimed that the act would not decrease government revenue, even though 2018 revenues were 7.6 percent lower than projected.
Under Trump, the federal budget deficit increased by almost 50 percent, to nearly $1 trillion in 2019. By the end of his term, the U.S. national debt increased by 39 percent, reaching $27.75 trillion, and the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio hit a post-World War II high.
Trump also failed to deliver the $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan on which he had campaigned.
Trump is the only modern U.S. president to leave office with a smaller workforce than when he took office, by three million people.
He rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.
He reduced the budget for renewable energy research by 40 percent and reversed Obama-era policies directed at curbing climate change.
He withdrew from the Paris Agreement, making the U.S. the only nation to not ratify it.
He aimed to boost the production and exports of fossil fuels.
Natural gas expanded under Trump, but coal continued to decline.
He rolled back more than 100 federal environmental regulations, including those that curbed greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, and the use of toxic substances.
He weakened protections for animals and environmental standards for federal infrastructure projects, and expanded permitted areas for drilling and resource extraction, such as allowing drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
Trump dismantled federal regulations on:
The Institute for Policy Integrity found that 78 percent of his proposals were blocked by courts or did not prevail over litigation.
During his campaign, Trump vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In office, he scaled back the Act's implementation through executive orders. He expressed a desire to "let Obamacare fail"; his administration halved the enrollment period and drastically reduced funding for enrollment promotion.
In June 2018, the Trump administration joined 18 Republican-led states in arguing before the Supreme Court that the elimination of the financial penalties associated with the individual mandate had rendered the Act unconstitutional. Their pleading would have eliminated health insurance coverage for up to 23 million Americans, but was unsuccessful.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised to protect funding for Medicare and other social safety-net programs. In January 2020, he expressed willingness to consider cuts to them.
In response to the opioid epidemic, Trump signed legislation in 2018 to increase funding for drug treatments, but was widely criticized for failing to make a concrete strategy.
He barred organizations that provide abortions or abortion referrals from receiving federal funds.
He said he supported "traditional marriage", but considered the nationwide legality of same-sex marriage "settled".
His administration rolled back key components of the Obama administration's workplace protections against discrimination of LGBTQ people.
His attempted rollback of anti-discrimination protections for transgender patients in August 2020 was halted by a federal judge after a Supreme Court ruling extended employees' civil rights protections to gender identity and sexual orientation.
Trump has said he is opposed to gun control, although his views have shifted over time.
His administration took an anti-marijuana position, revoking Obama-era policies that provided protections for states that legalized marijuana.
He is a long-time advocate of capital punishment, and his administration oversaw the federal government execute 13 prisoners, more than in the previous 56 years combined, ending a 17-year moratorium.
In 2016, he said he supported the use of interrogation torture methods "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."
Race relations
Trump's comments on the 2017 Unite the Right rally, condemning "this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides" and stating that there were "very fine people on both sides", were criticized as implying a moral equivalence between the white supremacist demonstrators and the counter-protesters.
In a January 2018 discussion of immigration legislation, he reportedly referred to El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and African nations as "shithole countries". His remarks were condemned as racist.
In July 2019, Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen—all minorities, three of whom are native-born Americans—should "go back" to the countries they "came from". Two days later the House of Representatives voted 240–187, mostly along party lines, to condemn his "racist comments".
White nationalist publications and social media praised his remarks, which continued over the following days. He continued to make similar remarks during his 2020 campaign.
In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, federal law-enforcement officials used tear gas and other crowd control tactics to remove a largely peaceful crowd of lawful protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House.
Trump then posed with a Bible for a photo-op at the nearby St. John's Episcopal Church, with religious leaders condemning both the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself. Many retired military leaders and defense officials condemned his proposal to use the U.S. military against anti-police-brutality protesters.
Pardons and commutations
Further information: List of people granted executive clemency in the first presidency of Donald Trump
During his first term, Trump granted 237 requests for clemency, fewer than all presidents since 1900 with the exception of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.
Only 25 of them had been vetted by the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney; the others were granted to people with personal or political connections to him, his family, and his allies, or recommended by celebrities. In his last full day in office, he granted 73 pardons and commuted 70 sentences.
Several Trump allies were not eligible for pardons under Justice Department rules, and in other cases the department had opposed clemency. The pardons of three military service members convicted of or charged with violent crimes were opposed by military leaders.
Immigration
Main articles:
Further information:
During his first week in office, Trump signed six executive orders, including:
- authorizing procedures for repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"),
- withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations,
- advancement of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline projects,
- and planning for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Conflicts of interest
See also: First presidency of Donald Trump § Ethics
Before being inaugurated, Trump moved his businesses into a revocable trust, rather than a blind trust or equivalent arrangement "to cleanly sever himself from his business interests". He continued to profit from his businesses and knew how his administration's policies affected them.
Although he said he would eschew "new foreign deals", the Trump Organization pursued operational expansions in Scotland, Dubai, and the Dominican Republic
Lobbyists, foreign government officials, and Trump donors and allies generated hundreds of millions of dollars for his resorts and hotels.
Trump was sued for violating the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution, the first time that the clauses had been substantively litigated. One case was dismissed in lower court. Two were dismissed by the Supreme Court as moot after his term.
During the campaign, Trump had pledged to donate his presidential salary and profits from foreign patronage to the U.S. government. He donated his salary to federal agencies and publicized each donation until July 2020.
Federal agencies surveyed by The Washington Post in July 2021 reported not having received any gifts after that month.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reported in 2024 that he had donated $448,000 of an estimated $13.6 million in payments from foreign governments in his first term.
Domestic policy
Main articles:
- Domestic policy of the first Donald Trump administration,
- Economic policy of the first Donald Trump administration,
- Environmental policy of the first Donald Trump administration,
- and Social policy of the first Donald Trump administration
Trump took office at the height of the longest economic expansion in American history, which began in 2009 and continued until February 2020, when the COVID-19 recession began.
In December 2017, he signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. It reduced tax rates for businesses and individuals and eliminated the penalty associated with the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. The Trump administration claimed that the act would not decrease government revenue, even though 2018 revenues were 7.6 percent lower than projected.
Under Trump, the federal budget deficit increased by almost 50 percent, to nearly $1 trillion in 2019. By the end of his term, the U.S. national debt increased by 39 percent, reaching $27.75 trillion, and the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio hit a post-World War II high.
Trump also failed to deliver the $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan on which he had campaigned.
Trump is the only modern U.S. president to leave office with a smaller workforce than when he took office, by three million people.
He rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.
He reduced the budget for renewable energy research by 40 percent and reversed Obama-era policies directed at curbing climate change.
He withdrew from the Paris Agreement, making the U.S. the only nation to not ratify it.
He aimed to boost the production and exports of fossil fuels.
Natural gas expanded under Trump, but coal continued to decline.
He rolled back more than 100 federal environmental regulations, including those that curbed greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, and the use of toxic substances.
He weakened protections for animals and environmental standards for federal infrastructure projects, and expanded permitted areas for drilling and resource extraction, such as allowing drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
Trump dismantled federal regulations on:
- health,
- labor,
- the environment,
- and other areas,
- including a bill that made it easier for severely mentally ill persons to buy guns.
- During his first six weeks in office, he delayed, suspended, or reversed ninety federal regulations, often "after requests by the regulated industries".
The Institute for Policy Integrity found that 78 percent of his proposals were blocked by courts or did not prevail over litigation.
During his campaign, Trump vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In office, he scaled back the Act's implementation through executive orders. He expressed a desire to "let Obamacare fail"; his administration halved the enrollment period and drastically reduced funding for enrollment promotion.
In June 2018, the Trump administration joined 18 Republican-led states in arguing before the Supreme Court that the elimination of the financial penalties associated with the individual mandate had rendered the Act unconstitutional. Their pleading would have eliminated health insurance coverage for up to 23 million Americans, but was unsuccessful.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised to protect funding for Medicare and other social safety-net programs. In January 2020, he expressed willingness to consider cuts to them.
In response to the opioid epidemic, Trump signed legislation in 2018 to increase funding for drug treatments, but was widely criticized for failing to make a concrete strategy.
He barred organizations that provide abortions or abortion referrals from receiving federal funds.
He said he supported "traditional marriage", but considered the nationwide legality of same-sex marriage "settled".
His administration rolled back key components of the Obama administration's workplace protections against discrimination of LGBTQ people.
His attempted rollback of anti-discrimination protections for transgender patients in August 2020 was halted by a federal judge after a Supreme Court ruling extended employees' civil rights protections to gender identity and sexual orientation.
Trump has said he is opposed to gun control, although his views have shifted over time.
His administration took an anti-marijuana position, revoking Obama-era policies that provided protections for states that legalized marijuana.
He is a long-time advocate of capital punishment, and his administration oversaw the federal government execute 13 prisoners, more than in the previous 56 years combined, ending a 17-year moratorium.
In 2016, he said he supported the use of interrogation torture methods "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."
Race relations
Trump's comments on the 2017 Unite the Right rally, condemning "this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides" and stating that there were "very fine people on both sides", were criticized as implying a moral equivalence between the white supremacist demonstrators and the counter-protesters.
In a January 2018 discussion of immigration legislation, he reportedly referred to El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and African nations as "shithole countries". His remarks were condemned as racist.
In July 2019, Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen—all minorities, three of whom are native-born Americans—should "go back" to the countries they "came from". Two days later the House of Representatives voted 240–187, mostly along party lines, to condemn his "racist comments".
White nationalist publications and social media praised his remarks, which continued over the following days. He continued to make similar remarks during his 2020 campaign.
In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, federal law-enforcement officials used tear gas and other crowd control tactics to remove a largely peaceful crowd of lawful protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House.
Trump then posed with a Bible for a photo-op at the nearby St. John's Episcopal Church, with religious leaders condemning both the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself. Many retired military leaders and defense officials condemned his proposal to use the U.S. military against anti-police-brutality protesters.
Pardons and commutations
Further information: List of people granted executive clemency in the first presidency of Donald Trump
During his first term, Trump granted 237 requests for clemency, fewer than all presidents since 1900 with the exception of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.
Only 25 of them had been vetted by the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney; the others were granted to people with personal or political connections to him, his family, and his allies, or recommended by celebrities. In his last full day in office, he granted 73 pardons and commuted 70 sentences.
Several Trump allies were not eligible for pardons under Justice Department rules, and in other cases the department had opposed clemency. The pardons of three military service members convicted of or charged with violent crimes were opposed by military leaders.
Immigration
Main articles:
- Immigration policy of the first Donald Trump administration
- Mexico–United States border crisis § First Trump administration (2017–2021)
Further information:
As president, Trump described illegal immigration as an "invasion" of the United State and drastically escalated immigration enforcement.
He implemented harsh policies against asylum seekers and deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the U.S.–Mexico border to stop illegal crossings.
He reduced the number of refugees admitted to record lows, from an annual limit of 110,000 before he took office to 15,000 in 2021. Trump also increased restrictions on granting permanent residency to immigrants needing public benefits.
One of his central campaign promises was to build a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border; during his first term, the U.S. built 73 miles (117 km) of wall in areas without barriers and 365 miles (587 km) to replace older barriers.
In 2018, Trump's refusal to sign any spending bill unless it allocated funding for the border wall resulted in the longest-ever federal government shutdown, for 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019.
The shutdown ended after he agreed to fund the government without any funds for the wall.
To avoid another shutdown, Congress passed a funding bill with $1.4 billion for border fencing in February Trump later declared a national emergency on the southern border to divert $6.1 billion of funding to the border wall despite congressional disagreement.
In January 2017, Trump signed an executive order that denied entry to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries for four months and from Syria indefinitely. The order caused many protests and legal challenges that resulted in nationwide injunctions.
A revised order giving some exceptions was also blocked by courts, but the Supreme Court ruled in June that the ban could be enforced on those lacking "a bona fide relationship with a person or entity" in the U.S.
Trump replaced the ban in September with a presidential proclamation extending travel bans to North Koreans, Chadians, and some Venezuelan officials, but excluded Iraq and Sudan.
The Supreme Court allowed that version to go into effect in December 2017, and ultimately upheld the ban in 2019.
From 2017 to 2018, the Trump administration had a policy of family separation that separated over 4,400 children of illegal immigrants from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border, an unprecedented policy sparked public outrage in the country.
Despite Trump initially blaming Democrats and insisting he could not stop the policy with an executive order, he acceded to public pressure in June 2018 and mandated that illegal immigrant families be detained together unless "there is a concern" of risk for the child.
A judge later ordered that the families be reunited and further separations stopped except in limited circumstances, though over 1,000 additional children were separated from their families after the order.
Foreign policy
Main articles: Further information:
He implemented harsh policies against asylum seekers and deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the U.S.–Mexico border to stop illegal crossings.
He reduced the number of refugees admitted to record lows, from an annual limit of 110,000 before he took office to 15,000 in 2021. Trump also increased restrictions on granting permanent residency to immigrants needing public benefits.
One of his central campaign promises was to build a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border; during his first term, the U.S. built 73 miles (117 km) of wall in areas without barriers and 365 miles (587 km) to replace older barriers.
In 2018, Trump's refusal to sign any spending bill unless it allocated funding for the border wall resulted in the longest-ever federal government shutdown, for 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019.
The shutdown ended after he agreed to fund the government without any funds for the wall.
To avoid another shutdown, Congress passed a funding bill with $1.4 billion for border fencing in February Trump later declared a national emergency on the southern border to divert $6.1 billion of funding to the border wall despite congressional disagreement.
In January 2017, Trump signed an executive order that denied entry to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries for four months and from Syria indefinitely. The order caused many protests and legal challenges that resulted in nationwide injunctions.
A revised order giving some exceptions was also blocked by courts, but the Supreme Court ruled in June that the ban could be enforced on those lacking "a bona fide relationship with a person or entity" in the U.S.
Trump replaced the ban in September with a presidential proclamation extending travel bans to North Koreans, Chadians, and some Venezuelan officials, but excluded Iraq and Sudan.
The Supreme Court allowed that version to go into effect in December 2017, and ultimately upheld the ban in 2019.
From 2017 to 2018, the Trump administration had a policy of family separation that separated over 4,400 children of illegal immigrants from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border, an unprecedented policy sparked public outrage in the country.
Despite Trump initially blaming Democrats and insisting he could not stop the policy with an executive order, he acceded to public pressure in June 2018 and mandated that illegal immigrant families be detained together unless "there is a concern" of risk for the child.
A judge later ordered that the families be reunited and further separations stopped except in limited circumstances, though over 1,000 additional children were separated from their families after the order.
Foreign policy
Main articles: Further information:
Trump described himself as a "nationalist" and his foreign policy as "America First".
He supported populist, neo-nationalist, and authoritarian governments.
Unpredictability, uncertainty, and inconsistency characterized foreign relations during his tenure.
Relations between the U.S. and its European allies were strained under Trump. He criticized NATO allies and privately suggested that the U.S. should withdraw from NATO.
Trump supported many of the policies of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In 2020, Trump hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize their foreign relations.
Trump began a trade war with China in 2018 after imposing tariffs and other trade barriers he said would force China to end longstanding unfair trade practice and intellectual property infringement.
Trump weakened the toughest U.S. sanctions imposed after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. Trump praised and, according to some critics, rarely criticized Russian president Vladimir Putin, though he opposed some actions of Russia's government.
He withdrew the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing alleged Russian noncompliance and supported Russia's possible return to the G7.
As North Korea's nuclear weapons were increasingly seen as a serious threat, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korean leader, meeting Kim Jong Un three times:
Talks in October 2019 broke down and no denuclearization agreement was reached.
Personnel
Main articles: Further information: Hiring and personnel of Donald Trump
By the end of Trump's first year in office, 34 percent of his original staff had resigned, been fired, or been reassigned.
As of early July 2018, 61 percent of his senior aides had left and 141 staffers had left in the previous year. Both figures set a record for recent presidents.
Close personal aides to Trump quit or were forced out. He publicly disparaged several of his former top officials.
Trump had four White House chiefs of staff, marginalizing or pushing out several.
In May 2017, he dismissed FBI director James Comey, saying a few days later that he was concerned about Comey's role in the Trump–Russia investigations.
Three of Trump's 15 original cabinet members left or were forced to resign within his first year.
Trump was slow to appoint second-tier officials in the executive branch, saying many of the positions are unnecessary.
Judiciary
Further information:
Trump appointed 226 federal judges, including 54 to the courts of appeals and the following three to the Supreme Court:
His Supreme Court appointments politically shifted the Court to the right.
In the 2016 campaign, he pledged that Roe v. Wade would be overturned "automatically" if he were elected and given the opportunity to appoint two or three anti-abortion justices.
He later took credit when Roe was overturned by Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022; all three of his Supreme Court nominees voted with the majority.
Trump disparaged courts and judges he disagreed with, often in personal terms, and questioned the judiciary's constitutional authority. His attacks on courts drew rebukes from observers, including sitting federal judges, concerned about the effect of his statements on the judicial independence and public confidence in the judiciary.
COVID-19 pandemic
Main article: COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
Further information:
Trump initially ignored public health warnings and calls for action from health officials within his administration.
Trump established the White House Coronavirus Task Force on January 29. On March 27, he signed into law the CARES Act—a $2.2 trillion bipartisan economic stimulus bill—the largest stimulus in U.S. history.
After weeks of attacks to draw attention away from his slow response, Trump halted funding of the World Health Organization in April.
In April 2020, Republican-connected groups organized anti-lockdown protests against the measures state governments were taking to combat the pandemic; Trump encouraged the protests on Twitter, although the targeted states did not meet his administration's guidelines for reopening.
He repeatedly pressured federal health agencies to take actions he favored, such as approving unproven treatments.
In October, Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three days with a severe case of COVID-19.
Investigations
Further information:
After he assumed office, Trump was the subject of increasing Justice Department and congressional scrutiny, with investigations covering:
There were ten federal criminal investigations, eight state and local investigations, and twelve congressional investigations.
In July 2016, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane, an investigation into possible links between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign.
After Trump fired Comey in May 2017, the FBI opened a second investigation into Trump's personal and business dealings with Russia.
In January 2017, three U.S. intelligence agencies jointly stated with "high confidence" that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to favor Trump. Many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials were discovered. Trump told Russian officials he was unconcerned about Russia's election interference.
Crossfire Hurricane was later transferred to Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation; the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia was ended by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after he told the FBI that Mueller would pursue the matter.
At the request of Rosenstein, the Mueller investigation examined criminal matters "in connection with Russia's 2016 election interference". Mueller submitted his final report in March 2019.
The report found that Russia did interfere in 2016 to favor Trump and that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged the effort, but that the evidence "did not establish" that Trump campaign members conspired or coordinated with Russia.
Trump claimed the report exonerated him despite Mueller writing that it did not. The report also detailed potential obstruction of justice by Trump but "did not draw ultimate conclusions" and left the decision to charge the laws to Congress.
In April 2019, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas seeking financial details from Trump's banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, and his accounting firm, Mazars USA.
He sued the banks, Mazars, and committee chair Elijah Cummings to prevent the disclosures.
In May, two judges ruled that both Mazars and the banks must comply with the subpoenas; Trump's attorneys appealed.
In September 2022, Trump and the committee agreed to a settlement regarding Mazars, and the firm began turning over documents.
Impeachments
Main articles:
Trump was impeached twice by the House of Representatives, though acquitted by the Senate on both occasions.
The first impeachment arose from a whistleblower complaint that in July 2019 Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden, in an attempt to gain an advantage in the 2020 presidential election.
In December 2019, the House voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and the Senate acquitted him in February 2020.
The second impeachment came after the January 6 Capitol attack, for which the House charged Trump with incitement of insurrection on January 13, 2021.
Trump left office on January 20, and was acquitted on February 13. Seven Republican senators voted for conviction.
2020 presidential election
Further information:
Trump filed to run for reelection only a few hours after becoming president in 2017. He held his first reelection rally less than a month after taking office and officially became the Republican nominee in August 2020.
Trump's campaign focused on crime, claiming that cities would descend into lawlessness if Democratic nominee Joe Biden won.
He repeatedly misrepresented Biden's position and appealed to racism.
Starting in early 2020, Trump sowed doubts about the election, claiming without evidence that it would be rigged and that widespread use of mail balloting would produce massive election fraud.
He blocked funding for the U.S. Postal Service, saying he wanted to prevent any increase in voting by mail. He repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the results if he lost and commit to a peaceful transition of power.
Loss to Biden and rejection of outcome
Further information:
Biden won the November 2020 election, receiving 81.3 million votes (51.3 percent) to Trump's 74.2 million (46.8 percent) and 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232.
The Electoral College formalized Biden's victory on December 14. Trump declared victory before the results were known on the morning after the election.
Days later, when Biden was projected the winner, Trump baselessly alleged election fraud.
As part of an effort to overturn the results, Trump and his allies filed many legal challenges to the results, which were rejected by at least 86 judges in both state and federal courts for having no factual or legal basis.
Trump's allegations were also refuted by state election officials, and the Supreme Court declined to hear a case asking it to overturn the results in four states won by Biden.
Trump repeatedly sought help to overturn the results, personally pressuring Republican local and state office-holders, Republican legislators, the Justice Department, and Vice President Pence, urging actions such as replacing presidential electors, or that Georgia officials "find" votes and announce a "recalculated" result.
In the weeks after the election, Trump withdrew from public activities. He initially blocked government officials from cooperating in Biden's presidential transition.
After three weeks, the administrator of the General Services Administration declared Biden the "apparent winner" of the election, allowing the disbursement of transition resources to his team.
While Trump said he recommended that the GSA begin transition protocols, he still did not formally concede. Trump did not attend Biden's inauguration on January 20.
January 6 Capitol attack (further below)
Main article: January 6 United States Capitol attack
In December 2020, reports emerged that U.S. military leaders were on high alert, and ranking officers had discussed what to do if Trump declared martial law.
CIA director Gina Haspel and Army general Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, grew concerned that Trump might attempt a coup or military action against China or Iran.
Milley insisted that he be consulted about any military orders from Trump, including the use of nuclear weapons.
January 6 Capitol attack
He supported populist, neo-nationalist, and authoritarian governments.
Unpredictability, uncertainty, and inconsistency characterized foreign relations during his tenure.
Relations between the U.S. and its European allies were strained under Trump. He criticized NATO allies and privately suggested that the U.S. should withdraw from NATO.
Trump supported many of the policies of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In 2020, Trump hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize their foreign relations.
Trump began a trade war with China in 2018 after imposing tariffs and other trade barriers he said would force China to end longstanding unfair trade practice and intellectual property infringement.
Trump weakened the toughest U.S. sanctions imposed after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. Trump praised and, according to some critics, rarely criticized Russian president Vladimir Putin, though he opposed some actions of Russia's government.
He withdrew the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing alleged Russian noncompliance and supported Russia's possible return to the G7.
As North Korea's nuclear weapons were increasingly seen as a serious threat, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korean leader, meeting Kim Jong Un three times:
- in Singapore in June 2018,
- in Hanoi in February 2019,
- and in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in June 2019.
Talks in October 2019 broke down and no denuclearization agreement was reached.
Personnel
Main articles: Further information: Hiring and personnel of Donald Trump
By the end of Trump's first year in office, 34 percent of his original staff had resigned, been fired, or been reassigned.
As of early July 2018, 61 percent of his senior aides had left and 141 staffers had left in the previous year. Both figures set a record for recent presidents.
Close personal aides to Trump quit or were forced out. He publicly disparaged several of his former top officials.
Trump had four White House chiefs of staff, marginalizing or pushing out several.
In May 2017, he dismissed FBI director James Comey, saying a few days later that he was concerned about Comey's role in the Trump–Russia investigations.
Three of Trump's 15 original cabinet members left or were forced to resign within his first year.
Trump was slow to appoint second-tier officials in the executive branch, saying many of the positions are unnecessary.
- In October 2017, there were hundreds of sub-cabinet positions without a nominee.
- By January 8, 2019, of 706 key positions, 433 had been filled and he had no nominee for 264.
Judiciary
Further information:
Trump appointed 226 federal judges, including 54 to the courts of appeals and the following three to the Supreme Court:
His Supreme Court appointments politically shifted the Court to the right.
In the 2016 campaign, he pledged that Roe v. Wade would be overturned "automatically" if he were elected and given the opportunity to appoint two or three anti-abortion justices.
He later took credit when Roe was overturned by Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022; all three of his Supreme Court nominees voted with the majority.
Trump disparaged courts and judges he disagreed with, often in personal terms, and questioned the judiciary's constitutional authority. His attacks on courts drew rebukes from observers, including sitting federal judges, concerned about the effect of his statements on the judicial independence and public confidence in the judiciary.
COVID-19 pandemic
Main article: COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
Further information:
- U.S. federal government response to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Communication of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic
Trump initially ignored public health warnings and calls for action from health officials within his administration.
Trump established the White House Coronavirus Task Force on January 29. On March 27, he signed into law the CARES Act—a $2.2 trillion bipartisan economic stimulus bill—the largest stimulus in U.S. history.
After weeks of attacks to draw attention away from his slow response, Trump halted funding of the World Health Organization in April.
In April 2020, Republican-connected groups organized anti-lockdown protests against the measures state governments were taking to combat the pandemic; Trump encouraged the protests on Twitter, although the targeted states did not meet his administration's guidelines for reopening.
He repeatedly pressured federal health agencies to take actions he favored, such as approving unproven treatments.
In October, Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three days with a severe case of COVID-19.
Investigations
Further information:
- Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections,
- Mueller special counsel investigation,
- and Mueller report
After he assumed office, Trump was the subject of increasing Justice Department and congressional scrutiny, with investigations covering:
- his election campaign,
- transition,
- and inauguration,
- actions taken during his presidency,
- his private businesses,
- personal taxes,
- and charitable foundation.
There were ten federal criminal investigations, eight state and local investigations, and twelve congressional investigations.
In July 2016, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane, an investigation into possible links between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign.
After Trump fired Comey in May 2017, the FBI opened a second investigation into Trump's personal and business dealings with Russia.
In January 2017, three U.S. intelligence agencies jointly stated with "high confidence" that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to favor Trump. Many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials were discovered. Trump told Russian officials he was unconcerned about Russia's election interference.
Crossfire Hurricane was later transferred to Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation; the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia was ended by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after he told the FBI that Mueller would pursue the matter.
At the request of Rosenstein, the Mueller investigation examined criminal matters "in connection with Russia's 2016 election interference". Mueller submitted his final report in March 2019.
The report found that Russia did interfere in 2016 to favor Trump and that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged the effort, but that the evidence "did not establish" that Trump campaign members conspired or coordinated with Russia.
Trump claimed the report exonerated him despite Mueller writing that it did not. The report also detailed potential obstruction of justice by Trump but "did not draw ultimate conclusions" and left the decision to charge the laws to Congress.
In April 2019, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas seeking financial details from Trump's banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, and his accounting firm, Mazars USA.
He sued the banks, Mazars, and committee chair Elijah Cummings to prevent the disclosures.
In May, two judges ruled that both Mazars and the banks must comply with the subpoenas; Trump's attorneys appealed.
In September 2022, Trump and the committee agreed to a settlement regarding Mazars, and the firm began turning over documents.
Impeachments
Main articles:
Trump was impeached twice by the House of Representatives, though acquitted by the Senate on both occasions.
The first impeachment arose from a whistleblower complaint that in July 2019 Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden, in an attempt to gain an advantage in the 2020 presidential election.
In December 2019, the House voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and the Senate acquitted him in February 2020.
The second impeachment came after the January 6 Capitol attack, for which the House charged Trump with incitement of insurrection on January 13, 2021.
Trump left office on January 20, and was acquitted on February 13. Seven Republican senators voted for conviction.
2020 presidential election
Further information:
Trump filed to run for reelection only a few hours after becoming president in 2017. He held his first reelection rally less than a month after taking office and officially became the Republican nominee in August 2020.
Trump's campaign focused on crime, claiming that cities would descend into lawlessness if Democratic nominee Joe Biden won.
He repeatedly misrepresented Biden's position and appealed to racism.
Starting in early 2020, Trump sowed doubts about the election, claiming without evidence that it would be rigged and that widespread use of mail balloting would produce massive election fraud.
He blocked funding for the U.S. Postal Service, saying he wanted to prevent any increase in voting by mail. He repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the results if he lost and commit to a peaceful transition of power.
Loss to Biden and rejection of outcome
Further information:
- Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election
- 2020–21 United States election protests
Biden won the November 2020 election, receiving 81.3 million votes (51.3 percent) to Trump's 74.2 million (46.8 percent) and 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232.
The Electoral College formalized Biden's victory on December 14. Trump declared victory before the results were known on the morning after the election.
Days later, when Biden was projected the winner, Trump baselessly alleged election fraud.
As part of an effort to overturn the results, Trump and his allies filed many legal challenges to the results, which were rejected by at least 86 judges in both state and federal courts for having no factual or legal basis.
Trump's allegations were also refuted by state election officials, and the Supreme Court declined to hear a case asking it to overturn the results in four states won by Biden.
Trump repeatedly sought help to overturn the results, personally pressuring Republican local and state office-holders, Republican legislators, the Justice Department, and Vice President Pence, urging actions such as replacing presidential electors, or that Georgia officials "find" votes and announce a "recalculated" result.
In the weeks after the election, Trump withdrew from public activities. He initially blocked government officials from cooperating in Biden's presidential transition.
After three weeks, the administrator of the General Services Administration declared Biden the "apparent winner" of the election, allowing the disbursement of transition resources to his team.
While Trump said he recommended that the GSA begin transition protocols, he still did not formally concede. Trump did not attend Biden's inauguration on January 20.
January 6 Capitol attack (further below)
Main article: January 6 United States Capitol attack
In December 2020, reports emerged that U.S. military leaders were on high alert, and ranking officers had discussed what to do if Trump declared martial law.
CIA director Gina Haspel and Army general Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, grew concerned that Trump might attempt a coup or military action against China or Iran.
Milley insisted that he be consulted about any military orders from Trump, including the use of nuclear weapons.
January 6 Capitol attack
At noon on January 6, 2021, while Congress was certifying the presidential election results in the U.S. Capitol, Trump held a rally at the nearby Ellipse.
Speaking from behind a glass barrier, he called for the election to be overturned and urged his supporters to "fight like hell" and "take back our country" by marching to the Capitol.
His supporters then formed a mob that broke into the building, disrupting certification and causing the evacuation of Congress. During the attack, Trump posted on social media but did not ask the rioters to disperse.
In a tweet at 6 p.m., he told them to "go home with love & in peace", called them "great patriots", and restated that he had won the election. Congress later reconvened and confirmed Biden's victory in the early hours of January 7.
More than 140 police officers were injured, and five people died during or after the attack.
The event has been described as an attempted self-coup by Trump.
Between presidencies (2021–2025)
Upon leaving the White House, Trump began living at Mar-a-Lago, establishing an office there as provided for by the Former Presidents Act.
His continuing false claims concerning the 2020 election were commonly referred to as the "big lie" by his critics, although in May 2021, he and many of his supporters began using the term to refer to the election itself. The Republican Party used his false claims about the election to justify imposing new voting restrictions in its favor.
As of July 2022, he continued to pressure state legislators to overturn the election.
Unlike other former presidents, Trump continued to dominate his party; a 2022 profile in The New York Times described him as a modern party boss. He continued fundraising, raising a war chest containing more than twice that of the Republican Party, and profited from fundraisers many Republican candidates held at Mar-a-Lago.
Much of his focus was on party governance and installing in key posts officials loyal to him. In the 2022 midterm elections, he endorsed over 200 candidates for various offices.
In February 2021, he registered a new company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), for providing "social networking services" to U.S. customers.
In March 2024, TMTG merged with special-purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition and became a public company. In February 2022, TMTG launched Truth Social, a social media platform.
Legal issues
See also:
In 2019, journalist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s and sued him for defamation over his denial. Carroll sued him again in 2022 for battery and more defamation. He was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered to pay $5 million in one case and $83.3 million in the other.
In 2022, New York filed a civil lawsuit against Trump accusing him of inflating the Trump Organization's value to gain an advantage with lenders and banks. He was found liable and ordered to pay $350 million plus interest.
In connection with Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his involvement in the January 6 attack, in December 2022 the U.S. House committee on the attack recommended criminal charges against him for obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and inciting or assisting an insurrection.
In August 2023, a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, indicted him on 13 charges, including racketeering, for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election in the state.
In January 2022, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of documents Trump had taken to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, some of which were classified.
In the ensuing Justice Department investigation, officials retrieved more classified documents from his lawyers. On August 8, 2022, FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago for illegally held documents, including those in breach of the Espionage Act, collecting 11 sets of classified documents, some marked top secret.
A federal grand jury constituted by Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump in June 2023 on 31 counts of "willfully retaining national defense information" under the Espionage Act, among other charges. Trump pleaded not guilty.
In July 2024, judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case, ruling Smith's appointment as special prosecutor was unconstitutional.
In May 2024, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The case stemmed from evidence that he booked Michael Cohen's hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels as business expenses to cover up his alleged 2006–2007 affair with Daniels during the 2016 election.
On January 10, 2025, the judge gave Trump a no-penalty sentence known as an unconditional discharge, saying that punitive requirements would have interfered with presidential immunity. After his reelection, the 2020 election obstruction case and the classified documents case were dismissed without prejudice due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.
2024 presidential election
Main article: 2024 United States presidential election
Further information:
In November 2022, Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election and created a fundraising account.
In March 2023, the campaign began diverting ten percent of the donations to his leadership PAC. His campaign had paid $100 million towards his legal bills by March 2024.
During the campaign, Trump made increasingly violent and authoritarian statements. He said that he would weaponize the FBI and the Justice Department against his political opponents and use the military to target Democratic politicians and those that did not support his candidacy.
He used harsher and more dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric than during his presidency.
His rhetoric, calling his political opponents "the enemy", vermin, and fascists, has been described by some historians and scholars as authoritarian, fascist, and unlike anything a political candidate has ever said in American history.
Age and health concerns also arose during the campaign, with several medical experts highlighting an increase in rambling, tangential speech and behavioral disinhibition.
Trump mentioned "rigged election" and "election interference" earlier and more frequently than in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and refused to commit to accepting the 2024 election results.
Analysts for The New York Times described this as an intensification of his "heads I win; tails you cheated" rhetorical strategy; the newspaper stated that the claim of a rigged election had become the backbone of the campaign.
On July 13, 2024, Trump was shot in the ear in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania. Two days later, the 2024 Republican National Convention nominated him as their presidential candidate, with Senator JD Vance as his running mate.
In September, he was targeted but unharmed in an assassination attempt in Florida.
Trump won the election in November 2024 with 312 electoral votes to incumbent vice president Kamala Harris's 226. He also won the popular vote with 49.8% to Harris's 48.3%.
His victory in 2024 was part of a global backlash against incumbent parties, in part due to the 2021–2023 inflation surge. Several outlets described his reelection as an extraordinary comeback.
Second presidency (2025–present)
Main article: Second presidency of Donald Trump
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of the Donald Trump presidencies.
Trump began his second term upon his inauguration on January 20, 2025. He became;
Early actions, 2025–present
See also: First 100 days of Donald Trump's second presidency
Upon taking office, Trump signed a series of executive orders. Many of these tested his legal authority, and drew immediate legal action. He issued more executive orders on his first day than any other president.
Four days into his second term, analysis conducted by Time found that nearly two-thirds of his executive actions "mirror or partially mirror" proposals from Project 2025*.
* -- [See below about Project 2025].
In his first weeks, several of his actions ignored or violated federal laws, regulations, and the Constitution according to American legal scholars. In his administration's first month, Trump issued ninety executive orders, memorandums, and directives.
He used the government to target his political opponents and his actions against civil society were described by legal experts and hundreds of political scientists as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding.
His orders and actions were challenged by over 300 lawsuits nationwide, with most of them still moving through the courts by July 2.
Conflicts of interest, 2025–present
Further information:
Trump's second presidency was described as having fewer guardrails against conflicts of interest than his first, and breaking with decades of ethical norms
Mass terminations of federal employees
Main article: 2025 United States federal mass layoffs
Trump implemented a hiring freeze across the federal government and ordered telework of federal employees to be discontinued within 30 days.
He ordered a review of many career civil service positions with the intention of reclassifying them into at-will positions without job protections.
He initiated mass job terminations of federal employees. which were described by legal experts as unprecedented or in violation of federal law, with the intent of replacing them with workers more aligned with his agenda.
By late February, the administration had fired more than 30,000 people.
To facilitate further terminations, it adopted a novel legal interpretation that vastly expands the range of departments and agencies considered as having national security for their primary function, declaring various federal workers' unions "hostile".
A late March executive order based on this interpretation excluded dozens of departments and agencies from federal labor-management relations programs, prompting them to sue to invalidate their collective bargaining agreements, which could remove union protections from one million federal employees.
He ordered an end to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) projects in the federal government and placed employees in DEI offices on leave.
He rescinded Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 Executive Order 11246, which mandated that federal contractors take affirmative action to end racial discrimination.
Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency largely dismantled several federal agencies including USAID and the Department of Education, unilaterally fired several thousand staff, and reduced administrative functions to statutory minimums.
Some actions, such as attempts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, were paused by federal courts. Many of his actions attempted to bring historically independent institutions under direct executive branch control in diminished forms.
Pardons and commutations, 2025–present
Further information: List of people granted executive clemency in the second presidency of Donald Trump
As in his first presidency, Trump frequently bypassed the Office of the Pardon Attorney. He installed political loyalist Ed Martin who described the rationale for granting pardons as "No MAGA left behind".
Trump's pardons and grants of clemency favored political allies and loyalists, and disproportionately pardoned "the powerful, famous, well-connected and wealthy" accused of white-collar crime.
Trump granted clemency to all January 6 rioters convicted or charged on his first day in office, including those who violently attacked police, by pardoning more than 1,500 and commuting the sentences of 14.
Domestic policy, 2025–present
Main articles:
Trump inherited a resilient economy from the Biden administration, with increasing economic growth, low unemployment, and declining inflation.
Trump canceled and paused federal grants and made large cuts to scientific research, several of which were found by judges and the Government Accountability Office as being illegal and unconstitutional.
He promoted climate change denial and misinformation, and appointed oil, gas, and chemical lobbyists to the EPA to reverse climate regulations and pollution controls.
He declared a national energy emergency, allowing the suspension of environmental regulations, loosening the rules for fossil fuel extraction and limiting renewable energy projects.
He initiated a review of the "legality and continued applicability" of the EPA endangerment finding, which is the basis of most federal regulations on greenhouse gases, and again withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Dismantling government agencies enforcing the laws against political corruption and white-collar fraud, Trump:
He pardoned or dropped charges against officials accused of corruption.
Trump attributed societal problems to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and wokeness. Equating diversity with incompetence, he reversed pro-diversity policies in the federal government.
His administration aggressively moved against the rights of transgender people and what it termed "gender ideology". He sought to remake civil society to his preferences by executive order.
On DEI and antisemitism grounds, he threatened cultural institutions and sixty universities, and forced law firms to capitulate to his political agenda.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act
In July 2025, Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law.
The bill:
The bill cut funding for Medicaid and SNAP and added additional work requirements for eligibility and a $35 co-payment for some Medicaid services; the cuts and additional requirements will take effect after the 2026 general election.
The bill was projected by the Congressional Budget Office to increase the budget deficit by $3.4 trillion by 2034, cause 11.8 million people to lose Medicaid coverage, and eliminate SNAP benefits for three million people.
Immigration, 2025–present
Main articles:
Further information:
In his first days in office, Trump instructed Border Patrol agents to summarily deport illegal immigrants crossing the border, disabling the CBP One app that was being used to schedule border crossings.
He resumed the remain in Mexico policy, designated drug cartels as terrorist groups, and ordered construction to be resumed on a border wall.
Deportation operations first focused on "target lists" of criminals formed prior to Trump's second term.
Then his administration:
In March, he used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to imprison illegal immigrants without trial—one by "administrative error" and most without criminal records—at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. He targeted activists, legal immigrants, tourists, and students with visas who expressed criticism of his policies or pro-Palestinian advocacy
Foreign policy, 2025–present
Trump's second term foreign policy has been variously described as:
His relations with allies were transactional and ranged from indifference to hostility, including threats of annexation. He ordered the U.S. government to stop funding and working with the WHO and announced the U.S.'s intention to formally leave the WHO.
In February 2025, Trump and Vice President Vance met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, in the Oval Office. The meeting, which was televised live, was highly contentious as Trump and Vance berated Zelenskyy. Media outlets described it as an unprecedented public confrontation between an American president and a foreign head of state.
Speaking from behind a glass barrier, he called for the election to be overturned and urged his supporters to "fight like hell" and "take back our country" by marching to the Capitol.
His supporters then formed a mob that broke into the building, disrupting certification and causing the evacuation of Congress. During the attack, Trump posted on social media but did not ask the rioters to disperse.
In a tweet at 6 p.m., he told them to "go home with love & in peace", called them "great patriots", and restated that he had won the election. Congress later reconvened and confirmed Biden's victory in the early hours of January 7.
More than 140 police officers were injured, and five people died during or after the attack.
The event has been described as an attempted self-coup by Trump.
Between presidencies (2021–2025)
Upon leaving the White House, Trump began living at Mar-a-Lago, establishing an office there as provided for by the Former Presidents Act.
His continuing false claims concerning the 2020 election were commonly referred to as the "big lie" by his critics, although in May 2021, he and many of his supporters began using the term to refer to the election itself. The Republican Party used his false claims about the election to justify imposing new voting restrictions in its favor.
As of July 2022, he continued to pressure state legislators to overturn the election.
Unlike other former presidents, Trump continued to dominate his party; a 2022 profile in The New York Times described him as a modern party boss. He continued fundraising, raising a war chest containing more than twice that of the Republican Party, and profited from fundraisers many Republican candidates held at Mar-a-Lago.
Much of his focus was on party governance and installing in key posts officials loyal to him. In the 2022 midterm elections, he endorsed over 200 candidates for various offices.
In February 2021, he registered a new company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), for providing "social networking services" to U.S. customers.
In March 2024, TMTG merged with special-purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition and became a public company. In February 2022, TMTG launched Truth Social, a social media platform.
Legal issues
See also:
- Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump
- Legal affairs of the first Donald Trump presidency
In 2019, journalist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s and sued him for defamation over his denial. Carroll sued him again in 2022 for battery and more defamation. He was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered to pay $5 million in one case and $83.3 million in the other.
In 2022, New York filed a civil lawsuit against Trump accusing him of inflating the Trump Organization's value to gain an advantage with lenders and banks. He was found liable and ordered to pay $350 million plus interest.
In connection with Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his involvement in the January 6 attack, in December 2022 the U.S. House committee on the attack recommended criminal charges against him for obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and inciting or assisting an insurrection.
In August 2023, a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, indicted him on 13 charges, including racketeering, for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election in the state.
In January 2022, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of documents Trump had taken to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, some of which were classified.
In the ensuing Justice Department investigation, officials retrieved more classified documents from his lawyers. On August 8, 2022, FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago for illegally held documents, including those in breach of the Espionage Act, collecting 11 sets of classified documents, some marked top secret.
A federal grand jury constituted by Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump in June 2023 on 31 counts of "willfully retaining national defense information" under the Espionage Act, among other charges. Trump pleaded not guilty.
In July 2024, judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case, ruling Smith's appointment as special prosecutor was unconstitutional.
In May 2024, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The case stemmed from evidence that he booked Michael Cohen's hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels as business expenses to cover up his alleged 2006–2007 affair with Daniels during the 2016 election.
On January 10, 2025, the judge gave Trump a no-penalty sentence known as an unconditional discharge, saying that punitive requirements would have interfered with presidential immunity. After his reelection, the 2020 election obstruction case and the classified documents case were dismissed without prejudice due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.
2024 presidential election
Main article: 2024 United States presidential election
Further information:
- Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign,
- 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries,
- Second presidential transition of Donald Trump
In November 2022, Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election and created a fundraising account.
In March 2023, the campaign began diverting ten percent of the donations to his leadership PAC. His campaign had paid $100 million towards his legal bills by March 2024.
During the campaign, Trump made increasingly violent and authoritarian statements. He said that he would weaponize the FBI and the Justice Department against his political opponents and use the military to target Democratic politicians and those that did not support his candidacy.
He used harsher and more dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric than during his presidency.
His rhetoric, calling his political opponents "the enemy", vermin, and fascists, has been described by some historians and scholars as authoritarian, fascist, and unlike anything a political candidate has ever said in American history.
Age and health concerns also arose during the campaign, with several medical experts highlighting an increase in rambling, tangential speech and behavioral disinhibition.
Trump mentioned "rigged election" and "election interference" earlier and more frequently than in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and refused to commit to accepting the 2024 election results.
Analysts for The New York Times described this as an intensification of his "heads I win; tails you cheated" rhetorical strategy; the newspaper stated that the claim of a rigged election had become the backbone of the campaign.
On July 13, 2024, Trump was shot in the ear in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania. Two days later, the 2024 Republican National Convention nominated him as their presidential candidate, with Senator JD Vance as his running mate.
In September, he was targeted but unharmed in an assassination attempt in Florida.
Trump won the election in November 2024 with 312 electoral votes to incumbent vice president Kamala Harris's 226. He also won the popular vote with 49.8% to Harris's 48.3%.
His victory in 2024 was part of a global backlash against incumbent parties, in part due to the 2021–2023 inflation surge. Several outlets described his reelection as an extraordinary comeback.
Second presidency (2025–present)
Main article: Second presidency of Donald Trump
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of the Donald Trump presidencies.
Trump began his second term upon his inauguration on January 20, 2025. He became;
- the oldest individual to assume the presidency,
- the first president with a felony conviction,
- and the second person to serve two nonconsecutive terms as president.
Early actions, 2025–present
See also: First 100 days of Donald Trump's second presidency
Upon taking office, Trump signed a series of executive orders. Many of these tested his legal authority, and drew immediate legal action. He issued more executive orders on his first day than any other president.
Four days into his second term, analysis conducted by Time found that nearly two-thirds of his executive actions "mirror or partially mirror" proposals from Project 2025*.
* -- [See below about Project 2025].
In his first weeks, several of his actions ignored or violated federal laws, regulations, and the Constitution according to American legal scholars. In his administration's first month, Trump issued ninety executive orders, memorandums, and directives.
He used the government to target his political opponents and his actions against civil society were described by legal experts and hundreds of political scientists as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding.
His orders and actions were challenged by over 300 lawsuits nationwide, with most of them still moving through the courts by July 2.
Conflicts of interest, 2025–present
Further information:
Trump's second presidency was described as having fewer guardrails against conflicts of interest than his first, and breaking with decades of ethical norms
- He maintained a publicly traded company in Trump Media & Technology Group, and diversified it into financial services.
- He pursued new overseas real estate deals involving state-affiliated entities, and had several branding and licensing deals selling Trump-branded merchandise.
- He profited from events held at his hotels and golf courses and did not place his assets in a blind trust, as previous presidents had done.
- Trump repealed the previous administration's ethics guidelines and enforcement of laws prohibiting bribery without establishing formal ethics guidelines for his political appointees, many of whom entered his administration with an "uncharacteristically large list of potential conflicts of interest".
- He dropped corruption charges against politicians with ties to him and paused enforcement of the law prohibiting companies operating in the U.S. to bribe foreign governments.
- Trump launched, promoted, and personally benefited from two cryptocurrency tokens ("meme coins"), $Trump and $Melania.
- He also directly benefited from his family's cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial, which engaged in an unprecedented mixing of private enterprise and government policy.
- In July 2025, the Trump administration accepted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar to serve as Air Force One until the end of his second term and then be transferred to his presidential library. The retrofitting as Air Force One is estimated to cost up to $1 billion.
Mass terminations of federal employees
Main article: 2025 United States federal mass layoffs
Trump implemented a hiring freeze across the federal government and ordered telework of federal employees to be discontinued within 30 days.
He ordered a review of many career civil service positions with the intention of reclassifying them into at-will positions without job protections.
He initiated mass job terminations of federal employees. which were described by legal experts as unprecedented or in violation of federal law, with the intent of replacing them with workers more aligned with his agenda.
By late February, the administration had fired more than 30,000 people.
To facilitate further terminations, it adopted a novel legal interpretation that vastly expands the range of departments and agencies considered as having national security for their primary function, declaring various federal workers' unions "hostile".
A late March executive order based on this interpretation excluded dozens of departments and agencies from federal labor-management relations programs, prompting them to sue to invalidate their collective bargaining agreements, which could remove union protections from one million federal employees.
He ordered an end to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) projects in the federal government and placed employees in DEI offices on leave.
He rescinded Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 Executive Order 11246, which mandated that federal contractors take affirmative action to end racial discrimination.
Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency largely dismantled several federal agencies including USAID and the Department of Education, unilaterally fired several thousand staff, and reduced administrative functions to statutory minimums.
Some actions, such as attempts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, were paused by federal courts. Many of his actions attempted to bring historically independent institutions under direct executive branch control in diminished forms.
Pardons and commutations, 2025–present
Further information: List of people granted executive clemency in the second presidency of Donald Trump
As in his first presidency, Trump frequently bypassed the Office of the Pardon Attorney. He installed political loyalist Ed Martin who described the rationale for granting pardons as "No MAGA left behind".
Trump's pardons and grants of clemency favored political allies and loyalists, and disproportionately pardoned "the powerful, famous, well-connected and wealthy" accused of white-collar crime.
Trump granted clemency to all January 6 rioters convicted or charged on his first day in office, including those who violently attacked police, by pardoning more than 1,500 and commuting the sentences of 14.
Domestic policy, 2025–present
Main articles:
- Domestic policy of the second Donald Trump administration,
- Economic policy of the second Donald Trump administration,
- Education policy of the second Donald Trump administration,
- Science policy of the second Donald Trump administration
Trump inherited a resilient economy from the Biden administration, with increasing economic growth, low unemployment, and declining inflation.
Trump canceled and paused federal grants and made large cuts to scientific research, several of which were found by judges and the Government Accountability Office as being illegal and unconstitutional.
He promoted climate change denial and misinformation, and appointed oil, gas, and chemical lobbyists to the EPA to reverse climate regulations and pollution controls.
He declared a national energy emergency, allowing the suspension of environmental regulations, loosening the rules for fossil fuel extraction and limiting renewable energy projects.
He initiated a review of the "legality and continued applicability" of the EPA endangerment finding, which is the basis of most federal regulations on greenhouse gases, and again withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Dismantling government agencies enforcing the laws against political corruption and white-collar fraud, Trump:
- reduced the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section from 30 to five lawyers,
- dismissed 17 independent inspectors general at government agencies and 12 members of independent oversight boards and watchdog agencies,
- and disbanded the squad in the FBI's Washington field office that investigated allegations of fraud and corruption against government officials and members of Congress.
He pardoned or dropped charges against officials accused of corruption.
Trump attributed societal problems to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and wokeness. Equating diversity with incompetence, he reversed pro-diversity policies in the federal government.
His administration aggressively moved against the rights of transgender people and what it termed "gender ideology". He sought to remake civil society to his preferences by executive order.
On DEI and antisemitism grounds, he threatened cultural institutions and sixty universities, and forced law firms to capitulate to his political agenda.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act
In July 2025, Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law.
The bill:
- made the tax cuts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent
- and added additional tax deductions for a total of around $4.5 trillion,
- mostly benefiting the highest income brackets and costing people in the lowest income bracket $1,600 per year;
- increased funding for:
- national defense,
- deportations,
- the border wall,
- and a missile shield;
- and removed tax credits for clean energy projects using renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and for buyers of electric vehicles.
The bill cut funding for Medicaid and SNAP and added additional work requirements for eligibility and a $35 co-payment for some Medicaid services; the cuts and additional requirements will take effect after the 2026 general election.
The bill was projected by the Congressional Budget Office to increase the budget deficit by $3.4 trillion by 2034, cause 11.8 million people to lose Medicaid coverage, and eliminate SNAP benefits for three million people.
Immigration, 2025–present
Main articles:
- Immigration policy of the second Donald Trump administration
- Deportation in the second presidency of Donald Trump
Further information:
- Mexico–United States border crisis § Second Trump administration (2025–present),
- Mexico–United States border wall § Second Trump administration (2025–present)
In his first days in office, Trump instructed Border Patrol agents to summarily deport illegal immigrants crossing the border, disabling the CBP One app that was being used to schedule border crossings.
He resumed the remain in Mexico policy, designated drug cartels as terrorist groups, and ordered construction to be resumed on a border wall.
Deportation operations first focused on "target lists" of criminals formed prior to Trump's second term.
Then his administration:
- removed asylum applicants who failed to meet requirements, revoked the parole status of immigrants who entered the U.S. under CBP One and CHNV humanitarian parole,
- attempted to remove birthright citizenship,
- and suspended the Refugee Admissions Program.
In March, he used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to imprison illegal immigrants without trial—one by "administrative error" and most without criminal records—at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. He targeted activists, legal immigrants, tourists, and students with visas who expressed criticism of his policies or pro-Palestinian advocacy
Foreign policy, 2025–present
- Main article: Foreign policy of the second Donald Trump administration
- Further information:
Trump's second term foreign policy has been variously described as:
- imperialist,
- expansionist,
- isolationist,
- and autarkist,
- employing the "America First" ideology as its cornerstone.
His relations with allies were transactional and ranged from indifference to hostility, including threats of annexation. He ordered the U.S. government to stop funding and working with the WHO and announced the U.S.'s intention to formally leave the WHO.
In February 2025, Trump and Vice President Vance met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, in the Oval Office. The meeting, which was televised live, was highly contentious as Trump and Vance berated Zelenskyy. Media outlets described it as an unprecedented public confrontation between an American president and a foreign head of state.
Trump and his incoming administration helped broker a Gaza war ceasefire alongside the Biden administration, enacted a day prior to his inauguration. In March, Israel broke the ceasefire.
Trump's economic policies have been described as protectionist, with Trump imposing tariffs on most countries, including large tariffs on major trading partners China, Canada, and Mexico.
He started a global trade war, imposing tariffs at the highest level since the 1930 Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at the onset of the Great Depression.
Economists argued that the administration misunderstood the relationship between trade deficits and tariffs, using flawed assumptions. He suspended American financial contributions to the World Trade Organization.
Personnel, 2025–present
Main articles:
In his second term, Trump selected cabinet members with personal loyalty to him, with the "focus on loyalty over subject-matter expertise".
In February 2025, the White House stated that Elon Musk was a special government employee. Trump gave Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to many federal government agencies.
Musk's teams operated in eighteen departments and agencies in the administration's first month, including:
He nominated or appointed 23 former Fox News employees to his administration.
Judiciary, 2025–present
See also: List of federal judges appointed by Donald Trump
Federal judges found many of the administration's actions to be illegal.
Following legal setbacks, Trump increased his criticism of the judiciary and called for impeachment of federal judges who ruled against him. He threatened, signed executive actions, and ordered investigations into his political opponents, critics, and organizations aligned with the Democratic Party.
By mid-July, a Washington Post analysis found he defied judges and the courts in roughly one third of all cases against him, actions which were described by legal experts as unprecedented for any presidential administration.
His defiance of court orders and a claimed right to disobey the courts raised fears among legal experts of a constitutional crisis.
Multiple analyses conducted by academic scholars and The New York Times found that both Republican and Democratic judicial appointees have found numerous constitutional and statutory flaws with Trump administration policies.
He also engaged in an unprecedented targeting of law firms and lawyers that previously represented positions adverse to himself.
Political practice and rhetoric
Further information:
Beginning with his 2016 campaign, Trump's politics and rhetoric led to the creation of a political movement known as Trumpism.(see below) His political positions are populist, more specifically described as right-wing populist.
He has been described as embracing far-right extremism, and he helped bring far-right fringe ideas and organizations into the mainstream. Many of his actions and rhetoric have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding.
Trump pushed for an expansion of presidential power under a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory. His political base has been compared to a cult of personality.
Trump's rhetoric and actions have been accused of creating and exacerbating anger and distrust through the use of an "us" versus "them" narrative. He explicitly and routinely disparages racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, and scholars consistently find that racial animus regarding blacks, immigrants, and Muslims are the best predictors of support for Trump.
His rhetoric has been described as using fearmongering and demagogy which intensified during his 2024 presidential campaign. He has said that he believes real power comes from fear. The alt-right movement coalesced around and supported his candidacy, due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and immigration.
He has a strong appeal to evangelical Christian voters and Christian nationalists, and his rallies take on the symbols, rhetoric, and agenda of Christian nationalism. Trump has also used anti-communist sentiment in his rhetoric, regularly calling his opponents "communists" and "Marxists".
Racial and gender views
Main articles:
Many of Trump's comments and actions have been characterized as racist. In a 2018 national poll, about half of respondents said he is racist; a greater proportion believed that he emboldened racists. Several studies and surveys found that racist attitudes fueled his political ascent and were more important than economic factors in determining the allegiance of Trump voters.
Racist and Islamophobic attitudes are strong indicators of support for Trump] He has been accused of racism for insisting a group of five black and Latino teenagers were guilty of raping a white woman in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, even after they were exonerated in 2002.
In 2011, Trump became the leading proponent of the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was not born in the United States. He claimed credit for pressuring the government to publish Obama's birth certificate, which he considered fraudulent.
He acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S. in September 2016, though reportedly expressed birther views privately in 2017.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, he made false attacks against the racial identity of his opponent, Kamala Harris, that were described as reminiscent of the birther conspiracy theory.
His 2024 campaign made extensive use of dehumanizing language and racial stereotypes. In 2025, he promoted false claims of white genocide in South Africa and created the White South African refugee program.
Trump has a history of belittling women when speaking to the media and on social media. He made lewd comments, disparaged women's physical appearances, and referred to them using derogatory epithets.
At least 25 women publicly accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape, kissing without consent, groping, looking under women's skirts, and walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants. He has denied the allegations.
In October 2016, a 2005 "hot mic" recording surfaced in which he bragged about kissing and groping women without their consent, saying that, "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy."
He characterized the comments as "locker-room talk". The incident's widespread media exposure led to his first public apology, videotaped during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Link to violence and hate crimes
Further information: Rhetoric of Donald Trump § Violence
Trump has been identified as a key figure in increasing political violence in the U.S., both for and against him. He is described as:
Research suggests Trump's rhetoric is associated with an increased incidence of hate crimes, and that he has an emboldening effect on expressing prejudicial attitudes due to his normalization of explicit racial rhetoric. During his 2016 campaign, he urged or praised physical attacks against protesters or reporters.
Numerous defendants investigated or prosecuted for violent acts and hate crimes cited his rhetoric in arguing that they were not culpable or should receive leniency.
A nationwide review by ABC News in May 2020 identified at least 54 criminal cases, from August 2015 to April 2020, in which he was invoked in direct connection with violence or threats of violence mostly by white men and primarily against minorities.
Trump's refusal to condemn the white supremacist Proud Boys during a 2020 presidential debate and his comment, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by", were said to have led to increased recruitment for the pro-Trump group. Counterterrorism researchers described his normalization and revisionist history of the January 6 Capitol attack, and to all January 6 rioters, as encouraging future political violence.
Conspiracy theories
Main article: List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
Since before his first presidency, Trump has promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including Obama "birtherism", global warming being a hoax, and alleged Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections. After the 2020 presidential election, he promoted conspiracy theories for his defeat that were characterized as "the big lie".
False or misleading statements
Main article: False or misleading statements by Donald Trump
Trump's economic policies have been described as protectionist, with Trump imposing tariffs on most countries, including large tariffs on major trading partners China, Canada, and Mexico.
He started a global trade war, imposing tariffs at the highest level since the 1930 Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at the onset of the Great Depression.
Economists argued that the administration misunderstood the relationship between trade deficits and tariffs, using flawed assumptions. He suspended American financial contributions to the World Trade Organization.
Personnel, 2025–present
Main articles:
In his second term, Trump selected cabinet members with personal loyalty to him, with the "focus on loyalty over subject-matter expertise".
In February 2025, the White House stated that Elon Musk was a special government employee. Trump gave Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to many federal government agencies.
Musk's teams operated in eighteen departments and agencies in the administration's first month, including:
- in the Treasury Department's $5 trillion payment system,
- the Small Business Administration,
- the Office of Personnel Management,
- and the General Services Administration.
He nominated or appointed 23 former Fox News employees to his administration.
Judiciary, 2025–present
See also: List of federal judges appointed by Donald Trump
Federal judges found many of the administration's actions to be illegal.
Following legal setbacks, Trump increased his criticism of the judiciary and called for impeachment of federal judges who ruled against him. He threatened, signed executive actions, and ordered investigations into his political opponents, critics, and organizations aligned with the Democratic Party.
By mid-July, a Washington Post analysis found he defied judges and the courts in roughly one third of all cases against him, actions which were described by legal experts as unprecedented for any presidential administration.
His defiance of court orders and a claimed right to disobey the courts raised fears among legal experts of a constitutional crisis.
Multiple analyses conducted by academic scholars and The New York Times found that both Republican and Democratic judicial appointees have found numerous constitutional and statutory flaws with Trump administration policies.
He also engaged in an unprecedented targeting of law firms and lawyers that previously represented positions adverse to himself.
Political practice and rhetoric
Further information:
Beginning with his 2016 campaign, Trump's politics and rhetoric led to the creation of a political movement known as Trumpism.(see below) His political positions are populist, more specifically described as right-wing populist.
He has been described as embracing far-right extremism, and he helped bring far-right fringe ideas and organizations into the mainstream. Many of his actions and rhetoric have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding.
Trump pushed for an expansion of presidential power under a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory. His political base has been compared to a cult of personality.
Trump's rhetoric and actions have been accused of creating and exacerbating anger and distrust through the use of an "us" versus "them" narrative. He explicitly and routinely disparages racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, and scholars consistently find that racial animus regarding blacks, immigrants, and Muslims are the best predictors of support for Trump.
His rhetoric has been described as using fearmongering and demagogy which intensified during his 2024 presidential campaign. He has said that he believes real power comes from fear. The alt-right movement coalesced around and supported his candidacy, due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and immigration.
He has a strong appeal to evangelical Christian voters and Christian nationalists, and his rallies take on the symbols, rhetoric, and agenda of Christian nationalism. Trump has also used anti-communist sentiment in his rhetoric, regularly calling his opponents "communists" and "Marxists".
Racial and gender views
Main articles:
Many of Trump's comments and actions have been characterized as racist. In a 2018 national poll, about half of respondents said he is racist; a greater proportion believed that he emboldened racists. Several studies and surveys found that racist attitudes fueled his political ascent and were more important than economic factors in determining the allegiance of Trump voters.
Racist and Islamophobic attitudes are strong indicators of support for Trump] He has been accused of racism for insisting a group of five black and Latino teenagers were guilty of raping a white woman in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, even after they were exonerated in 2002.
In 2011, Trump became the leading proponent of the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was not born in the United States. He claimed credit for pressuring the government to publish Obama's birth certificate, which he considered fraudulent.
He acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S. in September 2016, though reportedly expressed birther views privately in 2017.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, he made false attacks against the racial identity of his opponent, Kamala Harris, that were described as reminiscent of the birther conspiracy theory.
His 2024 campaign made extensive use of dehumanizing language and racial stereotypes. In 2025, he promoted false claims of white genocide in South Africa and created the White South African refugee program.
Trump has a history of belittling women when speaking to the media and on social media. He made lewd comments, disparaged women's physical appearances, and referred to them using derogatory epithets.
At least 25 women publicly accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape, kissing without consent, groping, looking under women's skirts, and walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants. He has denied the allegations.
In October 2016, a 2005 "hot mic" recording surfaced in which he bragged about kissing and groping women without their consent, saying that, "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy."
He characterized the comments as "locker-room talk". The incident's widespread media exposure led to his first public apology, videotaped during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Link to violence and hate crimes
Further information: Rhetoric of Donald Trump § Violence
Trump has been identified as a key figure in increasing political violence in the U.S., both for and against him. He is described as:
- embracing extremism,
- conspiracy theories such as Q-Anon,
- and far-right militia movements to a greater extent than any modern American president,
- and engaging in stochastic terrorism
Research suggests Trump's rhetoric is associated with an increased incidence of hate crimes, and that he has an emboldening effect on expressing prejudicial attitudes due to his normalization of explicit racial rhetoric. During his 2016 campaign, he urged or praised physical attacks against protesters or reporters.
Numerous defendants investigated or prosecuted for violent acts and hate crimes cited his rhetoric in arguing that they were not culpable or should receive leniency.
A nationwide review by ABC News in May 2020 identified at least 54 criminal cases, from August 2015 to April 2020, in which he was invoked in direct connection with violence or threats of violence mostly by white men and primarily against minorities.
Trump's refusal to condemn the white supremacist Proud Boys during a 2020 presidential debate and his comment, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by", were said to have led to increased recruitment for the pro-Trump group. Counterterrorism researchers described his normalization and revisionist history of the January 6 Capitol attack, and to all January 6 rioters, as encouraging future political violence.
Conspiracy theories
Main article: List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
Since before his first presidency, Trump has promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including Obama "birtherism", global warming being a hoax, and alleged Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections. After the 2020 presidential election, he promoted conspiracy theories for his defeat that were characterized as "the big lie".
False or misleading statements
Main article: False or misleading statements by Donald Trump
^ See Chart Above ^
Trump frequently makes false statements in public remarks to an extent unprecedented in American politics. His falsehoods are a distinctive part of his political identity and have been described as firehosing. His false and misleading statements were documented by fact-checkers, including at The Washington Post, which tallied 30,573 false or misleading statements made by him during his first presidency increasing in frequency over time.
Some of Trump's falsehoods were inconsequential, while others had more far-reaching effects:
Social media
Main articles: See also:
Trump's social media presence attracted worldwide attention after he joined Twitter in 2009. He posted frequently during his 2016 campaign and as president until Twitter banned him after the January 6 attack. He often used Twitter to communicate directly with the public and sideline the press; in 2017, his press secretary said that his tweets constituted official presidential statements.
After years of criticism for allowing Trump to post misinformation and falsehoods, Twitter began to tag some of his tweets with fact-checks in May 2020. In response, he said social media platforms "totally silence" conservatives and he would "strongly regulate, or close them down".
After the January 6 attack, he was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms. The loss of his social media presence diminished his ability to shape events and correlated with a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation on Twitter.
In February 2022, he launched social media platform Truth Social where he attracted a fraction of his Twitter following. Elon Musk, after acquiring Twitter, reinstated his Twitter account in November 2022. Meta Platforms' two-year ban lapsed in January 2023, allowing him to return to Facebook and Instagram.
Relationship with the press
Further information:
Trump sought media attention throughout his career, maintaining a "love-hate" relationship with the press. In the 2016 campaign, he benefited from a record amount of free media coverage, estimated at $2 billion. As a candidate and as president, he frequently accused the press of bias, calling it the "fake news media" and "the enemy of the people".
The first Trump presidency reduced formal press briefings from about one hundred in 2017 to about half that in 2018 and to two in 2019; they also revoked the press passes of two White House reporters, which were restored by the courts.
Trump's 2020 presidential campaign sued The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN for defamation in opinion pieces about his stance on Russian election interference. All the suits were dismissed.
By 2024, Trump repeatedly voiced support for outlawing political dissent and criticism, and said that reporters should be prosecuted for not divulging confidential sources and media companies should possibly lose their broadcast licenses for unfavorable coverage of him.
Following his reelection, Trump launched lawsuits and created blacklists against certain media outlets, and took over the process run by the White House Correspondents' Association to choose what outlets have access to him.
Rather than comply with a court order to restore Associated Press access, the White House made a policy of limited access for all wire services. The Federal Communications Commission launched investigations into media outlets accused of bias against him.
Personal lif:e
Family
Further information: Trump family
In 1977, Trump married Ivana. They had three children: Donald Jr. (b. 1977), Ivanka (b. 1981), and Eric (b. 1984). The couple divorced in 1990, following his affair with model and actress Marla Maples.
He and Maples married in 1993 and divorced in 1999. They have one daughter, Tiffany (b. 1993), whom Maples raised in California.
In 2005, he married Slovenian model Melania Knauss They have one son, Barron (b. 2006).
Health
Main article: Age and health concerns about Donald Trump
Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs. He sleeps about four or five hours a night.
He has called golfing his "primary form of exercise", but usually does not walk the course. He considers exercise a waste of energy because he believes the body is "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy", which is depleted by exercise.
In 2015, his campaign released a letter from his longtime personal physician, Harold Bornstein, stating that he would "be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency".
In 2018, Bornstein said Trump had dictated the contents of the letter and that three of Trump's agents had seized his medical records in a February 2017 raid on Bornstein's office.
Religion
Main article: Donald Trump and religion
Trump said in 2016 that he was a Presbyterian and a Protestant. In 2020, he said he was a nondenominational Christian. However, many have questioned the depth of these religious affiliations.
A survey during Trump's first presidency (2017–2021) showed that 63 percent of Americans did not believe he was religious, despite his professed Christian affiliation, and that only 44 percent of Americans believed that Trump was a Christian.
Some of Trump's comments on the Bible or Christian practice have led critical observers to suggest that his knowledge of Christianity is superficial or erroneous, and few biographers have described Trump as deeply or even particularly religious.
In his first term, Trump appointed his personal pastor and spiritual advisor, millionaire televangelist Paula White-Cain, to the White House Office of Public Liaison.
In his second term, he appointed her senior advisor to the newly created White House Faith Office.
Assessments:
Public image
Main articles:
See also:
In Trump's first term, from 2017 to 2020, international approval ratings of U.S. leadership dropped from about 22 percent in a Gallup poll of 134 countries to just 16 percent—lower than China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin—in a Pew Research poll of 13 countries.
In 2017, estimation of U.S. leadership declined most among allies.
Domestically, in his first term, Trump had chiefly partisan support: 88 percent among Republicans and 7 percent among Democrats.
In a 2021 Gallup poll, he was the only president never to reach a 50 percent approval rating, and he was the first not to be named most admired in his first year in office.
In his second term's first quarter according to Gallup, Trump's approval rating was 45 percent—somewhat better than his first term, and far below the 60 percent average of other presidents.
Support remained polarized; he had the approval of 90 percent among Republicans, 37 percent among independents, and 4 percent among Democrats.
Scholarly rankings
Further information: Historical rankings of presidents of the United States
In C-SPAN's 2021 survey of presidential historians, historians ranked Trump as the fourth-worst president. He rated lowest in the leadership characteristics categories for moral authority and administrative skills.
The Siena College Research Institute's 2022 survey ranked him third-worst. He was ranked near the bottom in all categories except for luck, willingness to take risks, and party leadership, and ranked last in several categories. In 2018 and 2024, members of the American Political Science Association ranked him the worst president.
See also
Project 2025: Would Destroy American Democracy as we know it!
Pictured below: protesters in front of the White Hours protesting Trump's Actions.
Trump frequently makes false statements in public remarks to an extent unprecedented in American politics. His falsehoods are a distinctive part of his political identity and have been described as firehosing. His false and misleading statements were documented by fact-checkers, including at The Washington Post, which tallied 30,573 false or misleading statements made by him during his first presidency increasing in frequency over time.
Some of Trump's falsehoods were inconsequential, while others had more far-reaching effects:
- such as his unproven promotion of antimalarial drugs as a treatment for COVID-19, causing
- a U.S. shortage of these drugs and panic-buying in Africa and South Asia.
- Other misinformation, such as misattributing a rise in crime in England and Wales to the "spread of radical Islamic terror", served his domestic political purposes.
- His attacks on mail-in ballots and other election practices weakened public faith in the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, while his disinformation about the pandemic delayed and weakened the national response to it.
- He habitually does not apologize for his falsehoods.
- Until 2018, the media rarely referred to his falsehoods as lies, including when he repeated demonstrably false statements.
Social media
Main articles: See also:
Trump's social media presence attracted worldwide attention after he joined Twitter in 2009. He posted frequently during his 2016 campaign and as president until Twitter banned him after the January 6 attack. He often used Twitter to communicate directly with the public and sideline the press; in 2017, his press secretary said that his tweets constituted official presidential statements.
After years of criticism for allowing Trump to post misinformation and falsehoods, Twitter began to tag some of his tweets with fact-checks in May 2020. In response, he said social media platforms "totally silence" conservatives and he would "strongly regulate, or close them down".
After the January 6 attack, he was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms. The loss of his social media presence diminished his ability to shape events and correlated with a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation on Twitter.
In February 2022, he launched social media platform Truth Social where he attracted a fraction of his Twitter following. Elon Musk, after acquiring Twitter, reinstated his Twitter account in November 2022. Meta Platforms' two-year ban lapsed in January 2023, allowing him to return to Facebook and Instagram.
Relationship with the press
Further information:
- First presidency of Donald Trump § Relationship with the news media,
- Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump,
- Donald Trump's conflict with the media
Trump sought media attention throughout his career, maintaining a "love-hate" relationship with the press. In the 2016 campaign, he benefited from a record amount of free media coverage, estimated at $2 billion. As a candidate and as president, he frequently accused the press of bias, calling it the "fake news media" and "the enemy of the people".
The first Trump presidency reduced formal press briefings from about one hundred in 2017 to about half that in 2018 and to two in 2019; they also revoked the press passes of two White House reporters, which were restored by the courts.
Trump's 2020 presidential campaign sued The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN for defamation in opinion pieces about his stance on Russian election interference. All the suits were dismissed.
By 2024, Trump repeatedly voiced support for outlawing political dissent and criticism, and said that reporters should be prosecuted for not divulging confidential sources and media companies should possibly lose their broadcast licenses for unfavorable coverage of him.
Following his reelection, Trump launched lawsuits and created blacklists against certain media outlets, and took over the process run by the White House Correspondents' Association to choose what outlets have access to him.
Rather than comply with a court order to restore Associated Press access, the White House made a policy of limited access for all wire services. The Federal Communications Commission launched investigations into media outlets accused of bias against him.
Personal lif:e
Family
Further information: Trump family
In 1977, Trump married Ivana. They had three children: Donald Jr. (b. 1977), Ivanka (b. 1981), and Eric (b. 1984). The couple divorced in 1990, following his affair with model and actress Marla Maples.
He and Maples married in 1993 and divorced in 1999. They have one daughter, Tiffany (b. 1993), whom Maples raised in California.
In 2005, he married Slovenian model Melania Knauss They have one son, Barron (b. 2006).
Health
Main article: Age and health concerns about Donald Trump
Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs. He sleeps about four or five hours a night.
He has called golfing his "primary form of exercise", but usually does not walk the course. He considers exercise a waste of energy because he believes the body is "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy", which is depleted by exercise.
In 2015, his campaign released a letter from his longtime personal physician, Harold Bornstein, stating that he would "be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency".
In 2018, Bornstein said Trump had dictated the contents of the letter and that three of Trump's agents had seized his medical records in a February 2017 raid on Bornstein's office.
Religion
Main article: Donald Trump and religion
Trump said in 2016 that he was a Presbyterian and a Protestant. In 2020, he said he was a nondenominational Christian. However, many have questioned the depth of these religious affiliations.
A survey during Trump's first presidency (2017–2021) showed that 63 percent of Americans did not believe he was religious, despite his professed Christian affiliation, and that only 44 percent of Americans believed that Trump was a Christian.
Some of Trump's comments on the Bible or Christian practice have led critical observers to suggest that his knowledge of Christianity is superficial or erroneous, and few biographers have described Trump as deeply or even particularly religious.
In his first term, Trump appointed his personal pastor and spiritual advisor, millionaire televangelist Paula White-Cain, to the White House Office of Public Liaison.
In his second term, he appointed her senior advisor to the newly created White House Faith Office.
Assessments:
Public image
Main articles:
See also:
- Opinion polling on the first Donald Trump administration
- Opinion polling on the second Donald Trump administration
In Trump's first term, from 2017 to 2020, international approval ratings of U.S. leadership dropped from about 22 percent in a Gallup poll of 134 countries to just 16 percent—lower than China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin—in a Pew Research poll of 13 countries.
In 2017, estimation of U.S. leadership declined most among allies.
Domestically, in his first term, Trump had chiefly partisan support: 88 percent among Republicans and 7 percent among Democrats.
In a 2021 Gallup poll, he was the only president never to reach a 50 percent approval rating, and he was the first not to be named most admired in his first year in office.
In his second term's first quarter according to Gallup, Trump's approval rating was 45 percent—somewhat better than his first term, and far below the 60 percent average of other presidents.
Support remained polarized; he had the approval of 90 percent among Republicans, 37 percent among independents, and 4 percent among Democrats.
Scholarly rankings
Further information: Historical rankings of presidents of the United States
In C-SPAN's 2021 survey of presidential historians, historians ranked Trump as the fourth-worst president. He rated lowest in the leadership characteristics categories for moral authority and administrative skills.
The Siena College Research Institute's 2022 survey ranked him third-worst. He was ranked near the bottom in all categories except for luck, willingness to take risks, and party leadership, and ranked last in several categories. In 2018 and 2024, members of the American Political Science Association ranked him the worst president.
See also
- List of awards and honors received by Donald Trump
- Pseudonyms used by Donald Trump
- Archive of Donald Trump's tweets (Enter 2021-01-09 into the End Date field to view tweets from before the suspension.)
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Donald Trump at IMDb
- Donald Trump on the Internet Archive
Project 2025: Would Destroy American Democracy as we know it!
Pictured below: protesters in front of the White Hours protesting Trump's Actions.
2025 Would Destroy the U.S. System of Checks and Balances and Create an Imperial Presidency - Center for American Progress
Far-right extremists have a plan to shatter democracy’s guardrails, giving presidents almost unlimited power to implement policies that will hurt everyday Americans and strip them of fundamental rights.
Introduction and summary
With American democracy already at a crisis point, extreme right-wing operatives have crafted an authoritarian playbook that would push it over the edge, destroying the nation’s 250-year-old bedrock system of checks and balances to create an imperial presidency. The Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership is a 920-page road map for a future president to wield excessive power to implement a dangerous policy agenda, ripping out democracy by its roots and replacing it with a system that most Americans would find unthinkable.
For many decades, there have been efforts to advance radical proposals to weaken America’s middle class, stripping them of fundamental freedoms and subverting the rule of law, most notably by capturing the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the Project 2025 blueprint makes those prior efforts look quaint. Project 2025 unabashedly promotes the wholesale violation of norms and laws, consolidating enormous power in a president and trampling on Congress’ constitutional role—to take away Americans’ long-cherished freedoms and opportunities.
Not only would this authoritarian playbook make it easier for a far-right executive branch to weaken the independence of public agencies, install political cronies throughout the government, punish people it disagrees with, and control what news the media can report, but it would also allow the government to eliminate abortion access, health care choices, overtime pay, educational opportunities, and countless other programs that benefit communities and families.
Quite simply, if Project 2025 is implemented, the United States would be unrecognizable. Instead, it would resemble autocracies around the world, such as Hungary and Turkey, which in recent years have severely weakened their democracies and vested inordinate power in authoritarian leaders who serve the interests of themselves, not the public.
Once this backsliding occurs, it is incredibly difficult to fix. Make no mistake: This could easily happen in the United States without a firm system of checks and balances. Ominously, the Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025, and its president declared in July 2024 that they are in the process of the “second American Revolution” and suggested that political violence may be necessary to effectuate their authoritarian blueprint if Americans resist.
If Project 2025 is implemented, the United States would be unrecognizable. Instead, it would resemble autocracies around the world. This report first discusses the background and draconian goals of Project 2025.
It then explains how the plan’s extreme ideas could come to fruition, exploring seven critical guardrails that Project 2025 would demolish, including weaponizing the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against political opponents and everyday Americans; politicizing independent agencies and executive branch departments; and replacing tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants with loyalists to do the president’s bidding. In each instance, this report provides concrete examples of the direct harms that would result from eliminating these crucial guardrails.
Background
Basic facts about Project 2025
Project 2025 provides a plausible pathway for a far-right administration, based on a white, Christian nationalist, pro-corporate, and antiworker philosophy, to degrade democracy and promote radical policy goals it has long wanted to accomplish but has not yet been able to implement.
The authoritarian road map of this shrinking political minority3 aims to tear down the system of checks and balances and reimagine an executive branch on steroids and free from any shackles, giving the president and judges they put in place unfettered power to take over the country and control Americans’ lives. In the process, the plan redefines personal autonomy and freedom.
Conjuring up the worst of European nationalism from the 1930s, Project 2025 would hurt all Americans, but in abandoning the public interest, it would allow the most dangerous attacks to be aimed at young people, the poor, and other marginalized communities who have a particular interest in creating a government that works for the people.
As the Center for American Progress has discussed in a series of recent articles, Project 2025 is a 920-page manifesto spearheaded and published by the Heritage Foundation, a far-right think tank that has influenced conservative administrations since the 1980s.
Among other things, the expansive plan “would eliminate fundamental personal freedoms while cutting the take-home pay of millions of Americans,” increase taxes on the middle class, allow corporations to stop paying workers overtime, implement a national abortion ban, restrict access to contraception, slash education funding, and raise the retirement age for Social Security.
Although these policies are unpopular, Project 2025 “would make it even harder for the American people to have a say in their government or oppose policies they disagree with.”
The Project 2025 blueprint is one of four pillars of a larger plan overseen by the Heritage Foundation.
The other three pillars include a personnel database of loyalists to potentially replace tens of thousands of federal government civil servants, a private online educational tool to train them, and an unpublished 180-day playbook with transition plans for each federal agency.8
The Heritage Foundation aims to include 20,000 people in the database, and it is already taking its recruitment efforts on the road across the nation. When acting together, the four pillars are designed to grease the wheels for a new, far-right administration to quickly start accomplishing a president’s radical agenda.
The tentacles of the larger project are sweeping. It bills itself as a “movement-wide effort guided by the conservative cause” that is “unparalleled in the history of the conservative movement … in its size and scope.” Paul Dans, former director of Project 2025, confirmed, “Never before has the entire movement … banded together to construct a comprehensive plan to deconstruct the out-of-touch … administrative state.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts boasted that “his apparatus is ‘orders of magnitude’ bigger’” than anything similar done before; in fact, he called it part of the “second American Revolution,” which he ominously threatened “will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."
The coordinated effort to enshrine U.S. authoritarianism is steered by more than 100 plugged-in conservative organizations that make up the advisory board, and more than 400 people reportedly helped fashion the Project 2025 playbook.
One key role is held by Russell Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist who runs the Center for Renewing America, which reportedly is “secretly drafting hundreds of executive orders, regulations, and memos that would lay the groundwork for rapid action” for a future far-right president.
Another contributor is Stephen Miller, who runs America First Legal and has long espoused weakening the system of checks and balances, along with authoritarian policies, including rounding up and deporting millions of immigrants; Miller subsequently attempted to distance himself from Project 2025.
Project 2025 co-authors also include far-right stalwarts such as Ben Carson, Ken Cuccinelli, and Peter Navarro, who recently served jail time for defying a lawful subpoena related to aiding the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
All the aforementioned people held prominent positions in the administration of President Donald Trump. The larger Project 2025 effort draws funding from a secretive, dark money network that includes organizations overseen by the far-right Koch brothers, as well as Leonard Leo, who engineered the far-right hijacking of the Supreme Court.
These deep-pocketed funders have worked hand in hand for decades with extreme politicians and other allies to weaken the nation’s system of checks and balances—in order to hold onto political power and implement a white, Christian, nationalist, corporatist agenda, even as the nation is becoming more diverse and pluralistic.
No doubt, they have achieved some degree of success. In two of the past six presidential elections, the United States elected a conservative president who did not win the most popular votes nationwide but won enough votes in the counter-majoritarian Electoral College.
The far right has also recently captured the U.S. Supreme Court, making a mockery of the rule of law, equal justice, and protection of fundamental rights. The court’s extremist justices now routinely substitute their partisan agendas for laws passed by elected members of Congress or even the plain meaning of the Constitution, ignoring the court’s long-standing precedents, adding new roadblocks for public agencies to keep Americans safe, and seemingly doing the bidding of billionaires or special interests taking them on lavish vacations
And just as Congress has become disempowered by the Supreme Court, it has also been paralyzed by extremist lawmakers who are elected in unfairly gerrymandered districts and who abuse the antimajoritarian Senate filibuster rules, which empower senators from the 21 least populous states—representing only 11 percent of the country’s population and only 7 percent of its Black population—to block almost any people-powered legislation
Project 2025 takes an absolutist view of presidential authority. To wholly reshape government in ways that most Americans would think is impossible, the Project 2025 blueprint anchors itself in the “unitary executive theory.”
This radical governing philosophy, which contravenes the traditional separation of powers, vests presidents with almost complete control over the federal bureaucracy, including congressionally designated independent agencies or the DOJ and the FBI. The unitary executive theory is designed to sharply diminish Congress’ imperative role to act as a check and balance on the executive branch with tools such as setting up independent agencies to make expert decisions and by limiting presidents’ ability to fire career civil servants for purely political purposes.
The road map to autocracy presented in Project 2025 extends far beyond the unitary executive theory first promoted by President Ronald Reagan, and later espoused by Vice President Dick Cheney, largely designed to implement a deregulatory, corporatist agenda
Instead, as discussed further below, Project 2025 presents a maximalist version that does not nibble around the edges but aims to thoroughly demolish the traditional guardrails that allow Congress an equal say in how democracy functions or what policies are implemented.
One noted expert at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, Philip Wallach, said, “Some of these visions … start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says—and that’s just not the system the [sic] government we live under."
If Congress is robbed of its imperative role as a check and balance on a president’s power, and the judicial branch is willing to bestow a president with almost unlimited authority, autocracy results. And presidents become strongman rulers—free to choose which laws to enforce, which long-standing norms to jettison, and how to impose their will on every executive branch department and agency.
Project 2025 would demolish political norms on which U.S. democracy relies:
Governance of U.S. democracy is anchored not just in laws, but more importantly in norms. Norm s often are about showing political restraint, accepting the legitimacy of an opposing party that won elections, and negotiating with opponents, even when partisan actors’ preferred results are not reached.
The dangers of norm breaking can be enormous for the rule of law. While often espousing disturbing views on the purported role of government, recent generations of elected conservatives have not advocated radically reinterpreting well-established laws and upsetting age-old political norms that respect checks and balances.
But Project 2025 unabashedly breaks that essential barrier in its quest to create an imperial presidency and give politicians, judges, and corporations power over everyday Americans.
When elected leaders have no loyalty to traditional pro-democracy norms, they become unshackled to bend the government to their political will.
When elected leaders have no loyalty to traditional pro-democracy norms, they become unshackled to bend the government to their political will.
Such leaders may try to stop the peaceful transfer of power, ask for loyalty from the FBI, attempt to bully the news media into submission, threaten to misuse the military to silence dissenters, assail judges who stand in the way of their agendas, circumvent Congress to divert federal funds to pet projects, and allow corruption, nepotism, and conflicts of interest to flourish. When well-accepted norms are shattered, checks and balances—and democracy—can backslide.
The judicial branch would not function as a reliable check on executive branch powerIf a future far-right administration were to seize as much power as possible under the Project 2025 blueprint, Americans simply could not count on the federal judiciary as a viable check and balance on the president. In fact, a number of justices who currently sit on the Supreme
Court have shown that they have become captured by the far right and will play constitutional hardball on its behalf.
In the past several years, the Supreme Court has lurched sharply rightward, now controlled by six extreme justices whose judicial philosophy often seems dictated by what would most empower the radically conservative, pro-corporate, pro-Christian agenda, even where it destroys traditional checks and balances through the clawing back of laws, precedents, and long-cherished rights.
As addressed in several CAP articles, the unelected justices on the high court increasingly jettison precedent when necessary to reach their preferred policy results, kneecapping the rule of law, legal accountability, equal justice, and the protection of fundamental freedoms, such as abortion access and voting rights—in other words, putting power over reason
In just the past few months, the Supreme Court’s far-right majority rendered a democracy-shaking decision that perilously places presidents above the law, for the first time in American history.26 The high court effectively rewrote the American constitution by deciding that presidents are largely immune from criminal prosecution and therefore unaccountable if they break the law while carrying out official acts.
This is a stunning display of deference to presidents and the unitary executive theory, bestowing upon them king-like powers, with the Supreme Court giving itself the authority to review any future prosecution of a president, who will inevitably claim immunity from accountability
With this lamentable decision, Congress will lose much of its ability to check the president’s powers under Article II of the Constitution when he ignores criminal laws while allegedly carrying out his constitutional duties—all of which threatens Americans’ fundamental rights.
The Supreme Court seemingly has left only one remedy for Congress to try to constrain presidents: impeachment and removal. But in the current political environment, the removal of a president, which requires a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate after a House impeachment vote, is nearly impossible.
Yet there is more. In its just-concluded term, the Supreme Court also empowered judges across the country to overrule congressional intent and government agency experts from protecting Americans from harms such as workplace abuses, pollution, and unsafe food and medicine—an enormous victory for corporate interests and billionaires.
Within days, the high court amplified that pro-corporate decision by giving companies almost unlimited time to challenge regulations, which could imperil the functioning of the federal government.29 The radical majority of the Supreme Court has also recently taken away Americans’ fundamental rights, for example, in the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, where it overturned 50 years of precedent to deny the right to abortion.
Looking more broadly at the federal judiciary, the current composition of judges substantially reduces the chances that courts will block a right-wing president’s abuse of laws and political norms. In addition to the Supreme Court, more than 200 federal judges are right-wing jurists, many of them members of the conservative Federalist Society, nominated by the last conservative president, and rubber-stamped by a Republican Senate majority.
Some of these judges were even deemed unqualified to serve by the nonpartisan American Bar Association, which, since 1956, has rated judicial nominees’ qualifications.
Moreover, these conservative judges, who are stunningly homogenous and fail to reflect the diversity of the American people, often advance extreme legal arguments in their decisions, giving further credence to the prediction that the federal judiciary would likely approve many of the presidential power grabs envisioned in Project 2025.
In just one recent example, federal district court Judge Aileen Cannon, a far-right Trump appointee, dismissed all charges against the former president in a federal prosecution involving classified documents, using a long-discredited legal theory about the powers of special counsels.
It sadly is unsurprising to see some extremist judges seemingly maintaining political loyalty to their partisan patron who appointed them to their judgeship.
In recent years, the country of Poland stands as a stark example of how the weakening of the independent judiciary has promoted democratic backsliding. There, the far-right ruling party took many steps, including refusing to seat judges associated with opposition parties, forcing out unfavorable judges, and replacing them with party loyalists
In 2020, the Polish judiciary outlawed the right to abortion and effectively imposed a national abortion ban.36 Similarly, Hungary’s autocratic government implemented many measures to control the judiciary, including packing the Constitutional Court with political allies, which later upheld a series of antidemocracy laws that helped cement the president’s political power.
In the next section, this report probes more specifically how Project 2025 is designed to quickly shatter laws, norms, guardrails, and other components that comprise the United States’ traditional system of checks and balances and separation of powers without any reasonable structural methods to constrain a president who takes up Project 2025’s authoritarian road map.
How an authoritarian administration following the Project 2025 road map would destroy checks and balances. If an administration were to follow the authoritarian road map presented by Project 2025, it could quickly dismantle the checks and balances undergirding American government and impose extreme far-right policies.
This section discusses seven key methods by which an authoritarian presidency could shatter the guardrails of democracy in ways that would produce an autocratic regime unimaginable to most Americans:
Indeed, as discussed throughout this report, many of these tactics have been successfully deployed in recent years by autocratic leaders in nations formerly considered democracies.
The same could happen in the United States under the far-right Project 2025 road map.
Weaponizing the DOJ for political purposes:
A tool favored by authoritarians is to use state powers to tarnish the reputations of political opponents—and remove them from civic life—by investigating and arresting them for criminal activity.
The purported criminal activity often takes the form of false allegations of corruption, spreading disinformation, or treason, but it can also include more technical violations of laws that may be vague and are only selectively applied or prosecuted.
Current world events provide ample examples. In Russia, Alexei Navalny, perhaps the most notable opposition leader to President Vladimir Putin, was repeatedly falsely prosecuted for embezzlement, contempt of court, and extremism, dying in imprisonment under questionable circumstances after a previous assassination attempt.
In August, the attorney general of Venezuela announced an investigation of opposition leaders to President Nicolás Maduro for calls to oppose him, in light of evidence he rigged the recent presidential election in which Maduro sought another term in office.
A tool favored by authoritarians is to use state powers to tarnish the reputations of political opponents—and remove them from civic life—by investigating and arresting them for criminal activity. The potential for abuse is particularly acute in any political system in which a president or chief executive has direct control over federal police and prosecutors.
Despite a roughly 50-year tradition of DOJ independence from the White House—particularly on individual matters of investigation or prosecution—there have never been laws stopping a president from directing the investigation or prosecution of an individual.
To the contrary, after the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, there was strong opposition to a proposal from the American Bar Association and constitutional scholars to make the DOJ a truly independent agency. It was argued by some that political appointees can be fired by the president and provide some democratic accountability to voters.
At the same time, norms of independence—that can be rescinded with relative ease—have been put in place to help stop political or partisan consideration from influencing “investigatory and prosecutorial powers.” This has included DOJ and White House policies limiting contacts between the two entities.
Project 2025 explicitly calls for the reexamining of these limits, allowing an administration to
apply incredible pressure directly to individual prosecutors or investigators. The backdrop for this pressure would be the selection of a White House counsel “above all loyal to the President” and the ability to remove the attorney general or other DOJ political appointees at will—such as if they refuse to open an investigation into a political rival in contravention of DOJ rules and procedures.
Furthermore, Project 2025 envisions a “vast expansion” in the number of political appointees at the DOJ, noting, “The number of appointees serving throughout the department in prior Administrations—particularly during the Trump Administration—has not been sufficient either to stop bad things from happening through proper management or to promote the President’s agenda.”
Such political appointees could easily block investigations into corruption by Cabinet members, stifle civil rights enforcement activities, or pursue antitrust cases against competitors of companies supporting a president. As discussed above, the recent decision by the Supreme Court’s extreme right-wing majority in Trump v. United States makes plain that the courts would provide no help should a president pursue politically motivated prosecutions of rivals, writing, “The Executive Branch has ‘exclusive authority and absolute discretion’ to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute. … The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials."
Finally, another key function of the DOJ is to provide the White House with impartial advice on the extent and limit of the president’s powers to issue executive orders and in the national security context. Should norms around independence be stripped away, one cannot expect the DOJ to provide truly impartial advice that serves to limit presidential action where it could be illegal.
Practically, this could lead to a president issuing executive orders that are illegal or unconstitutional and could harm Americans, by ordering, for example, widespread electronic surveillance of political rivals or individuals seeking an abortion across state lines; the mass detention of protesters exercising their First Amendment rights; or even the elimination of birthright citizenship.
Ending the independence of independent agencies:
Congress created some public agencies as independent agencies that are distinct from standard departments in the federal government and are led by bipartisan, multimember commissions. These agencies are supposed to operate without political interference from the president, with commissioners who can only be removed “for cause,” such as neglect or malfeasance.
The Supreme Court upheld the right of Congress to shield commissioners of these quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial bodies—such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—from removal in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Other examples of such independent agencies include:
Project 2025 shows disdain for any such independence conferred by Congress and the courts, calling them “so-called independent agencies.”48 More tangibly, the far-right road map calls for overruling Humphrey’s Executor to give the president more power to remove independent agency commissioners at will, ostensibly of either party, if they do not buy into the president’s agenda.
Project 2025 also calls for the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to review, and ostensibly revise or block, rules and significant guidance issued by these independent agencies—further limiting their independence.
Agencies are not allowed to share draft or final rules with the public until OIRA has completed its review, giving OIRA enormous power to kill or hold hostage draft regulations unless an agency agrees to make changes. There is virtually no transparency to this review, and Project 2025 aims to empower political White House staff further to exploit this process to reshape or block agency rules.
The real-world consequences of attacks on agencies’ independence could be easily felt by all Americans. For example, the FTC could have been blocked from publishing its new popular rule prohibiting the imposition of noncompete agreements on most workers.
A loss of the FCC’s independence could lead to intense pressure by a president to favor or disfavor certain broadcasters, such as by revoking their broadcast license, the threat of which could serve as a powerful pressure on broadcasters to skew their coverage of news or refrain from criticizing a president.
Similarly, the EEOC, which enforces civil rights protections in the workplace, could be pressured to stop enforcing the law or to ignore flagrant violations of women being paid less than their male colleagues at companies run by benefactors of the president.
Replacing expert civil servants with political loyalists:
Installing loyalists throughout government who will unquestioningly and swiftly carry out a president’s orders is an essential component of Project 2025. These loyalists would root out civil servants who might push back on the legality or appropriateness of such instructions and be zealous advocates in resisting any checks and balances from Congress or the courts.
To accomplish this, Project 2025 calls for reinstating executive order 13957, signed by President Trump in 2020 but rescinded by President Joe Biden, to create a new Schedule F for federal hiring.52 According to James Sherk, one of the architects of the executive order, this order was designed to strip about 50,000 career nonpartisan public servants of their civil service job protections, making it easier to immediately fire some employees and threaten others to comply with the president’s plans.
This would make it difficult to distinguish these newly reclassified Schedule F positions from existing political appointees, of which there are about 4,000, who can be hired and fired at will and are not subject to merit requirements, such as prohibitions on discrimination based on political affiliation.
The ability to hire or fire government workers based on their political beliefs—not their expertise or competence—is likely seen as a critical feature by those on the right. As Sherk opines, “That was the vision. But at the same time, I do believe that you need some more political appointees in the government. … You need more people who basically share the President’s policy agenda to carry it out effectively.”
Hiring and firing based on political fealty raises concerns about widespread cronyism in the federal government that existed prior to the establishment of a merit-based civil service. In the past, presidents put political loyalists in government jobs—and the federal government was replete with incompetence, corruption, and straight-up theft.
As Jay Cost of the American Enterprise Institute writes, “While the patronage system helped establish the party system, the corruption it produced eventually became intolerable. Before the Civil War, the patronage system’s fraud and incompetence degraded the quality of government in the United States.”
Indeed, it was the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by a disappointed job seeker that convinced Congress to create a professional career civil service with the passage of the Pendleton Act soon thereafter.
One particularly worrisome consequence is that there will not be nonpartisan lawyers who can stop illegal actions; indeed, the text of executive order 13957 is clear that Schedule F is to specifically include attorney supervisors, who would ordinarily be in such a position and who would be newly subject to summary dismissal or intimidation. Thus, illegal actions that advance the president’s political ideology or benefit campaign donors would be more likely to move forward.
Replacing career civil servants with partisan loyalists is particularly problematic, as it could represent a deep loss of the nonpartisan expertise needed by public agencies to protect Americans effectively.
Affected job positions could include nonpartisan national security directors at agencies that oversee arms control or nuclear policy; scientists who ensure a community’s water is not contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals; aviation regulators who help safeguard airplane safety; and civil servants who oversee enforcement of businesses to ensure they do not steal their workers’ wages or have them work in unsafe mines or factories.
The career civil service has faithfully served administrations of both parties for more than a century. They are the ones who help presidents execute their visions, but within the boundaries of the Constitution, the law, and in service of the American public.
Yet undercutting those core functions is precisely what Project 2025 seeks in reinstating Schedule F, removing yet another critical check and balance in America’s system of governance. It is little wonder that dismantling the civil service has been a favorite antidemocracy tactic of autocratic leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
Allowing the president to circumvent Congress’ power to decide how to spend federal funds
Key architects of Project 2025 propose another dangerous tool to weaken the constitutional authorities of Congress and seize control over the federal budget: presidential impoundment.
This power, which is illegal under federal law, refers to the executive branch’s refusal to spend appropriated monies per Congress’ directives. Congress erected the important statutory guardrails that ban presidential impoundment after President Richard Nixon abused that power to aggressively block agency spending to which he was opposed.
The Constitution unambiguously gives Congress, not the president, the power of the purse, with the authority to raise money and decide how to spend that money. The law barring presidential impoundment is a major check against presidents wishing to abuse the system by spending or withholding monies to reward political allies, punish political enemies, or obliterate government departments or programs they dislike.
Yet Project 2025 and some of its key co-authors want to revive impoundment. Project 2025 states, “Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening,” arguing that Congress is empowering a runaway bureaucracy and that a “courageous” president must “handcuff the bureaucracy” and impose “discipline” on federal spending decisions.
Russ Vought, who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump administration, supports “restoring the President’s authority to impound funds, a necessary remedy to our fiscal brokeness [sic],” and has declared that the Impoundment Control Act is “unworkable” and impermissibly micromanages how the president implements laws.63
That direction would allow a president to exert immense authoritarian control over executive branch departments or agencies and the programs they administer, bending them to the presidency’s will without regard to the traditional powers of Congress. For example, a president could starve entire departments or agencies of their federal funds, effectively killing the departments of Education, Commerce, or Labor.
Acting more surgically, a president could deprive government agencies of the ability to regulate air quality or monitor the environmental effects of oil drilling, which would be huge gifts to corporate polluters and a disaster for everyday Americans’ health. A president could also divert federal funds to boost federal prosecutions of political enemies, stop government enforcement of laws against discrimination, or target doctors who help women receive abortion-related care.
Weakening the independent media and news reporting
Project 2025 proposes steps to weaken the reach and effectiveness of the media’s news reporting, depriving everyday Americans of vital information about what their government is doing. These proposals are an affront to the proud tradition in the United States, since its founding, of a robust press that acts as a check and balance on elected officials, including the president. The media’s seminal role in American society is anchored, of course, in the First Amendment. Throughout U.S. history, there has been a healthy tension between the media’s reporting of news to the American people and the desire of presidents to do their jobs without scrutiny.
Project 2025 proposes steps to weaken the reach and effectiveness of the media’s news reporting, depriving everyday Americans of vital information about what their government is doing.As discussed above in the section about independent agencies, Project 2025 would allow a president to manipulate the levers of the FCC—perhaps in conjunction with the DOJ and other government components—to assail media companies, and their licensed outlets, that report negatively about the administration.
For example, an FCC controlled by the president could revoke the broadcast licenses of channels affiliated with major networks such as NBC, CBS, and ABC, on whom many Americans depend for their news. In addition, the DOJ and a newly non-independent FTC could launch dubious antitrust investigations into media companies that criticize the president.
Moreover, Project 2025 would make it harder for the press corps to carry out its essential reporting duties, allowing an authoritarian president an easier path to hide lawbreaking and power grabbing from the public.
The blueprint explicitly states that the president should “reexamine” the long tradition of providing workspace for the media on the White House campus, arguing, “No legal entitlement exists for the provision of permanent space for media.
Project 2025 also proposes to eliminate federal government funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, and convert the U.S. Agency for Global Media and the Voice of America into propaganda machines for the president, rather than legitimate news reporting outlets.
Government crackdowns on the media are a favorite tool of authoritarians abroad. For example, Hungary’s president and his allies have been so effective at weakening and controlling the media, including by packing the media regulator with political cronies, that they are now “beginning to resemble state media under Communism.”
In India, the authoritarian regime now targets and prosecutes journalists with whom it disagrees. Borrowing this authoritarian tool, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) drove legislative efforts to make it easier to sue reporters for defamation when they criticized him .
Misusing the Insurrection Act against Americans to stifle dissent::
One of the most dystopian proposals advocated by the authors of Project 2025 is to break yet another central political norm and stretch the boundaries of the federal Insurrection Act, allowing the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.
For example, a president could send troops into major cities across the nation to arrest—or even use deadly force against—Americans engaging in lawful protest. The president could also station armed forces in communities to suppress women’s marches, pro-worker or pro-racial justice rallies, LGBTQ Pride parades, or even individuals gathered to conduct speech or activity that runs counter to the president’s agenda.
The United States has a long, proud tradition of prohibiting military involvement in domestic law enforcement under ordinary circumstances, a principle known as “posse comitatus.”
However, an exception lies in the Insurrection Act, originally enacted by Congress in 1792 and last updated in 1871. That law allows a president the power to use the military and federalized National Guard to “take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
Although this “arcane but extraordinary authority” exists, presidents have rarely used it in recent decades, instead respecting pro-democracy values and norms. Because this law gives presidents wide latitude in determining when to invoke its use, there are very few checks and balances that can be imposed by Congress, the courts, or state and local officials.
The Insurrection Act is ripe for abuse under the vision of some of the authors of Project 2025, who reportedly have drafted an executive order to prepare an authoritarian president to use the military for domestic law enforcement in response to protests.
According to Politico, documents being drafted by the Center for Renewing America, led by Russ Vought, include “invoking the Insurrection Act on Day One to quash protests,” although the center generally denies this report.
Yet, in a July 2024 video, Vought stated that presidents have “the ability both along the border and elsewhere to maintain law and order with the military.” Stephen Miller, another far-right conservative involved earlier with Project 2025, advocated during the Trump administration for deploying troops at the southern border within the United States, but top military officials prevented it after concluding there was no legal foundation to do so.
Lamentably, the Supreme Court has already planted the seeds to allow crackdowns on dissent. Just a few months ago, the high court declined to hear McKesson v. Doe, a case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that “effectively gutted the First Amendment right to protest.”79 Pursuant to that lower court decision, “a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act,” even where the protest organizer did not direct or intend the illegal act.
Neutralizing the Senate’s role of confirming executive branch nominees and instead installing acting appointees on day one Project 2025 proposes to erase another critical check and balance on the president’s authority by allowing the Senate’s role in confirming executive branch nominees to be bypassed—and instead letting the president install appointees on day one in “acting” administrative roles.
If the opposing political party controlled the Senate, this end run around the upper chamber of Congress would be particularly problematic and not reflect the will of American voters.
Unqualified or excessively partisan nominees for senior executive branch positions would escape the necessary transparency surrounding their background, qualifications, and plans. In turn, the nation would run the risk that unqualified political cronies would be installed to aggressively implement the president’s authoritarian agenda, instead of working to keep everyday Americans safe and secure.
For example, a completely unqualified personal ally of the president, rife with conflicts of interest or hidden business dealings, could be installed at the departments of Defense, Justice, or Energy.
The Constitution and long-standing political norms dictate that presidents make good faith efforts to comply with the Senate confirmation process, a foundational component of the separation of powers. Project 2025 concedes that the Constitution requires such a process, but it nevertheless attempts to run roughshod over it.
For example, the blueprint’s chapter regarding plans for the Department of Homeland Security includes a section titled “An Aggressive Approach to Senate-Confirmed Leadership Positions. There, Project 2025 blithely states that “the next Administration may need to take a novel approach to the confirmations process to ensure an adequate and rapid transition … of the Day One agenda,” namely by placing nominees “for key positions” into positions as “actings,” including senior officials helping oversee U.S. Customs and Border Protection\ To further break norms,
Project 2025 contends, “The department should also look to remove lower-level but nevertheless important positions that currently require Senate confirmation from the confirmation requirement,” even though it concedes legislation would be necessary to accomplish this.84
Conclusion
Project 2025 is a “how-to” authoritarian guide for remaking America. This conclusion is not hyperbole or misplaced fear. Rather, it is informed, in part, by what has occurred in other democracies in recent decades, where destruction of checks and balances has resulted in authoritarian governments cementing their power, depriving citizens of fundamental rights, and reducing peace and prosperity.
America is at a crossroads, and democracy is being stress tested in unprecedented ways, with extremists trying to take far more control of the nation and everyday people’s lives. Creating an imperial presidency, while simultaneously giving more power to unaccountable judges and corporations, would make this situation far worse. The United States is the oldest continuing democracy in the world. But Americans must understand that Project 2025 provides a plausible road map to dismantling the republic and taking away their rights and freedoms
___________________________________________________________________________
TRUMPISM Pictured description found below photos
Far-right extremists have a plan to shatter democracy’s guardrails, giving presidents almost unlimited power to implement policies that will hurt everyday Americans and strip them of fundamental rights.
Introduction and summary
With American democracy already at a crisis point, extreme right-wing operatives have crafted an authoritarian playbook that would push it over the edge, destroying the nation’s 250-year-old bedrock system of checks and balances to create an imperial presidency. The Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership is a 920-page road map for a future president to wield excessive power to implement a dangerous policy agenda, ripping out democracy by its roots and replacing it with a system that most Americans would find unthinkable.
For many decades, there have been efforts to advance radical proposals to weaken America’s middle class, stripping them of fundamental freedoms and subverting the rule of law, most notably by capturing the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the Project 2025 blueprint makes those prior efforts look quaint. Project 2025 unabashedly promotes the wholesale violation of norms and laws, consolidating enormous power in a president and trampling on Congress’ constitutional role—to take away Americans’ long-cherished freedoms and opportunities.
Not only would this authoritarian playbook make it easier for a far-right executive branch to weaken the independence of public agencies, install political cronies throughout the government, punish people it disagrees with, and control what news the media can report, but it would also allow the government to eliminate abortion access, health care choices, overtime pay, educational opportunities, and countless other programs that benefit communities and families.
Quite simply, if Project 2025 is implemented, the United States would be unrecognizable. Instead, it would resemble autocracies around the world, such as Hungary and Turkey, which in recent years have severely weakened their democracies and vested inordinate power in authoritarian leaders who serve the interests of themselves, not the public.
Once this backsliding occurs, it is incredibly difficult to fix. Make no mistake: This could easily happen in the United States without a firm system of checks and balances. Ominously, the Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025, and its president declared in July 2024 that they are in the process of the “second American Revolution” and suggested that political violence may be necessary to effectuate their authoritarian blueprint if Americans resist.
If Project 2025 is implemented, the United States would be unrecognizable. Instead, it would resemble autocracies around the world. This report first discusses the background and draconian goals of Project 2025.
It then explains how the plan’s extreme ideas could come to fruition, exploring seven critical guardrails that Project 2025 would demolish, including weaponizing the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against political opponents and everyday Americans; politicizing independent agencies and executive branch departments; and replacing tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants with loyalists to do the president’s bidding. In each instance, this report provides concrete examples of the direct harms that would result from eliminating these crucial guardrails.
Background
Basic facts about Project 2025
Project 2025 provides a plausible pathway for a far-right administration, based on a white, Christian nationalist, pro-corporate, and antiworker philosophy, to degrade democracy and promote radical policy goals it has long wanted to accomplish but has not yet been able to implement.
The authoritarian road map of this shrinking political minority3 aims to tear down the system of checks and balances and reimagine an executive branch on steroids and free from any shackles, giving the president and judges they put in place unfettered power to take over the country and control Americans’ lives. In the process, the plan redefines personal autonomy and freedom.
Conjuring up the worst of European nationalism from the 1930s, Project 2025 would hurt all Americans, but in abandoning the public interest, it would allow the most dangerous attacks to be aimed at young people, the poor, and other marginalized communities who have a particular interest in creating a government that works for the people.
As the Center for American Progress has discussed in a series of recent articles, Project 2025 is a 920-page manifesto spearheaded and published by the Heritage Foundation, a far-right think tank that has influenced conservative administrations since the 1980s.
Among other things, the expansive plan “would eliminate fundamental personal freedoms while cutting the take-home pay of millions of Americans,” increase taxes on the middle class, allow corporations to stop paying workers overtime, implement a national abortion ban, restrict access to contraception, slash education funding, and raise the retirement age for Social Security.
Although these policies are unpopular, Project 2025 “would make it even harder for the American people to have a say in their government or oppose policies they disagree with.”
The Project 2025 blueprint is one of four pillars of a larger plan overseen by the Heritage Foundation.
The other three pillars include a personnel database of loyalists to potentially replace tens of thousands of federal government civil servants, a private online educational tool to train them, and an unpublished 180-day playbook with transition plans for each federal agency.8
The Heritage Foundation aims to include 20,000 people in the database, and it is already taking its recruitment efforts on the road across the nation. When acting together, the four pillars are designed to grease the wheels for a new, far-right administration to quickly start accomplishing a president’s radical agenda.
The tentacles of the larger project are sweeping. It bills itself as a “movement-wide effort guided by the conservative cause” that is “unparalleled in the history of the conservative movement … in its size and scope.” Paul Dans, former director of Project 2025, confirmed, “Never before has the entire movement … banded together to construct a comprehensive plan to deconstruct the out-of-touch … administrative state.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts boasted that “his apparatus is ‘orders of magnitude’ bigger’” than anything similar done before; in fact, he called it part of the “second American Revolution,” which he ominously threatened “will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."
The coordinated effort to enshrine U.S. authoritarianism is steered by more than 100 plugged-in conservative organizations that make up the advisory board, and more than 400 people reportedly helped fashion the Project 2025 playbook.
One key role is held by Russell Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist who runs the Center for Renewing America, which reportedly is “secretly drafting hundreds of executive orders, regulations, and memos that would lay the groundwork for rapid action” for a future far-right president.
Another contributor is Stephen Miller, who runs America First Legal and has long espoused weakening the system of checks and balances, along with authoritarian policies, including rounding up and deporting millions of immigrants; Miller subsequently attempted to distance himself from Project 2025.
Project 2025 co-authors also include far-right stalwarts such as Ben Carson, Ken Cuccinelli, and Peter Navarro, who recently served jail time for defying a lawful subpoena related to aiding the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
All the aforementioned people held prominent positions in the administration of President Donald Trump. The larger Project 2025 effort draws funding from a secretive, dark money network that includes organizations overseen by the far-right Koch brothers, as well as Leonard Leo, who engineered the far-right hijacking of the Supreme Court.
These deep-pocketed funders have worked hand in hand for decades with extreme politicians and other allies to weaken the nation’s system of checks and balances—in order to hold onto political power and implement a white, Christian, nationalist, corporatist agenda, even as the nation is becoming more diverse and pluralistic.
No doubt, they have achieved some degree of success. In two of the past six presidential elections, the United States elected a conservative president who did not win the most popular votes nationwide but won enough votes in the counter-majoritarian Electoral College.
The far right has also recently captured the U.S. Supreme Court, making a mockery of the rule of law, equal justice, and protection of fundamental rights. The court’s extremist justices now routinely substitute their partisan agendas for laws passed by elected members of Congress or even the plain meaning of the Constitution, ignoring the court’s long-standing precedents, adding new roadblocks for public agencies to keep Americans safe, and seemingly doing the bidding of billionaires or special interests taking them on lavish vacations
And just as Congress has become disempowered by the Supreme Court, it has also been paralyzed by extremist lawmakers who are elected in unfairly gerrymandered districts and who abuse the antimajoritarian Senate filibuster rules, which empower senators from the 21 least populous states—representing only 11 percent of the country’s population and only 7 percent of its Black population—to block almost any people-powered legislation
Project 2025 takes an absolutist view of presidential authority. To wholly reshape government in ways that most Americans would think is impossible, the Project 2025 blueprint anchors itself in the “unitary executive theory.”
This radical governing philosophy, which contravenes the traditional separation of powers, vests presidents with almost complete control over the federal bureaucracy, including congressionally designated independent agencies or the DOJ and the FBI. The unitary executive theory is designed to sharply diminish Congress’ imperative role to act as a check and balance on the executive branch with tools such as setting up independent agencies to make expert decisions and by limiting presidents’ ability to fire career civil servants for purely political purposes.
The road map to autocracy presented in Project 2025 extends far beyond the unitary executive theory first promoted by President Ronald Reagan, and later espoused by Vice President Dick Cheney, largely designed to implement a deregulatory, corporatist agenda
Instead, as discussed further below, Project 2025 presents a maximalist version that does not nibble around the edges but aims to thoroughly demolish the traditional guardrails that allow Congress an equal say in how democracy functions or what policies are implemented.
One noted expert at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, Philip Wallach, said, “Some of these visions … start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says—and that’s just not the system the [sic] government we live under."
If Congress is robbed of its imperative role as a check and balance on a president’s power, and the judicial branch is willing to bestow a president with almost unlimited authority, autocracy results. And presidents become strongman rulers—free to choose which laws to enforce, which long-standing norms to jettison, and how to impose their will on every executive branch department and agency.
Project 2025 would demolish political norms on which U.S. democracy relies:
Governance of U.S. democracy is anchored not just in laws, but more importantly in norms. Norm s often are about showing political restraint, accepting the legitimacy of an opposing party that won elections, and negotiating with opponents, even when partisan actors’ preferred results are not reached.
The dangers of norm breaking can be enormous for the rule of law. While often espousing disturbing views on the purported role of government, recent generations of elected conservatives have not advocated radically reinterpreting well-established laws and upsetting age-old political norms that respect checks and balances.
But Project 2025 unabashedly breaks that essential barrier in its quest to create an imperial presidency and give politicians, judges, and corporations power over everyday Americans.
When elected leaders have no loyalty to traditional pro-democracy norms, they become unshackled to bend the government to their political will.
When elected leaders have no loyalty to traditional pro-democracy norms, they become unshackled to bend the government to their political will.
Such leaders may try to stop the peaceful transfer of power, ask for loyalty from the FBI, attempt to bully the news media into submission, threaten to misuse the military to silence dissenters, assail judges who stand in the way of their agendas, circumvent Congress to divert federal funds to pet projects, and allow corruption, nepotism, and conflicts of interest to flourish. When well-accepted norms are shattered, checks and balances—and democracy—can backslide.
The judicial branch would not function as a reliable check on executive branch powerIf a future far-right administration were to seize as much power as possible under the Project 2025 blueprint, Americans simply could not count on the federal judiciary as a viable check and balance on the president. In fact, a number of justices who currently sit on the Supreme
Court have shown that they have become captured by the far right and will play constitutional hardball on its behalf.
In the past several years, the Supreme Court has lurched sharply rightward, now controlled by six extreme justices whose judicial philosophy often seems dictated by what would most empower the radically conservative, pro-corporate, pro-Christian agenda, even where it destroys traditional checks and balances through the clawing back of laws, precedents, and long-cherished rights.
As addressed in several CAP articles, the unelected justices on the high court increasingly jettison precedent when necessary to reach their preferred policy results, kneecapping the rule of law, legal accountability, equal justice, and the protection of fundamental freedoms, such as abortion access and voting rights—in other words, putting power over reason
In just the past few months, the Supreme Court’s far-right majority rendered a democracy-shaking decision that perilously places presidents above the law, for the first time in American history.26 The high court effectively rewrote the American constitution by deciding that presidents are largely immune from criminal prosecution and therefore unaccountable if they break the law while carrying out official acts.
This is a stunning display of deference to presidents and the unitary executive theory, bestowing upon them king-like powers, with the Supreme Court giving itself the authority to review any future prosecution of a president, who will inevitably claim immunity from accountability
With this lamentable decision, Congress will lose much of its ability to check the president’s powers under Article II of the Constitution when he ignores criminal laws while allegedly carrying out his constitutional duties—all of which threatens Americans’ fundamental rights.
The Supreme Court seemingly has left only one remedy for Congress to try to constrain presidents: impeachment and removal. But in the current political environment, the removal of a president, which requires a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate after a House impeachment vote, is nearly impossible.
Yet there is more. In its just-concluded term, the Supreme Court also empowered judges across the country to overrule congressional intent and government agency experts from protecting Americans from harms such as workplace abuses, pollution, and unsafe food and medicine—an enormous victory for corporate interests and billionaires.
Within days, the high court amplified that pro-corporate decision by giving companies almost unlimited time to challenge regulations, which could imperil the functioning of the federal government.29 The radical majority of the Supreme Court has also recently taken away Americans’ fundamental rights, for example, in the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, where it overturned 50 years of precedent to deny the right to abortion.
Looking more broadly at the federal judiciary, the current composition of judges substantially reduces the chances that courts will block a right-wing president’s abuse of laws and political norms. In addition to the Supreme Court, more than 200 federal judges are right-wing jurists, many of them members of the conservative Federalist Society, nominated by the last conservative president, and rubber-stamped by a Republican Senate majority.
Some of these judges were even deemed unqualified to serve by the nonpartisan American Bar Association, which, since 1956, has rated judicial nominees’ qualifications.
Moreover, these conservative judges, who are stunningly homogenous and fail to reflect the diversity of the American people, often advance extreme legal arguments in their decisions, giving further credence to the prediction that the federal judiciary would likely approve many of the presidential power grabs envisioned in Project 2025.
In just one recent example, federal district court Judge Aileen Cannon, a far-right Trump appointee, dismissed all charges against the former president in a federal prosecution involving classified documents, using a long-discredited legal theory about the powers of special counsels.
It sadly is unsurprising to see some extremist judges seemingly maintaining political loyalty to their partisan patron who appointed them to their judgeship.
In recent years, the country of Poland stands as a stark example of how the weakening of the independent judiciary has promoted democratic backsliding. There, the far-right ruling party took many steps, including refusing to seat judges associated with opposition parties, forcing out unfavorable judges, and replacing them with party loyalists
In 2020, the Polish judiciary outlawed the right to abortion and effectively imposed a national abortion ban.36 Similarly, Hungary’s autocratic government implemented many measures to control the judiciary, including packing the Constitutional Court with political allies, which later upheld a series of antidemocracy laws that helped cement the president’s political power.
In the next section, this report probes more specifically how Project 2025 is designed to quickly shatter laws, norms, guardrails, and other components that comprise the United States’ traditional system of checks and balances and separation of powers without any reasonable structural methods to constrain a president who takes up Project 2025’s authoritarian road map.
How an authoritarian administration following the Project 2025 road map would destroy checks and balances. If an administration were to follow the authoritarian road map presented by Project 2025, it could quickly dismantle the checks and balances undergirding American government and impose extreme far-right policies.
This section discusses seven key methods by which an authoritarian presidency could shatter the guardrails of democracy in ways that would produce an autocratic regime unimaginable to most Americans:
- Weaponizing the DOJ for political purposes
- Ending the independence of independent agencies
- Replacing expert civil servants with political loyalists
- Circumventing Congress’ power to decide how to spend federal funds
- Weakening the independent media and news reporting
- Misusing the Insurrection Act against Americans to stifle dissent
- Neutralizing the Senate’s role of confirming executive branch nominees
Indeed, as discussed throughout this report, many of these tactics have been successfully deployed in recent years by autocratic leaders in nations formerly considered democracies.
The same could happen in the United States under the far-right Project 2025 road map.
Weaponizing the DOJ for political purposes:
A tool favored by authoritarians is to use state powers to tarnish the reputations of political opponents—and remove them from civic life—by investigating and arresting them for criminal activity.
The purported criminal activity often takes the form of false allegations of corruption, spreading disinformation, or treason, but it can also include more technical violations of laws that may be vague and are only selectively applied or prosecuted.
Current world events provide ample examples. In Russia, Alexei Navalny, perhaps the most notable opposition leader to President Vladimir Putin, was repeatedly falsely prosecuted for embezzlement, contempt of court, and extremism, dying in imprisonment under questionable circumstances after a previous assassination attempt.
In August, the attorney general of Venezuela announced an investigation of opposition leaders to President Nicolás Maduro for calls to oppose him, in light of evidence he rigged the recent presidential election in which Maduro sought another term in office.
A tool favored by authoritarians is to use state powers to tarnish the reputations of political opponents—and remove them from civic life—by investigating and arresting them for criminal activity. The potential for abuse is particularly acute in any political system in which a president or chief executive has direct control over federal police and prosecutors.
Despite a roughly 50-year tradition of DOJ independence from the White House—particularly on individual matters of investigation or prosecution—there have never been laws stopping a president from directing the investigation or prosecution of an individual.
To the contrary, after the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, there was strong opposition to a proposal from the American Bar Association and constitutional scholars to make the DOJ a truly independent agency. It was argued by some that political appointees can be fired by the president and provide some democratic accountability to voters.
At the same time, norms of independence—that can be rescinded with relative ease—have been put in place to help stop political or partisan consideration from influencing “investigatory and prosecutorial powers.” This has included DOJ and White House policies limiting contacts between the two entities.
Project 2025 explicitly calls for the reexamining of these limits, allowing an administration to
apply incredible pressure directly to individual prosecutors or investigators. The backdrop for this pressure would be the selection of a White House counsel “above all loyal to the President” and the ability to remove the attorney general or other DOJ political appointees at will—such as if they refuse to open an investigation into a political rival in contravention of DOJ rules and procedures.
Furthermore, Project 2025 envisions a “vast expansion” in the number of political appointees at the DOJ, noting, “The number of appointees serving throughout the department in prior Administrations—particularly during the Trump Administration—has not been sufficient either to stop bad things from happening through proper management or to promote the President’s agenda.”
Such political appointees could easily block investigations into corruption by Cabinet members, stifle civil rights enforcement activities, or pursue antitrust cases against competitors of companies supporting a president. As discussed above, the recent decision by the Supreme Court’s extreme right-wing majority in Trump v. United States makes plain that the courts would provide no help should a president pursue politically motivated prosecutions of rivals, writing, “The Executive Branch has ‘exclusive authority and absolute discretion’ to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute. … The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials."
Finally, another key function of the DOJ is to provide the White House with impartial advice on the extent and limit of the president’s powers to issue executive orders and in the national security context. Should norms around independence be stripped away, one cannot expect the DOJ to provide truly impartial advice that serves to limit presidential action where it could be illegal.
Practically, this could lead to a president issuing executive orders that are illegal or unconstitutional and could harm Americans, by ordering, for example, widespread electronic surveillance of political rivals or individuals seeking an abortion across state lines; the mass detention of protesters exercising their First Amendment rights; or even the elimination of birthright citizenship.
Ending the independence of independent agencies:
Congress created some public agencies as independent agencies that are distinct from standard departments in the federal government and are led by bipartisan, multimember commissions. These agencies are supposed to operate without political interference from the president, with commissioners who can only be removed “for cause,” such as neglect or malfeasance.
The Supreme Court upheld the right of Congress to shield commissioners of these quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial bodies—such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—from removal in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Other examples of such independent agencies include:
- the Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
- Federal Election Commission (FEC),
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),
- and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Project 2025 shows disdain for any such independence conferred by Congress and the courts, calling them “so-called independent agencies.”48 More tangibly, the far-right road map calls for overruling Humphrey’s Executor to give the president more power to remove independent agency commissioners at will, ostensibly of either party, if they do not buy into the president’s agenda.
Project 2025 also calls for the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to review, and ostensibly revise or block, rules and significant guidance issued by these independent agencies—further limiting their independence.
Agencies are not allowed to share draft or final rules with the public until OIRA has completed its review, giving OIRA enormous power to kill or hold hostage draft regulations unless an agency agrees to make changes. There is virtually no transparency to this review, and Project 2025 aims to empower political White House staff further to exploit this process to reshape or block agency rules.
The real-world consequences of attacks on agencies’ independence could be easily felt by all Americans. For example, the FTC could have been blocked from publishing its new popular rule prohibiting the imposition of noncompete agreements on most workers.
A loss of the FCC’s independence could lead to intense pressure by a president to favor or disfavor certain broadcasters, such as by revoking their broadcast license, the threat of which could serve as a powerful pressure on broadcasters to skew their coverage of news or refrain from criticizing a president.
Similarly, the EEOC, which enforces civil rights protections in the workplace, could be pressured to stop enforcing the law or to ignore flagrant violations of women being paid less than their male colleagues at companies run by benefactors of the president.
Replacing expert civil servants with political loyalists:
Installing loyalists throughout government who will unquestioningly and swiftly carry out a president’s orders is an essential component of Project 2025. These loyalists would root out civil servants who might push back on the legality or appropriateness of such instructions and be zealous advocates in resisting any checks and balances from Congress or the courts.
To accomplish this, Project 2025 calls for reinstating executive order 13957, signed by President Trump in 2020 but rescinded by President Joe Biden, to create a new Schedule F for federal hiring.52 According to James Sherk, one of the architects of the executive order, this order was designed to strip about 50,000 career nonpartisan public servants of their civil service job protections, making it easier to immediately fire some employees and threaten others to comply with the president’s plans.
This would make it difficult to distinguish these newly reclassified Schedule F positions from existing political appointees, of which there are about 4,000, who can be hired and fired at will and are not subject to merit requirements, such as prohibitions on discrimination based on political affiliation.
The ability to hire or fire government workers based on their political beliefs—not their expertise or competence—is likely seen as a critical feature by those on the right. As Sherk opines, “That was the vision. But at the same time, I do believe that you need some more political appointees in the government. … You need more people who basically share the President’s policy agenda to carry it out effectively.”
Hiring and firing based on political fealty raises concerns about widespread cronyism in the federal government that existed prior to the establishment of a merit-based civil service. In the past, presidents put political loyalists in government jobs—and the federal government was replete with incompetence, corruption, and straight-up theft.
As Jay Cost of the American Enterprise Institute writes, “While the patronage system helped establish the party system, the corruption it produced eventually became intolerable. Before the Civil War, the patronage system’s fraud and incompetence degraded the quality of government in the United States.”
Indeed, it was the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by a disappointed job seeker that convinced Congress to create a professional career civil service with the passage of the Pendleton Act soon thereafter.
One particularly worrisome consequence is that there will not be nonpartisan lawyers who can stop illegal actions; indeed, the text of executive order 13957 is clear that Schedule F is to specifically include attorney supervisors, who would ordinarily be in such a position and who would be newly subject to summary dismissal or intimidation. Thus, illegal actions that advance the president’s political ideology or benefit campaign donors would be more likely to move forward.
Replacing career civil servants with partisan loyalists is particularly problematic, as it could represent a deep loss of the nonpartisan expertise needed by public agencies to protect Americans effectively.
Affected job positions could include nonpartisan national security directors at agencies that oversee arms control or nuclear policy; scientists who ensure a community’s water is not contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals; aviation regulators who help safeguard airplane safety; and civil servants who oversee enforcement of businesses to ensure they do not steal their workers’ wages or have them work in unsafe mines or factories.
The career civil service has faithfully served administrations of both parties for more than a century. They are the ones who help presidents execute their visions, but within the boundaries of the Constitution, the law, and in service of the American public.
Yet undercutting those core functions is precisely what Project 2025 seeks in reinstating Schedule F, removing yet another critical check and balance in America’s system of governance. It is little wonder that dismantling the civil service has been a favorite antidemocracy tactic of autocratic leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
Allowing the president to circumvent Congress’ power to decide how to spend federal funds
Key architects of Project 2025 propose another dangerous tool to weaken the constitutional authorities of Congress and seize control over the federal budget: presidential impoundment.
This power, which is illegal under federal law, refers to the executive branch’s refusal to spend appropriated monies per Congress’ directives. Congress erected the important statutory guardrails that ban presidential impoundment after President Richard Nixon abused that power to aggressively block agency spending to which he was opposed.
The Constitution unambiguously gives Congress, not the president, the power of the purse, with the authority to raise money and decide how to spend that money. The law barring presidential impoundment is a major check against presidents wishing to abuse the system by spending or withholding monies to reward political allies, punish political enemies, or obliterate government departments or programs they dislike.
Yet Project 2025 and some of its key co-authors want to revive impoundment. Project 2025 states, “Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening,” arguing that Congress is empowering a runaway bureaucracy and that a “courageous” president must “handcuff the bureaucracy” and impose “discipline” on federal spending decisions.
Russ Vought, who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump administration, supports “restoring the President’s authority to impound funds, a necessary remedy to our fiscal brokeness [sic],” and has declared that the Impoundment Control Act is “unworkable” and impermissibly micromanages how the president implements laws.63
That direction would allow a president to exert immense authoritarian control over executive branch departments or agencies and the programs they administer, bending them to the presidency’s will without regard to the traditional powers of Congress. For example, a president could starve entire departments or agencies of their federal funds, effectively killing the departments of Education, Commerce, or Labor.
Acting more surgically, a president could deprive government agencies of the ability to regulate air quality or monitor the environmental effects of oil drilling, which would be huge gifts to corporate polluters and a disaster for everyday Americans’ health. A president could also divert federal funds to boost federal prosecutions of political enemies, stop government enforcement of laws against discrimination, or target doctors who help women receive abortion-related care.
Weakening the independent media and news reporting
Project 2025 proposes steps to weaken the reach and effectiveness of the media’s news reporting, depriving everyday Americans of vital information about what their government is doing. These proposals are an affront to the proud tradition in the United States, since its founding, of a robust press that acts as a check and balance on elected officials, including the president. The media’s seminal role in American society is anchored, of course, in the First Amendment. Throughout U.S. history, there has been a healthy tension between the media’s reporting of news to the American people and the desire of presidents to do their jobs without scrutiny.
Project 2025 proposes steps to weaken the reach and effectiveness of the media’s news reporting, depriving everyday Americans of vital information about what their government is doing.As discussed above in the section about independent agencies, Project 2025 would allow a president to manipulate the levers of the FCC—perhaps in conjunction with the DOJ and other government components—to assail media companies, and their licensed outlets, that report negatively about the administration.
For example, an FCC controlled by the president could revoke the broadcast licenses of channels affiliated with major networks such as NBC, CBS, and ABC, on whom many Americans depend for their news. In addition, the DOJ and a newly non-independent FTC could launch dubious antitrust investigations into media companies that criticize the president.
Moreover, Project 2025 would make it harder for the press corps to carry out its essential reporting duties, allowing an authoritarian president an easier path to hide lawbreaking and power grabbing from the public.
The blueprint explicitly states that the president should “reexamine” the long tradition of providing workspace for the media on the White House campus, arguing, “No legal entitlement exists for the provision of permanent space for media.
Project 2025 also proposes to eliminate federal government funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, and convert the U.S. Agency for Global Media and the Voice of America into propaganda machines for the president, rather than legitimate news reporting outlets.
Government crackdowns on the media are a favorite tool of authoritarians abroad. For example, Hungary’s president and his allies have been so effective at weakening and controlling the media, including by packing the media regulator with political cronies, that they are now “beginning to resemble state media under Communism.”
In India, the authoritarian regime now targets and prosecutes journalists with whom it disagrees. Borrowing this authoritarian tool, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) drove legislative efforts to make it easier to sue reporters for defamation when they criticized him .
Misusing the Insurrection Act against Americans to stifle dissent::
One of the most dystopian proposals advocated by the authors of Project 2025 is to break yet another central political norm and stretch the boundaries of the federal Insurrection Act, allowing the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.
For example, a president could send troops into major cities across the nation to arrest—or even use deadly force against—Americans engaging in lawful protest. The president could also station armed forces in communities to suppress women’s marches, pro-worker or pro-racial justice rallies, LGBTQ Pride parades, or even individuals gathered to conduct speech or activity that runs counter to the president’s agenda.
The United States has a long, proud tradition of prohibiting military involvement in domestic law enforcement under ordinary circumstances, a principle known as “posse comitatus.”
However, an exception lies in the Insurrection Act, originally enacted by Congress in 1792 and last updated in 1871. That law allows a president the power to use the military and federalized National Guard to “take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
Although this “arcane but extraordinary authority” exists, presidents have rarely used it in recent decades, instead respecting pro-democracy values and norms. Because this law gives presidents wide latitude in determining when to invoke its use, there are very few checks and balances that can be imposed by Congress, the courts, or state and local officials.
The Insurrection Act is ripe for abuse under the vision of some of the authors of Project 2025, who reportedly have drafted an executive order to prepare an authoritarian president to use the military for domestic law enforcement in response to protests.
According to Politico, documents being drafted by the Center for Renewing America, led by Russ Vought, include “invoking the Insurrection Act on Day One to quash protests,” although the center generally denies this report.
Yet, in a July 2024 video, Vought stated that presidents have “the ability both along the border and elsewhere to maintain law and order with the military.” Stephen Miller, another far-right conservative involved earlier with Project 2025, advocated during the Trump administration for deploying troops at the southern border within the United States, but top military officials prevented it after concluding there was no legal foundation to do so.
Lamentably, the Supreme Court has already planted the seeds to allow crackdowns on dissent. Just a few months ago, the high court declined to hear McKesson v. Doe, a case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that “effectively gutted the First Amendment right to protest.”79 Pursuant to that lower court decision, “a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act,” even where the protest organizer did not direct or intend the illegal act.
Neutralizing the Senate’s role of confirming executive branch nominees and instead installing acting appointees on day one Project 2025 proposes to erase another critical check and balance on the president’s authority by allowing the Senate’s role in confirming executive branch nominees to be bypassed—and instead letting the president install appointees on day one in “acting” administrative roles.
If the opposing political party controlled the Senate, this end run around the upper chamber of Congress would be particularly problematic and not reflect the will of American voters.
Unqualified or excessively partisan nominees for senior executive branch positions would escape the necessary transparency surrounding their background, qualifications, and plans. In turn, the nation would run the risk that unqualified political cronies would be installed to aggressively implement the president’s authoritarian agenda, instead of working to keep everyday Americans safe and secure.
For example, a completely unqualified personal ally of the president, rife with conflicts of interest or hidden business dealings, could be installed at the departments of Defense, Justice, or Energy.
The Constitution and long-standing political norms dictate that presidents make good faith efforts to comply with the Senate confirmation process, a foundational component of the separation of powers. Project 2025 concedes that the Constitution requires such a process, but it nevertheless attempts to run roughshod over it.
For example, the blueprint’s chapter regarding plans for the Department of Homeland Security includes a section titled “An Aggressive Approach to Senate-Confirmed Leadership Positions. There, Project 2025 blithely states that “the next Administration may need to take a novel approach to the confirmations process to ensure an adequate and rapid transition … of the Day One agenda,” namely by placing nominees “for key positions” into positions as “actings,” including senior officials helping oversee U.S. Customs and Border Protection\ To further break norms,
Project 2025 contends, “The department should also look to remove lower-level but nevertheless important positions that currently require Senate confirmation from the confirmation requirement,” even though it concedes legislation would be necessary to accomplish this.84
Conclusion
Project 2025 is a “how-to” authoritarian guide for remaking America. This conclusion is not hyperbole or misplaced fear. Rather, it is informed, in part, by what has occurred in other democracies in recent decades, where destruction of checks and balances has resulted in authoritarian governments cementing their power, depriving citizens of fundamental rights, and reducing peace and prosperity.
America is at a crossroads, and democracy is being stress tested in unprecedented ways, with extremists trying to take far more control of the nation and everyday people’s lives. Creating an imperial presidency, while simultaneously giving more power to unaccountable judges and corporations, would make this situation far worse. The United States is the oldest continuing democracy in the world. But Americans must understand that Project 2025 provides a plausible road map to dismantling the republic and taking away their rights and freedoms
___________________________________________________________________________
TRUMPISM Pictured description found below photos
TRUMPISM:
Trumpism is the ideology of U.S. president Donald Trump and his political base. It is commonly used in close conjunction with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) and America First political movements. It comprises ideologies such as: and features significant:
- illiberal,
- authoritarian
- and at times autocratic beliefs.
Trumpists and Trumpians are terms that refer to individuals exhibiting its characteristics. There is significant academic debate over the prevalence of neo-fascist elements of Trumpism.
Trumpism has authoritarian leanings and is associated with the belief that the president is above the rule of law. It has been referred to as an American political variant of the far-right and the national-populist and neo-nationalist sentiment seen in multiple nations starting in the mid–late 2010s.
Trump's political base has been compared to a cult of personality. Trump supporters became the largest faction of the United States Republican Party, with the remainder often characterized as "the elite", "the establishment", or "Republican in name only" (RINO) in contrast. In response to the rise of Trump, there has arisen a Never Trump movement.
Themes
See also: Rhetoric of Donald Trump
Trumpism emerged during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Trump's rhetoric has its roots in a populist political method that suggests nationalistic answers to political, economic, and social problems.They are more specifically described as right-wing populist.
Policies include:
- immigration restrictionism,
- trade protectionism,
- isolationism,
- and opposition to entitlement reform.
Former National Security Advisor and close Trump advisor John Bolton disputes that Trumpism exists in any meaningful sense, adding that "[t]he man does not have a philosophy. And people can try and draw lines between the dots of his decisions. They will fail."
Writing for the Routledge Handbook of Global Populism (2019), Olivier Jutel notes, "What Donald Trump reveals is that the various iterations of right-wing American populism have less to do with a programmatic social conservatism or libertarian economics than with enjoyment."
Trump has been described as a demagogue, and there exists significant scholarly study on the use of demagogy and related themes within Trumpism.
Trump explicitly and routinely disparages include:
- racial,
- religious,
- and ethnic minorities and scholars consistently find that racial animus regarding
- blacks,
- immigrants,
- and Muslims
Trumpist rhetoric heavily features:
- anti-immigrant,
- xenophobic,
- and nativist attacks against minority groups.
Other identified aspects include:
- conspiracist,
- isolationist,
- Christian nationalist,
- evangelical Christian,
- protectionist,
- anti-feminist,
- and anti-LGBT beliefs.
Grievance:
Sociologist Michael Kimmel states that Trump's populism is "an emotion. And the emotion is righteous indignation that the government is screwing 'us.'"
Kimmel posits that Trump manifests "aggrieved entitlement", a "sense that those benefits to which you believed yourself entitled have been snatched away from you by unseen forces larger and more powerful. You feel yourself to be the heir to a great promise, the American Dream, which has turned into an impossible fantasy ..."
Vagueness:
Communications scholar Zizi Papacharissi explains the utility of being ideologically vague and using terms and slogans that can mean anything the supporter wants them to mean.
"When these publics thrive in affective engagement it's because they've found an affective hook that's built around an open signifier that they get to use and reuse and re-employ ... MAGA; that's an open signifier ... it allows them all to assign different meanings to it. So MAGA works for connecting publics that are different, because it is open enough to permit people to ascribe their own meaning to it."
Exit polling data suggests the campaign was successful at mobilizing:
- the "white disenfranchised",
- the lower- to working-class European-Americans who are:
- experiencing growing social inequality
- and who often have stated opposition to the American political establishment.
Some prominent conservatives formed a Never Trump movement, seen as a rebellion of conservative elites against the base.
Right-wing authoritarian populism:
Trumpism has been described as right-wing authoritarian populist, and is broadly seen among scholars as posing an existential threat to American democracy. His presidency sparked renewed focus and research on restraining presidential power and the threats of a criminal presidency that had died down since the Nixon administration.
Trump advocated for an extreme position of unitary executive theory, arguing that Article II gave him the right to "do whatever I want". The theory is a maximalist interpretation of presidential power formulated during the Reagan administration and pushed by the Federalist Society to undo post-Nixon reforms. Future presidents ran with "unitary-adjacent ideas" and aspects of theory held bipartisan support as part of the growing powers of the presidency.
In February 2025, Trump wrote and pinned a comment on Truth Social and X: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law", which the White House later reposted on X that day. The phrase itself is a variation of one attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, and was noted to be in line with his administration's aggressive push for expanding presidential power under the theory.
Yale sociologist Philip S. Gorski warned against the threat of Trumpism, writing that
"the election of Donald Trump constitutes perhaps the greatest threat to American democracy since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. There is a real and growing danger that representative government will be slowly but effectively supplanted by a populist form of authoritarian rule in the years to come. Media intimidation, mass propaganda, voter suppression, court packing, and even armed paramilitaries—many of the necessary and sufficient conditions for an authoritarian devolution are gradually falling into place."
Some academics regard such authoritarian backlash as a feature of liberal democracies. Disputing the view that the surge of support for Trumpism and Brexit is a new phenomenon, political scientist Karen Stenner and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt state that the far-right populist wave ... did not in fact come out of nowhere.
It is not a sudden madness, or virus, or tide, or even just a copycat phenomenon—the emboldening of bigots and despots by others' electoral successes. Rather, it is something that sits just beneath the surface of any human society—including in the advanced liberal democracies at the heart of the Western world—and can be activated by core elements of liberal democracy itself.
Stenner and Haidt regard authoritarian waves as a feature of liberal democracies noting that the findings of their 2016 study of Trump and Brexit supporters was not unexpected, as they wrote: "... normative threat tends either to leave non-authoritarians utterly unmoved by the things that catalyze authoritarians or to propel them toward being (what one might conceive as) their 'best selves.' In previous investigations, this has seen non-authoritarians move toward positions of greater tolerance and respect for diversity under the very conditions that seem to propel authoritarians toward increasing intolerance."
Author and authoritarianism critic Masha Gessen contrasted the "democratic" strategy of the Republican establishment making policy arguments appealing to the public, with the "autocratic" strategy of appealing to an "audience of one" in Donald Trump. Gessen noted the fear of Republicans that Trump would endorse a primary election opponent or otherwise use his political power to undermine any fellow party members that he felt had betrayed him.
The 2020 Republican Party platform simply endorsed "the President's America-first agenda", prompting comparisons to contemporary leader-focused party platforms in Russia and China. In January 2025, a CNN-SSRS poll found that 53% of Republicans viewed loyalty to Trump as central to their political identity and very important to what being a Republican is, beating values such as "a less powerful federal government (46%), supporting congressional Republicans (42%) or opposing Democratic policies (32%)".
Pictured below: Former Chief Strategist for the first Trump administration Steve Bannon supported many national populist political movements including creating a network of far-right groups in Europe.
Gender and masculinity
See also: Social policy of Donald Trump § LGBTQ rights
According to Philip Gorski, in Trumpian nostalgia "decline is brought about by docility and femininity and the return to greatness requires little more than a reassertion of dominance and masculinity. In this way, 'virtue' is reduced to its root etymology of manly bravado.
Michael Kimmel describes male Trump supporters who despaired "over whether or not anything could enable them to find a place with some dignity in this new, multicultural, and more egalitarian world. ... These men were angry, but they all looked back nostalgically to a time when their sense of masculine entitlement went unchallenged. They wanted to reclaim their country, restore their rightful place in it, and retrieve their manhood in the process."
Social psychologists Theresa Vescio and Nathaniel Schermerhorn note that "In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump embodied HM [hegemonic masculinity] while waxing nostalgic for a racially homogenous past that maintained an unequal gender order. Trump performed HM by repeatedly referencing his status as a successful businessman ("blue-collar businessman") and alluding to how tough he would be as president. ... Trump was openly hostile to gender-atypical women, objectified gender-typical women, and mocked the masculinity of male peers and opponents."
In their studies involving 2,007 people, they found that endorsement of hegemonic masculinity better predicted support for Trump than other factors, such as support for antiestablishment, anti-elitist, nativist, racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic perspectives.
Pictured below: Google Trends search term for "Toxic masculinity" began a substantial increase in 2016, at the time of the campaign for the U.S. presidential election.
See also: Social policy of Donald Trump § LGBTQ rights
According to Philip Gorski, in Trumpian nostalgia "decline is brought about by docility and femininity and the return to greatness requires little more than a reassertion of dominance and masculinity. In this way, 'virtue' is reduced to its root etymology of manly bravado.
Michael Kimmel describes male Trump supporters who despaired "over whether or not anything could enable them to find a place with some dignity in this new, multicultural, and more egalitarian world. ... These men were angry, but they all looked back nostalgically to a time when their sense of masculine entitlement went unchallenged. They wanted to reclaim their country, restore their rightful place in it, and retrieve their manhood in the process."
Social psychologists Theresa Vescio and Nathaniel Schermerhorn note that "In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump embodied HM [hegemonic masculinity] while waxing nostalgic for a racially homogenous past that maintained an unequal gender order. Trump performed HM by repeatedly referencing his status as a successful businessman ("blue-collar businessman") and alluding to how tough he would be as president. ... Trump was openly hostile to gender-atypical women, objectified gender-typical women, and mocked the masculinity of male peers and opponents."
In their studies involving 2,007 people, they found that endorsement of hegemonic masculinity better predicted support for Trump than other factors, such as support for antiestablishment, anti-elitist, nativist, racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic perspectives.
Pictured below: Google Trends search term for "Toxic masculinity" began a substantial increase in 2016, at the time of the campaign for the U.S. presidential election.
Pictured below: After the December 2020 introduction of COVID vaccines, a partisan gap in death rates developed, indicating the effects of vaccine skepticism.[As of March 2024, more than 30 percent of Republicans had not received a COVID vaccine, compared with less than 10 percent of Democrats. Aversion to wearing masks has been associated with Trumpism's celebration of masculinity.
Kimmel was surprised at the sexual turn the 2016 election took and thinks that Trump is for many men a fantasy figure, an uber-male free to indulge every desire. "Many of these guys feel that the current order of things has emasculated them, by which I mean it has taken away their ability to support a family and have great life. Here's a guy who says: 'I can build anything I want. I can do anything I want. I can have the women I want.' They're going, 'This guy is awesome!'"
Gender role scholar Colleen Clemens describes toxic masculinity as "a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression ... where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly 'feminine' traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual—are the means by which your status as "man" can be taken away."
Writing in the Journal of Human Rights, Kimberly Theidon notes the COVID-19 pandemic's irony of Trumpian toxic masculinity: "Being a tough guy means wearing the mask of masculinity: Being a tough guy means refusing to don a mask that might preserve one's life and the lives of others."
Tough guy bravado appeared on the internet prior to attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, with one poster writing, "Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in ... . Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die."[79] Of the rioters arrested for the attack on the U.S. Capitol, 88% were men, and 67% were 35 years or older.[80][note 4]
Opposition to aspects of transgender rights is a theme of Trumpism.[82]
Christian Trumpism
For the Trump's personal history with religion, see Donald Trump and religion.
This section is an excerpt from Christian support of Donald Trump.
Pictured below: During the 2020 George Floyd protests, Trump held a photo-op at St. John's Episcopal Church, which had been defaced the night before. Law enforcement controversially cleared a path, using riot control tactics, for Trump to walk from the White House to the church. For more information, see Donald Trump photo op at St. John's Church.
Gender role scholar Colleen Clemens describes toxic masculinity as "a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression ... where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly 'feminine' traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual—are the means by which your status as "man" can be taken away."
Writing in the Journal of Human Rights, Kimberly Theidon notes the COVID-19 pandemic's irony of Trumpian toxic masculinity: "Being a tough guy means wearing the mask of masculinity: Being a tough guy means refusing to don a mask that might preserve one's life and the lives of others."
Tough guy bravado appeared on the internet prior to attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, with one poster writing, "Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in ... . Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die."[79] Of the rioters arrested for the attack on the U.S. Capitol, 88% were men, and 67% were 35 years or older.[80][note 4]
Opposition to aspects of transgender rights is a theme of Trumpism.[82]
Christian Trumpism
For the Trump's personal history with religion, see Donald Trump and religion.
This section is an excerpt from Christian support of Donald Trump.
Pictured below: During the 2020 George Floyd protests, Trump held a photo-op at St. John's Episcopal Church, which had been defaced the night before. Law enforcement controversially cleared a path, using riot control tactics, for Trump to walk from the White House to the church. For more information, see Donald Trump photo op at St. John's Church.
Donald Trump has strong support among white evangelical Christians, particularly among those who do not attend church regularly. Trump also maintains strong support with Christian nationalists, and his rallies take on the symbols, rhetoric and agenda of Christian nationalism.
Trump described his 2024 presidential campaign as a "righteous crusade" against "atheists, globalists and the Marxists". Some Christian Trump supporters view him as divinely ordained and "chosen by God", and some compare him to Jesus, with opposition to him seen as spiritual warfare.
Trump shared and played a video entitled "God Made Trump" at several of his rallies explicitly comparing him to a messianic figure in religious terms.
Trump is frequently described among some of his Christian supporters as an Old Testament hero, with Cyrus the Great or David frequently mentioned.
The New York Times describes his supporters seeing him as one of several "morally flawed figures handpicked by God to lead profound missions aimed at achieving overdue justice or resisting existential evil". This framing has been described as "vessel theology" which allows for support of Trump and excuses his prior sexual misconduct and adultery.
Trump has strong support with members of the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation, and many Trump administration officials are aligned with the group.
Methods of persuasion
Further information:
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild writes that Trump's "speeches—evoking dominance, bravado, clarity, national pride, and personal uplift—inspire an emotional transformation" in followers, deeply resonating with their "emotional self-interest".
Hochschild states that Trump is an "emotions candidate", appealing to the emotional self-interests of voters. To Hochschild, this explains the paradox raised by Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter with Kansas?, an anomaly which motivated her five-year immersive research into the emotional dynamics of the Tea Party movement which she believes has mutated into Trumpism.
Her book Strangers in Their Own Land was named one of the "6 books to understand Trump's Win" by The New York Times. Hochschild claims that voters were not persuaded by rhetoric to vote against their self-interest through appeals to the "bad angels" of their nature: "their greed, selfishness, racial intolerance, homophobia, and desire to get out of paying taxes that go to the unfortunate."
She grants that the appeal to bad angels is made by Trump, but states that it "obscures another—to the right wing's good angels—their patience in waiting in line in scary economic times, their capacity for loyalty, sacrifice, and endurance", qualities she describes as a part of a motivating narrative she calls their "deep story", a social contract narrative that appears to be widely shared in other countries as well.
She thinks Trump's approach towards his audience creates group cohesiveness by exploiting a crowd phenomenon Emile Durkheim called "collective effervescence", "a state of emotional excitation felt by those who join with others they take to be fellow members of a moral or biological tribe ... to affirm their unity and, united, they feel secure and respected."
Trumpian rhetoric employs absolutist framings and threat narratives rejecting the political establishment. The absolutist rhetoric emphasizes non-negotiable boundaries and moral outrage at their supposed violation.
Money-Kyrle pattern
A particular pattern is common for authoritarian movements. First, elicit a sense of depression, humiliation and victimhood. Second, separate the world into two opposing groups: a demonized set of others versus those who have the power and will to overcome them.
This involves identifying the enemy supposedly causing the current state of affairs and then promoting conspiracy theories and fearmongering to inflame fear and anger. After cycling these first two patterns through the populace, the final message aims to produce a cathartic release of pent-up ochlocracy and mob energy, with a promise that salvation is at hand because the leader will deliver the nation back to its former glory.
This three-part pattern was identified in 1932 by Roger Money-Kyrle who wrote Psychology of Propaganda. Reporting on Trumpist rallies has documented expressions of the Money-Kyrle pattern and associated stagecraft.
Trump rallies
Critical theory scholar Douglas Kellner compares the elaborate staging of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will with that used in Trump rallies using the example of the preparation of photo op sequences and aggressive hyping of huge attendance expected for Trump's 2015 primary event in Mobile, Alabama, when the media coverage repeatedly cuts between the Trump jet circling the stadium, the rising excitement of rapturous admirers below, the motorcade and the final triumphal entrance of the individual Kellner claims is being presented as the "political savior to help them out with their problems and address their grievances".
Connolly thinks the performance draws energy from the crowd's anger as it channels it, drawing it into a collage of anxieties, frustrations and resentments about malaise themes, such as:
Connolly observes that animated gestures, pantomiming, facial expressions, strutting and finger pointing are incorporated as part of the theater, transforming the anxiety into anger directed at particular targets, concluding that "each element in a Trump performance flows and folds into the others until an aggressive resonance machine is formed that is more intense than its parts."
Some compare the symbiotic dynamics of crowd pleasing to that of the professional wrestling style of events which Trump was involved with since the 1980s.
Some academics point out that the narrative common in the popular press describing the psychology of such crowds is a repetition of a 19th-century theory by Gustave Le Bon when organized crowds were seen by political elites as potential threats to the social order. In his book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895), Le Bon described a sort of collective contagion uniting a crowd into a near religious frenzy, reducing members to barbaric, if not subhuman levels of consciousness with mindless goals.
Since such a description depersonalizes supporters, this type of Le Bon analysis is criticized because the would-be defenders of liberal democracy simultaneously are dodging responsibility for investigating grievances while also unwittingly accepting the same us vs. them framing of illiberalism.
Connolly acknowledges the risks but considers it more risky to ignore that Trumpian persuasion is successful due to deliberate use of techniques evoking more mild forms of affective contagion.
Pictured below: Trump relies on theatrical devices to market his messages, including animated gestures, pantomiming and facial expressions. Photo is from the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference.
Trump described his 2024 presidential campaign as a "righteous crusade" against "atheists, globalists and the Marxists". Some Christian Trump supporters view him as divinely ordained and "chosen by God", and some compare him to Jesus, with opposition to him seen as spiritual warfare.
Trump shared and played a video entitled "God Made Trump" at several of his rallies explicitly comparing him to a messianic figure in religious terms.
Trump is frequently described among some of his Christian supporters as an Old Testament hero, with Cyrus the Great or David frequently mentioned.
The New York Times describes his supporters seeing him as one of several "morally flawed figures handpicked by God to lead profound missions aimed at achieving overdue justice or resisting existential evil". This framing has been described as "vessel theology" which allows for support of Trump and excuses his prior sexual misconduct and adultery.
Trump has strong support with members of the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation, and many Trump administration officials are aligned with the group.
Methods of persuasion
Further information:
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild writes that Trump's "speeches—evoking dominance, bravado, clarity, national pride, and personal uplift—inspire an emotional transformation" in followers, deeply resonating with their "emotional self-interest".
Hochschild states that Trump is an "emotions candidate", appealing to the emotional self-interests of voters. To Hochschild, this explains the paradox raised by Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter with Kansas?, an anomaly which motivated her five-year immersive research into the emotional dynamics of the Tea Party movement which she believes has mutated into Trumpism.
Her book Strangers in Their Own Land was named one of the "6 books to understand Trump's Win" by The New York Times. Hochschild claims that voters were not persuaded by rhetoric to vote against their self-interest through appeals to the "bad angels" of their nature: "their greed, selfishness, racial intolerance, homophobia, and desire to get out of paying taxes that go to the unfortunate."
She grants that the appeal to bad angels is made by Trump, but states that it "obscures another—to the right wing's good angels—their patience in waiting in line in scary economic times, their capacity for loyalty, sacrifice, and endurance", qualities she describes as a part of a motivating narrative she calls their "deep story", a social contract narrative that appears to be widely shared in other countries as well.
She thinks Trump's approach towards his audience creates group cohesiveness by exploiting a crowd phenomenon Emile Durkheim called "collective effervescence", "a state of emotional excitation felt by those who join with others they take to be fellow members of a moral or biological tribe ... to affirm their unity and, united, they feel secure and respected."
Trumpian rhetoric employs absolutist framings and threat narratives rejecting the political establishment. The absolutist rhetoric emphasizes non-negotiable boundaries and moral outrage at their supposed violation.
Money-Kyrle pattern
A particular pattern is common for authoritarian movements. First, elicit a sense of depression, humiliation and victimhood. Second, separate the world into two opposing groups: a demonized set of others versus those who have the power and will to overcome them.
This involves identifying the enemy supposedly causing the current state of affairs and then promoting conspiracy theories and fearmongering to inflame fear and anger. After cycling these first two patterns through the populace, the final message aims to produce a cathartic release of pent-up ochlocracy and mob energy, with a promise that salvation is at hand because the leader will deliver the nation back to its former glory.
This three-part pattern was identified in 1932 by Roger Money-Kyrle who wrote Psychology of Propaganda. Reporting on Trumpist rallies has documented expressions of the Money-Kyrle pattern and associated stagecraft.
Trump rallies
Critical theory scholar Douglas Kellner compares the elaborate staging of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will with that used in Trump rallies using the example of the preparation of photo op sequences and aggressive hyping of huge attendance expected for Trump's 2015 primary event in Mobile, Alabama, when the media coverage repeatedly cuts between the Trump jet circling the stadium, the rising excitement of rapturous admirers below, the motorcade and the final triumphal entrance of the individual Kellner claims is being presented as the "political savior to help them out with their problems and address their grievances".
Connolly thinks the performance draws energy from the crowd's anger as it channels it, drawing it into a collage of anxieties, frustrations and resentments about malaise themes, such as:
- deindustrialization,
- offshoring,
- racial tensions,
- political correctness,
- a more humble position for the United States in global security,
- economics
- and so on.
Connolly observes that animated gestures, pantomiming, facial expressions, strutting and finger pointing are incorporated as part of the theater, transforming the anxiety into anger directed at particular targets, concluding that "each element in a Trump performance flows and folds into the others until an aggressive resonance machine is formed that is more intense than its parts."
Some compare the symbiotic dynamics of crowd pleasing to that of the professional wrestling style of events which Trump was involved with since the 1980s.
Some academics point out that the narrative common in the popular press describing the psychology of such crowds is a repetition of a 19th-century theory by Gustave Le Bon when organized crowds were seen by political elites as potential threats to the social order. In his book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895), Le Bon described a sort of collective contagion uniting a crowd into a near religious frenzy, reducing members to barbaric, if not subhuman levels of consciousness with mindless goals.
Since such a description depersonalizes supporters, this type of Le Bon analysis is criticized because the would-be defenders of liberal democracy simultaneously are dodging responsibility for investigating grievances while also unwittingly accepting the same us vs. them framing of illiberalism.
Connolly acknowledges the risks but considers it more risky to ignore that Trumpian persuasion is successful due to deliberate use of techniques evoking more mild forms of affective contagion.
Pictured below: Trump relies on theatrical devices to market his messages, including animated gestures, pantomiming and facial expressions. Photo is from the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference.
Rhetoric
A constant barrage of rhetoric rivets media attention while obscuring actions such as neoliberal deregulation. One study concluded that significant environmental deregulation occurred during the first year of the Trump administration but, due to its concurrent use of racist rhetoric, escaped much media attention.
According to the authors, the rhetoric served political objectives of dehumanizing its targets, eroding democratic norms, and consolidating power by emotionally connecting with and inflaming resentments among the base of followers and distracted media attention from deregulatory policymaking by igniting media coverage of the distractions.
According to civil rights lawyer Burt Neuborne and political theorist William E. Connolly, Trumpist rhetoric employs tropes similar to those used by fascists in Germany to persuade citizens (at first a minority) to give up democracy, by using a barrage of:
Neuborne found twenty parallel practices, such as:
Connolly presents a similar list in his book Aspirational Fascism (2017), adding comparisons of the integration of theatrics and crowd participation with rhetoric, involving:
Despite the similarities, Connolly stresses that Trump is no Nazi but is "an aspirational fascist:
In his 2024 book Trump and Hitler: A Comparative Study in Lying, cultural theorist Henk de Berg points to a number of further parallels between Trump's and Hitler's rhetoric; namely,
De Berg also points out that extremist language used by Trump's followers is often perceived as authentic, because in real life we also tend to overstate things (e.g., "My new boss is worse than Stalin").
Branding:
Trump used personal branding to market himself as an extraordinary leader by using his celebrity status and name recognition. As one of the communications director for the MAGA super PAC put it in 2016, "Like Hercules, Donald Trump is a work of fiction."
Journalism professor Mark Danner explains that "week after week for a dozen years millions of Americans saw Donald J. Trump portraying:
Political science scholar Andrea Schneiker regards the branding strategy of the Trump public persona as that of a superhero who "uses his superpowers to save others, that is, his country. ... a superhero is needed to solve the problems of ordinary Americans ... Hence, the superhero per definition is an anti-politician. Due to his celebrity status and his identity as entertainer, Donald Trump can thereby be considered to be allowed to take extraordinary measures and even to break rules."
Appeal to emotions:
Historian Peter E. Gordon observes that "Trump, far from being a violation of the norm, actually signifies an emergent norm of the social order" where the categories of the psychological and political have dissolved.
In accounting for Trump's election and ability to sustain high approval ratings among voters, Erika Tucker writes in the book Trump and Political Philosophy that though all presidential campaigns have strong emotions associated with them, Trump was able to recognize, and then to gain the trust and loyalty of those who felt strong emotions about perceived changes in the United States. She notes, "Political psychologist Drew Westen has argued that Democrats are less successful at gauging and responding to affective politics—issues that arouse strong emotional states."
Examining the populist appeal of Trump, Hidalgo-Tenorio and Benítez-Castro draw on the theories of Ernesto Laclau, writing, "The emotional appeal of populist discourse is key to its polarising effects, this being so much so that populism 'would be unintelligible without the affective component.' (Laclau 2005, 11)"
Trump uses rhetoric that political scientists have deemed to be both dehumanizing and connected to physical violence by Trump's followers.
Emotion, trust, and media:
Communications scholar Michael Carpini states that "Trumpism is a culmination of trends that have been occurring for several decades. What we are witnessing is nothing short of a fundamental shift in the relationships between journalism, politics, and democracy."
Among the shifts, Carpini identifies "the collapsing of the prior [media] regime's presumed and enforced distinctions between news and entertainment."
Examining Trump's use of media for the book Language in the Trump Era, communication professor Marco Jacquemet writes that this approach "assumes (correctly, it appears) that his audiences care more about shock and entertainment value in their media consumption than almost anything else."
Plasser & Ulram (2003) describe a media logic which emphasizes "personalization ... a political star system ... [and] sports based dramatization."
Olivier Jutel notes that "Donald Trump's celebrity status and reality-TV rhetoric of 'winning' and 'losing' corresponds perfectly to these values", asserting that "Fox News and conservative personalities from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones do not simply represent a new political and media voice but embody the convergence of politics and media in which affect and enjoyment are the central values of media production."
Studying paranoia in media, anthropologist Jessica Johnson writes, "Rather than finding accurate news meaningful, Facebook users find the affective pleasure of connectivity addictive, whether or not the information they share is factual, and that is how communicative capitalism captivates subjects as it holds them captive."
Looking back at the world prior to social media, communications researcher Brian L. Ott writes: "I'm nostalgic for the world of television that [Neil] Postman (1985) argued, produced the 'least well-informed people in the Western world' by packaging news as entertainment. (pp. 106–107)
Twitter is producing the most self-involved people in history by treating everything one does or thinks as newsworthy. Television may have assaulted journalism, but Twitter killed it."
Commenting on Trump's support among Fox News viewers, Hofstra University Communication Dean Mark Lukasiewicz has a similar perspective, writing, "Tristan Harris famously said that social networks are about 'affirmation, not information'—and the same can be said about cable news, especially in prime time."
Arlie Russell Hochschild holds that Trump supporters trust their preferred sources of information due to the affective bond they have with them. As media scholar Daniel Kreiss summarizes Hochschild, "Trump, along with Fox News, gave these strangers in their own land the hope that they would be restored to their rightful place at the center of the nation, and provided a very real emotional release from the fetters of political correctness that dictated they respect people of color, lesbians and gays, and those of other faiths ... that the network's personalities share the same 'deep story' of political and social life, and therefore they learn from them 'what to feel afraid, angry, and anxious about.'"
From Kreiss's 2018 account of conservative personalities and media, information became less important than providing a sense of familial bonding, where "family provides a sense of identity, place, and belonging; emotional, social, and cultural support and security; and gives rise to political and social affiliations and beliefs."
Hochschild gives the example of a woman who states, "Bill O'Reilly is like a steady, reliable dad. Sean Hannity is like a difficult uncle who rises to anger too quickly. Megyn Kelly is like a smart sister. Then there's Greta Van Susteren. And Juan Williams, who came over from NPR, which was too left for him, the adoptee. They're all different, just like in a family."
Media scholar Olivier Jutel notes that, "Affect is central to the brand strategy of Fox which imagined its journalism not in terms of servicing the rational citizen in the public sphere but in 'craft[ing] intensive relationships with their viewers' (Jones, 2012: 180) in order to sustain audience share across platforms."
In this segmented market, Trump "offers himself as an ego-ideal to an individuated public of enjoyment that coalesce around his media brand as part of their own performance of identity." Jutel states that news media companies benefit from offering spectacle and drama.
"Trump is a definitive product of mediatized politics providing the spectacle that drives ratings and affective media consumption, either as part of his populist movement or as the liberal resistance."
Researchers give differing emphasis to which emotions are important to followers. Michael Richardson argues in the Journal of Media and Cultural Studies that "affirmation, amplification and circulation of disgust is one of the primary affective drivers of Trump's political success."
Richardson agrees with Ott about the "entanglement of Trumpian affect and social media crowds" who seek "affective affirmation, confirmation and amplification. Social media postings of crowd experiences accumulate as 'archives of feelings' that are both dynamic in nature and affirmative of social values (Pybus 2015, 239)."
Using Trump as an example, social trust expert Karen Jones follows philosopher Annette Baier in explaining that the masters of the art of creating trust and distrust are populist politicians and criminals, who "show a masterful appreciation of the ways in which certain emotional states drive out trust and replace it with distrust."
Jones sees Trump as an exemplar of this class who recognize that fear and contempt are tools that can reorient networks of trust and distrust in social networks in order to alter how a potential supporter "interprets the words, deeds, and motives of the other." She holds that "A core strategy of Donald Trump, both as candidate and president, has been to manufacture fear and contempt towards some undocumented migrants (among other groups)", a strategy which "has gone global ... in Australia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Italy and the United Kingdom."
Falsehoods
See also:
There are many falsehoods which Trump presents as facts. Drawing on Harry G. Frankfurt's book On Bullshit, political science professor Matthew McManus argues that Trump is a bullshitter whose sole interest is to persuade, and not a liar (e.g. Richard Nixon) who takes the power of truth seriously and so deceitfully attempts to conceal it. Trump by contrast is indifferent to the truth or unaware of it.
Unlike conventional lies of politicians exaggerating their accomplishments, Trump's lies are egregious, making lies about easily verifiable facts. At one rally Trump stated his father "came from Germany", even though Fred Trump was born in New York City.
Leaders at the 2018 United Nations General Assembly burst into laughter at his boast that he had accomplished more in his first two years than any other United States president. Visibly startled, Trump responded to the audience: "I didn't expect that reaction."
Trump lies about the trivial, such as claiming that there was no rain on the day of his inauguration when in fact it did rain, as well as making grandiose "Big Lies", such as claiming that Obama founded ISIS, or promoting the birther movement, a conspiracy theory which claims that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii. Connolly points to the similarities of such reality-bending gaslighting with fascist and post Soviet techniques of propaganda including Kompromat (scandalous material), stating that "Trumpian persuasion draws significantly upon the repetition of Big Lies."
Robert Jay Lifton, a scholar of psychohistory and authority on the nature of cults, emphasizes the importance of understanding Trumpism "as an assault on reality". A leader has more power if he is in any part successful at making truth irrelevant to his followers.
Trump biographer Timothy L. O'Brien agrees, stating: "It is a core operating principle of Trumpism. If you constantly attack objective reality, you are left as the only trustworthy source of information, which is one of his goals for his relationship with his supporters—that they should believe no one else but him."
Lifton believes Trump is a purveyor of a solipsistic reality which is hostile to facts and is made collective by amplifying frustrations and fears held by his community of zealous believers.
Research published in the American Sociological Review found that Trump's lying helped boost his "authentic appeal". It argued that in systems viewed as flawed or with low political legitimacy, a "flagrant violator of established norms" is seen "as an authentic champion" by being perceived as "bravely speaking a deep and otherwise suppressed truth" against a political establishment that does not appear to be working on behalf of the people.
While a perceived establishment candidate "may be more likable or perceived to be more competent", voters question the candidates opposition to "the injustice that is said to have permeated the established political system".
Andrew Gumbel, writing for The Guardian after the 2024 presidential election, wrote that many Trump voters in Youngstown, Ohio saw both parties as filled with crooks and liars, but that Trump "comes across as someone who doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is, and that perceived authenticity counts for more with many Youngstown voters than his character flaws or even his policy positions".
Gumbel argued that voters preferred "gut instincts" to "carefully scripted messaging of a Democrat like Kamala Harris or even a mainstream Republican".
Social psychology:
Dominance orientation
Social psychology research into the Trump movement, such as that of Bob Altemeyer, Thomas F. Pettigrew, and Karen Stenner, views the Trump movement as primarily being driven by the psychological predispositions of its followers, although political and historical factors (reviewed elsewhere in this article) are also involved.
An article in Social Psychological and Personality Science described a study concluding that Trump followers prefer hierarchical and ethnocentric social orders that favor their in-group.
In the non-academic book, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers, Altemeyer and John Dean describe research which reaches the same conclusions.
Despite disparate and inconsistent beliefs and ideologies, a coalition of such followers can become cohesive and broad in part because each individual "compartmentalizes" their thoughts and they are free to define their sense of the threatened tribal in-group in their own terms, whether it is:
Altemeyer, MacWilliams, Feldman, Choma, Hancock, Van Assche and Pettigrew claim that instead of directly attempting to measure such ideological, racial or policy views, supporters of such movements can be reliably predicted by using two social psychology scales (singly or in combination), namely
In May 2019, Monmouth University Polling Institute conducted a study in collaboration with Altemeyer in order to empirically test the hypothesis using the SDO and RWA measures.
The finding was that social dominance orientation and affinity for authoritarian leadership are highly correlated with followers of Trumpism. This study further confirmed of the studies discussed in:
The research does not imply that the followers always behave in an authoritarian manner but that expression is contingent, which means there is reduced influence if it is not triggered by fear and what the subject perceives as threats.
Similar social psychological techniques for analyzing Trumpism have been effective in identifying adherents of similar movements in Europe, including in Belgium and France:
Quoting comments from participants in focus groups made up of people who had voted for Democrat Obama in 2012 but flipped to Trump in 2016, pollster Diane Feldman noted the anti-government, anti-coastal-elite anger: "'They think they're better than us, they're P.C., they're virtue-signallers.' '[Trump] doesn't come across as one of those people who think they're better than us and are screwing us.' 'They lecture us.' 'They don't even go to church.' 'They're in charge, and they're ripping us off.'"
Comparisons to animal social behavior:
Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich explained the central role of dominance in his speech "Principles of Trumpism", comparing the needed leadership style to that of a violent bear. Psychology researcher Dan P. McAdams thinks a better comparison is to the dominance behavior of alpha male chimpanzees such as Yeroen, the subject of an extensive study of chimp social behavior conducted by renowned primatologist Frans de Waal.
Christopher Boehm, a professor of biology and anthropology agrees, writing, "his model of political posturing has echoes of what I saw in the wild in six years in Tanzania studying the Gombe chimpanzees," and "seems like a classic alpha display."
Using the example of Yeroen, McAdams describes the similarities:
Primatologist Dame Jane Goodall explains that like the dominance performances of Trump, "In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays: Stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks. The more vigorous and imaginative the display, the faster the individual is likely to rise in the hierarchy, and the longer he is likely to maintain that position."
The comparison has been echoed by political observers sympathetic to Trump. Nigel Farage, an enthusiastic backer of Trump, stated that in the 2016 United States presidential debates where Trump loomed up on Clinton, he "looked like a big silverback gorilla", and added that "he is that big alpha male. The leader of the pack!"
`
McAdams points out the audience gets to vicariously share in the sense of dominance due to the parasocial bonding that his performance produces for his fans, as shown by Shira Gabriel's research studying the phenomenon in Trump's role in The Apprentice.
McAdams writes that the "television audience vicariously experienced the world according to Donald Trump", a world where Trump says "Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat."
Collective narcissism
Further information:
Cultural anthropologist Paul Stoller thinks Trump employed celebrity culture-glitz, illusion and fantasy to construct a shared alternate reality where lies become truth and reality's resistance to one's own dreams is overcome by the right attitude and bold self-confidence.
Trump's father indoctrinated his children from an early age into the positive thinking approach to reality advocated by the family's pastor Norman Vincent Peale. Trump said that Peale considered him the greatest student of his philosophy that regards facts as not important, because positive attitudes will instead cause what you "image" to materialize.
Trump biographer Gwenda Blair thinks Trump "weaponized" Peale's self-help philosophy.
Collective narcissism measures have been shown to be a powerful predictor of membership in authoritarian movements including Trump's.
In his book Believe Me which details Trump's exploitation of white evangelical politics of fear, Messiah College history professor John Fea points out the narcissistic nature of the fanciful appeals to nostalgia, noting that "In the end, the practice of nostalgia is inherently selfish because it focuses entirely on our own experience of the past and not on the experience of others.
For example, people nostalgic for the world of Leave It to Beaver may fail to recognize that other people, perhaps even some of the people living in the Cleaver's suburban "paradise" of the 1950s, were not experiencing the world in a way that they would describe as 'great.'
Nostalgia can give us tunnel vision. Its selective use of the past fails to recognize the complexity and breadth of the human experience ... ."
According to Fea, the hopelessness of achieving an idealized past "causes us to imagine a future filled with horror" leading to conspiratorial narratives that easily mobilize white evangelicals.
As a result, they are easily captivated by a strongman such as Trump who repeats and amplifies their fears while posing as the deliverer from them. In his review of Fea's analysis of the impact of conspiracy theories on white evangelical Trump supporters, scholar of religious politics David Gutterman writes: "The greater the threat, the more powerful the deliverance."
Gutterman's view is that "Donald J. Trump did not invent this formula; evangelicals have, in their lack of spiritual courage, demanded and gloried in this message for generations. Despite the literal biblical reassurance to 'fear not,' white evangelicals are primed for fear, their identity is stoked by fear, and the sources of fear are around every unfamiliar turn.
Social theory scholar John Cash notes that disaster narratives of impending horrors have a broad audience, pointing to a 2010 Pew study which found that 41 percent of those in the US think that the world will probably be destroyed by the middle of the century. Cash points out that certainties may be found in other narratives which also have the effect of uniting like minded individuals into shared "us versus them" narratives.
Cash thinks that psychoanalytic theorist Joel Whitebook is correct that "Trumpism as a social experience can be understood as a psychotic like phenomenon, that "[Trumpism is] an intentional [...] attack on our relation to reality." Whitebook thinks Trump's playbook is like that of Putin's strategist Vladislav Surkov who employs "ceaseless shapeshifting, appealing to nationalist skinheads one moment and human rights groups the next."
Cash compares Alice in Wonderland to Trump's ability to seemingly embrace disparate fantasies in a series of contradictory tweets and pronouncements, for example appearing to encourage the "neo-Nazi protestors" after Charlottesville or for audiences with felt grievances about America's first black president, the claim that Obama wiretapped him.
Cash writes: "Unlike the resilient Alice, who ... insists on truth and accuracy when confronted by a world of reversals, contradictions, nonsense and irrationality, Trump reverses this process. ... Trump has dragged the uninhibited and distorted world of the other side of the looking-glass into our shared world."
Lifton sees important differences between Trumpism and typical cults, such as not advancing a totalist ideology and lack of isolation from the outside world. Lifton identifies similarities with cults that disparage the "fake world" created by the cult's titanic enemies.
Cultlike persuasion techniques are used, such as echoing of catch phrases. Examples include the use of call and response ("Clinton" triggers "lock her up"; immigrants" triggers "build that wall"; "who will pay for it?" triggers "Mexico").
All of the above deepens the sense of unity between the leader and the community. Participants and observers at rallies have remarked on a liberating feeling which Lifton calls a "high state" that "can even be called experiences of transcendence".
Conspiracy theories
See also: List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
Conservative culture commentator David Brooks observes that under Trump, this post-truth mindset, heavily reliant on conspiracy themes, came to dominate Republican identity, providing its believers a sense of superiority since such insiders possess important information most people do not have.
This results in an empowering sense of agency with the liberation, entitlement and group duty to reject "experts" and the influence of hidden cabals seeking to dominate them.
Prior to 2015, Trump already had established a bond with followers due to television and media appearances. For those sharing his political views, Trump's use of Twitter to share his views caused those bonds to intensify, causing his supporters to feel a deepened empathetic bond as with a friend—sharing his anger and outrage, taking pride in his successes, sharing in his denial of failures and his oftentimes conspiratorial views.
Brooks thinks sharing of conspiracy theories has become the most powerful community bonding mechanism of the 21st century.
Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics describes the political efficacy of conspiracy theories. Some attribute Trump's political success to making such narratives a rhetorical staple. The conspiracy theory QAnon asserts that top Democrats run a child sex-trafficking ring and Trump is trying to dismantle it. An October 2020 Yahoo-YouGov poll showed that elements of the QAnon claims are said to be true by half of Trump supporters polled.
Some social psychologists see the predisposition of Trumpists towards interpreting social interactions in terms of dominance frameworks as extending to their relationship towards facts. A study by Felix Sussenbach and Adam B. Moore found that the dominance motive strongly correlated with hostility towards disconfirming facts and affinity for conspiracies among 2016 Trump voters but not among Clinton voters.
Many critics note Trump's skill in exploiting narrative, emotion, and a whole host of rhetorical ploys to draw supporters into the group's common adventure as characters in a story much bigger than themselves.
It is a story that involves not just a community-building call to arms to defeat titanic threats, or of the leader's heroic deeds restoring American greatness, but of a restoration of each supporter's individual sense of liberty and control Trump channels and amplifies these aspirations, explaining in one of his books that his bending of the truth is effective because it plays to people's greatest fantasies.
By contrast, Clinton was dismissive of such emotion-filled storytelling and ignored the emotional dynamics of the Trumpist narrative.
Cult of personality:
Trump's support has been compared to a cult of personality. Trump's message and self-representation involved the creation of an identity as a non-politician, businessman, and great leader, distancing himself from traditional politicians and from the traditional Republican Party.
His strategy involved the creation of an ethos of "saving America" through populist intentions and fighting imagined enemies with "I versus them" rhetoric that constituted the formation of a cult of personality.
Trump's contingent of hard-core supporters allowed him to maintain a grip on his political party even after several actions and controversies that would have discredited other politicians.
News media and commentators have widely characterized Trump as the object of a personality cult. His support was found to satisfy all parameters needed to determine a personality cult based on Max Weber's concept of charismatic authority.
Research found examples of asymmetric bias by his supporters in favor of Trump that did not exist among left-leaning individuals among alleged cases of "Trump derangement syndrome".
Other research has argued that Trump's personality cult revolves around an "all-powerful, charismatic figure, contributing to a social milieu at risk for the erosion of democratic principles and the rise of fascism" based on the analysis of psychoanalysts and sociopolitical historians.
Research using the Big Five model of personality has found that his most loyal followers tend to score highly in conscientiousness / self-discipline, traits likely to be attracted to "personalistic, loyalty-demanding leaders" like Trump.
Several aspects of cult-like loyalty to Trump have been found to have religious parallels among certain supporters, and certain evangelicals have referred to him in religious terms, casting him as a divinely ordained savior and "chosen one".
Relationship with media:
Culture industry and pillarization:
Further information: Culture industry
Peter E. Gordon, Alex Ross, sociologist David L. Andrews and Harvard political theorist David Lebow look on Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's concept of the "culture industry" as useful for comprehending Trumpism.
As Ross explains the concept, the culture industry replicates "fascist methods of mass hypnosis ... blurring the line between reality and fiction", explaining, "Trump is as much a pop-culture phenomenon as he is a political one."
Gordon observes that these purveyors of popular culture are not just leveraging outrage, but are turning politics into a more commercially lucrative product, a "polarized, standardized reflection of opinion into forms of humor and theatricalized outrage within narrow niche markets ... within which one swoons to one's preferred slogan and already knows what one knows. Name just about any political position and what sociologists call 'pillarization'—or what the Frankfurt School called 'ticket' thinking—will predict, almost without fail, a full suite of opinions."
Trumpism is from Lebow's perspective, more of a result of this process than a cause. In the intervening years since Adorno's work, Lebow believes the culture industry has evolved into a politicizing culture market "based increasingly on the internet, constituting a self-referential hyperreality shorn from any reality of referants ... sensationalism and insulation intensify intolerance of dissonance and magnify hostility against alternative hyperrealities. In a self-reinforcing logic of escalation, intolerance and hostility further encourage sensationalism and the retreat into insularity.
From Gordon's view, "Trumpism itself, one could argue, is just another name for the culture industry, where the performance of undoing repression serves as a means for carrying on precisely as before."
From this viewpoint, the susceptibility to psychological manipulation of individuals with social dominance inclinations is not at the center of Trumpism, but is instead the "culture industry" which exploits these and other susceptibilities by using mechanisms that condition people to think in standardized ways.
The burgeoning culture industry respects no political boundaries as it develops these markets with Gordon emphasizing "This is true on the left as well as the right, and it is especially noteworthy once we countenance what passes for political discourse today. Instead of a public sphere, we have what Jürgen Habermas long ago called the refeudalization of society."
What Kreiss calls an "identity-based account of media" is important for understanding Trump's success because "citizens understand politics and accept information through the lens of partisan identity. ... The failure to come to grips with a socially embedded public and an identity group–based democracy has placed significant limits on our ability to imagine a way forward for journalism and media in the Trump era. As Fox News and Breitbart have discovered, there is power in the claim of representing and working for particular publics, quite apart from any abstract claims to present the truth."
Profitability of spectacle and outrage
Further information: Outrage discourse
Examining Trumpism as an entertainment product, some media research focuses on outrage discourse, relating the entertainment value of Trump's rhetoric to the commercial interests of media companies. Outrage narratives on political blogs, talk radio and cable news shows were, in the decades prior, a new genre which grew due to its profitability.
Media critic David Denby writes, "Like a good standup comic, Trump invites the audience to join him in the adventure of delivering his act—in this case, the barbarously entertaining adventure of running a Presidential campaign that insults everybody."
Denby claims that Trump is good at delivering entertainment that consumers demand. He observes that "The movement's standard of allowable behavior has been formed by popular culture—by standup comedy and, recently, by reality TV and by the snarking, trolling habits of the Internet. ... it's exactly vulgar sensationalism and buffoonery that his audience is buying. Donald Trump has been produced by America."
Trump made false assertions, mean spirited attacks and dog whistle appeals to racial and religious intolerance. CBS's CEO Les Moonves remarked that "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS," demonstrating how Trump's messaging is compatible with the financial goals of media companies.
Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center considers Trump a political "shock jock" who "thrives on creating disorder, in violating rules, in provoking outrage."
The political profitability of incivility was demonstrated by the amount of airtime devoted to Trump's 2016 primary campaign—estimated at two billion to almost five billion dollars.
The advantage of incivility was as true in social media, where "a BuzzFeed analysis found that the top 20 fake election news stories emanating from hoax sites and hyper-partisan blogs generated more engagement on Facebook (as measured by shares, reactions, and comments) than the top 20 election stories produced by 19 major news outlets combined, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and NBC News."
Social media:
Further information: Collective narcissism, Group polarization, and Social media use by Donald Trump
Surveying research of how Trumpist communication is well suited to social media, Brian Ott writes that, "commentators who have studied Trump's public discourse have observed speech patterns that correspond closely to what I identified as Twitter's three defining features [Simplicity, impulsivity, and incivility]."
Media critic Neal Gabler has a similar viewpoint writing that "What FDR was to radio and JFK to television, Trump is to Twitter." Outrage discourse expert Patrick O'Callaghan argues that social media is most effective when it utilizes the particular type of communication which Trump relies on.
O'Callaghan notes that sociologist Sarah Sobieraj and political scientist Jeffrey M. Berry almost perfectly described in 2011 the social media communication style used by Trump long before his presidential campaign. They explained that such discourse
Due to Facebook's and Twitter's narrowcasting environment in which outrage discourse thrives, Trump's employment of such messaging at almost every opportunity was from O'Callaghan's account extremely effective because tweets and posts were repeated in viral fashion among like minded supporters, thereby rapidly building a substantial information echo chamber, a phenomenon Cass Sunstein identifies as group polarization, and other researchers refer to as a kind of self re-enforcing homophily.
Within these information cocoons, it matters little to social media companies whether much of the information spread in such pillarized information silos is false, because as digital culture critic Olivia Solon points out, "the truth of a piece of content is less important than whether it is shared, liked, and monetized."
Citing Pew Research's survey that found 62% of US adults get their news from social media, Ott expresses alarm, "since the 'news' content on social media regularly features fake and misleading stories from sources devoid of editorial standards."
Media critic Alex Ross is similarly alarmed, observing, "Silicon Valley monopolies have taken a hands-off, ideologically vacant attitude toward the upswelling of ugliness on the Internet," and that "the failure of Facebook to halt the proliferation of fake news during the [Trump vs. Clinton] campaign season should have surprised no one. ... Traffic trumps ethics."
O'Callaghan's analysis of Trump's use of social media is that "outrage hits an emotional nerve and is therefore grist to the populist's or the social antagonist's mill. Secondly, the greater and the more widespread the outrage discourse, the more it has a detrimental effect on social capital. This is because it leads to mistrust and misunderstanding amongst individuals and groups, to entrenched positions, to a feeling of 'us versus them'.
So understood, outrage discourse not only produces extreme and polarizing views but also ensures that a cycle of such views continues. (Consider also in this context Wade Robison (2020) on the 'contagion of passion' and Cass Sunstein (2001, pp. 98–136) on 'cybercascades'.)"
Ott agrees, stating that contagion is the best word to describe the viral nature of outrage discourse on social media, and writing that "Trump's simple, impulsive, and uncivil Tweets do more than merely reflect sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia; they spread those ideologies like a social cancer."
Robison warns that emotional contagion should not be confused with the contagion of passions that James Madison and David Hume were concerned with. Robison states they underestimated the contagion of passions mechanism at work in movements, whose modern expressions include the surprising phenomena of rapidly mobilized social media supporters behind both the Arab Spring and the Trump presidential campaign writing, "It is not that we experience something and then, assessing it, become passionate about it, or not", and implying that "we have the possibility of a check on our passions."
Robison's view is that the contagion affects the way reality itself is experienced by supporters because it leverages how subjective certainty is triggered, so that those experiencing the contagiously shared alternate reality are unaware they have taken on a belief they should assess.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Trumpism:
A constant barrage of rhetoric rivets media attention while obscuring actions such as neoliberal deregulation. One study concluded that significant environmental deregulation occurred during the first year of the Trump administration but, due to its concurrent use of racist rhetoric, escaped much media attention.
According to the authors, the rhetoric served political objectives of dehumanizing its targets, eroding democratic norms, and consolidating power by emotionally connecting with and inflaming resentments among the base of followers and distracted media attention from deregulatory policymaking by igniting media coverage of the distractions.
According to civil rights lawyer Burt Neuborne and political theorist William E. Connolly, Trumpist rhetoric employs tropes similar to those used by fascists in Germany to persuade citizens (at first a minority) to give up democracy, by using a barrage of:
- falsehoods,
- half-truths,
- personal invective, threats,
- xenophobia,
- national-security scares,
- religious bigotry,
- white racism,
- exploitation of economic insecurity,
- and a never-ending search for scapegoats.
Neuborne found twenty parallel practices, such as:
- creating what amounts to an "alternate reality" in adherents' minds, through direct communications, by nurturing a fawning mass media and by deriding scientists to erode the notion of objective truth;
- organizing carefully orchestrated mass rallies;
- attacking judges when legal cases are lost;
- using lies, half-truths, insults, vituperation and innuendo to marginalize, demonize and destroy opponents;
- making jingoistic appeals to ultranationalist fervor;
- and promising to stop the flow of "undesirable" ethnic groups who are made scapegoats for the nation's ills.
Connolly presents a similar list in his book Aspirational Fascism (2017), adding comparisons of the integration of theatrics and crowd participation with rhetoric, involving:
- grandiose bodily gestures,
- grimaces,
- hysterical charges,
- dramatic repetitions of alternate reality falsehoods,
- and totalistic assertions incorporated into signature phrases that audiences are encouraged to join in chanting.
Despite the similarities, Connolly stresses that Trump is no Nazi but is "an aspirational fascist:
- who pursues:
- crowd adulation,
- hyperaggressive nationalism,
- white triumphalism,
- and militarism,
- while also pursuing:
- a law-and-order regime giving unaccountable power to the police,
- and is a practitioner of a rhetorical style that regularly creates fake news and smears opponents to mobilize support for the Big Lies he advances."
In his 2024 book Trump and Hitler: A Comparative Study in Lying, cultural theorist Henk de Berg points to a number of further parallels between Trump's and Hitler's rhetoric; namely,
- the use of jokes and personal insults;
- the deliberate creation of controversy;
- interpretative openness, allowing different groups to recognize themselves in the argument;
- and oratorical meandering in cases where a coherent narrative would draw attention to the argument's inconsistencies.
De Berg also points out that extremist language used by Trump's followers is often perceived as authentic, because in real life we also tend to overstate things (e.g., "My new boss is worse than Stalin").
Branding:
Trump used personal branding to market himself as an extraordinary leader by using his celebrity status and name recognition. As one of the communications director for the MAGA super PAC put it in 2016, "Like Hercules, Donald Trump is a work of fiction."
Journalism professor Mark Danner explains that "week after week for a dozen years millions of Americans saw Donald J. Trump portraying:
- the business magus [in The Apprentice],
- the grand vizier of capitalism,
- the wise man of the boardroom,
- a living confection whose every step and word bespoke gravitas and experience and power and authority and ... money. Endless amounts of money."
Political science scholar Andrea Schneiker regards the branding strategy of the Trump public persona as that of a superhero who "uses his superpowers to save others, that is, his country. ... a superhero is needed to solve the problems of ordinary Americans ... Hence, the superhero per definition is an anti-politician. Due to his celebrity status and his identity as entertainer, Donald Trump can thereby be considered to be allowed to take extraordinary measures and even to break rules."
Appeal to emotions:
Historian Peter E. Gordon observes that "Trump, far from being a violation of the norm, actually signifies an emergent norm of the social order" where the categories of the psychological and political have dissolved.
In accounting for Trump's election and ability to sustain high approval ratings among voters, Erika Tucker writes in the book Trump and Political Philosophy that though all presidential campaigns have strong emotions associated with them, Trump was able to recognize, and then to gain the trust and loyalty of those who felt strong emotions about perceived changes in the United States. She notes, "Political psychologist Drew Westen has argued that Democrats are less successful at gauging and responding to affective politics—issues that arouse strong emotional states."
Examining the populist appeal of Trump, Hidalgo-Tenorio and Benítez-Castro draw on the theories of Ernesto Laclau, writing, "The emotional appeal of populist discourse is key to its polarising effects, this being so much so that populism 'would be unintelligible without the affective component.' (Laclau 2005, 11)"
Trump uses rhetoric that political scientists have deemed to be both dehumanizing and connected to physical violence by Trump's followers.
Emotion, trust, and media:
Communications scholar Michael Carpini states that "Trumpism is a culmination of trends that have been occurring for several decades. What we are witnessing is nothing short of a fundamental shift in the relationships between journalism, politics, and democracy."
Among the shifts, Carpini identifies "the collapsing of the prior [media] regime's presumed and enforced distinctions between news and entertainment."
Examining Trump's use of media for the book Language in the Trump Era, communication professor Marco Jacquemet writes that this approach "assumes (correctly, it appears) that his audiences care more about shock and entertainment value in their media consumption than almost anything else."
Plasser & Ulram (2003) describe a media logic which emphasizes "personalization ... a political star system ... [and] sports based dramatization."
Olivier Jutel notes that "Donald Trump's celebrity status and reality-TV rhetoric of 'winning' and 'losing' corresponds perfectly to these values", asserting that "Fox News and conservative personalities from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones do not simply represent a new political and media voice but embody the convergence of politics and media in which affect and enjoyment are the central values of media production."
Studying paranoia in media, anthropologist Jessica Johnson writes, "Rather than finding accurate news meaningful, Facebook users find the affective pleasure of connectivity addictive, whether or not the information they share is factual, and that is how communicative capitalism captivates subjects as it holds them captive."
Looking back at the world prior to social media, communications researcher Brian L. Ott writes: "I'm nostalgic for the world of television that [Neil] Postman (1985) argued, produced the 'least well-informed people in the Western world' by packaging news as entertainment. (pp. 106–107)
Twitter is producing the most self-involved people in history by treating everything one does or thinks as newsworthy. Television may have assaulted journalism, but Twitter killed it."
Commenting on Trump's support among Fox News viewers, Hofstra University Communication Dean Mark Lukasiewicz has a similar perspective, writing, "Tristan Harris famously said that social networks are about 'affirmation, not information'—and the same can be said about cable news, especially in prime time."
Arlie Russell Hochschild holds that Trump supporters trust their preferred sources of information due to the affective bond they have with them. As media scholar Daniel Kreiss summarizes Hochschild, "Trump, along with Fox News, gave these strangers in their own land the hope that they would be restored to their rightful place at the center of the nation, and provided a very real emotional release from the fetters of political correctness that dictated they respect people of color, lesbians and gays, and those of other faiths ... that the network's personalities share the same 'deep story' of political and social life, and therefore they learn from them 'what to feel afraid, angry, and anxious about.'"
From Kreiss's 2018 account of conservative personalities and media, information became less important than providing a sense of familial bonding, where "family provides a sense of identity, place, and belonging; emotional, social, and cultural support and security; and gives rise to political and social affiliations and beliefs."
Hochschild gives the example of a woman who states, "Bill O'Reilly is like a steady, reliable dad. Sean Hannity is like a difficult uncle who rises to anger too quickly. Megyn Kelly is like a smart sister. Then there's Greta Van Susteren. And Juan Williams, who came over from NPR, which was too left for him, the adoptee. They're all different, just like in a family."
Media scholar Olivier Jutel notes that, "Affect is central to the brand strategy of Fox which imagined its journalism not in terms of servicing the rational citizen in the public sphere but in 'craft[ing] intensive relationships with their viewers' (Jones, 2012: 180) in order to sustain audience share across platforms."
In this segmented market, Trump "offers himself as an ego-ideal to an individuated public of enjoyment that coalesce around his media brand as part of their own performance of identity." Jutel states that news media companies benefit from offering spectacle and drama.
"Trump is a definitive product of mediatized politics providing the spectacle that drives ratings and affective media consumption, either as part of his populist movement or as the liberal resistance."
Researchers give differing emphasis to which emotions are important to followers. Michael Richardson argues in the Journal of Media and Cultural Studies that "affirmation, amplification and circulation of disgust is one of the primary affective drivers of Trump's political success."
Richardson agrees with Ott about the "entanglement of Trumpian affect and social media crowds" who seek "affective affirmation, confirmation and amplification. Social media postings of crowd experiences accumulate as 'archives of feelings' that are both dynamic in nature and affirmative of social values (Pybus 2015, 239)."
Using Trump as an example, social trust expert Karen Jones follows philosopher Annette Baier in explaining that the masters of the art of creating trust and distrust are populist politicians and criminals, who "show a masterful appreciation of the ways in which certain emotional states drive out trust and replace it with distrust."
Jones sees Trump as an exemplar of this class who recognize that fear and contempt are tools that can reorient networks of trust and distrust in social networks in order to alter how a potential supporter "interprets the words, deeds, and motives of the other." She holds that "A core strategy of Donald Trump, both as candidate and president, has been to manufacture fear and contempt towards some undocumented migrants (among other groups)", a strategy which "has gone global ... in Australia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Italy and the United Kingdom."
Falsehoods
See also:
There are many falsehoods which Trump presents as facts. Drawing on Harry G. Frankfurt's book On Bullshit, political science professor Matthew McManus argues that Trump is a bullshitter whose sole interest is to persuade, and not a liar (e.g. Richard Nixon) who takes the power of truth seriously and so deceitfully attempts to conceal it. Trump by contrast is indifferent to the truth or unaware of it.
Unlike conventional lies of politicians exaggerating their accomplishments, Trump's lies are egregious, making lies about easily verifiable facts. At one rally Trump stated his father "came from Germany", even though Fred Trump was born in New York City.
Leaders at the 2018 United Nations General Assembly burst into laughter at his boast that he had accomplished more in his first two years than any other United States president. Visibly startled, Trump responded to the audience: "I didn't expect that reaction."
Trump lies about the trivial, such as claiming that there was no rain on the day of his inauguration when in fact it did rain, as well as making grandiose "Big Lies", such as claiming that Obama founded ISIS, or promoting the birther movement, a conspiracy theory which claims that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii. Connolly points to the similarities of such reality-bending gaslighting with fascist and post Soviet techniques of propaganda including Kompromat (scandalous material), stating that "Trumpian persuasion draws significantly upon the repetition of Big Lies."
Robert Jay Lifton, a scholar of psychohistory and authority on the nature of cults, emphasizes the importance of understanding Trumpism "as an assault on reality". A leader has more power if he is in any part successful at making truth irrelevant to his followers.
Trump biographer Timothy L. O'Brien agrees, stating: "It is a core operating principle of Trumpism. If you constantly attack objective reality, you are left as the only trustworthy source of information, which is one of his goals for his relationship with his supporters—that they should believe no one else but him."
Lifton believes Trump is a purveyor of a solipsistic reality which is hostile to facts and is made collective by amplifying frustrations and fears held by his community of zealous believers.
Research published in the American Sociological Review found that Trump's lying helped boost his "authentic appeal". It argued that in systems viewed as flawed or with low political legitimacy, a "flagrant violator of established norms" is seen "as an authentic champion" by being perceived as "bravely speaking a deep and otherwise suppressed truth" against a political establishment that does not appear to be working on behalf of the people.
While a perceived establishment candidate "may be more likable or perceived to be more competent", voters question the candidates opposition to "the injustice that is said to have permeated the established political system".
Andrew Gumbel, writing for The Guardian after the 2024 presidential election, wrote that many Trump voters in Youngstown, Ohio saw both parties as filled with crooks and liars, but that Trump "comes across as someone who doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is, and that perceived authenticity counts for more with many Youngstown voters than his character flaws or even his policy positions".
Gumbel argued that voters preferred "gut instincts" to "carefully scripted messaging of a Democrat like Kamala Harris or even a mainstream Republican".
Social psychology:
Dominance orientation
Social psychology research into the Trump movement, such as that of Bob Altemeyer, Thomas F. Pettigrew, and Karen Stenner, views the Trump movement as primarily being driven by the psychological predispositions of its followers, although political and historical factors (reviewed elsewhere in this article) are also involved.
An article in Social Psychological and Personality Science described a study concluding that Trump followers prefer hierarchical and ethnocentric social orders that favor their in-group.
In the non-academic book, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers, Altemeyer and John Dean describe research which reaches the same conclusions.
Despite disparate and inconsistent beliefs and ideologies, a coalition of such followers can become cohesive and broad in part because each individual "compartmentalizes" their thoughts and they are free to define their sense of the threatened tribal in-group in their own terms, whether it is:
- predominantly related to their cultural or religious views (e.g. the mystery of evangelical support for Trump),
- nationalism (e.g. the Make America Great Again slogan),
- or their race (maintaining a white majority).
Altemeyer, MacWilliams, Feldman, Choma, Hancock, Van Assche and Pettigrew claim that instead of directly attempting to measure such ideological, racial or policy views, supporters of such movements can be reliably predicted by using two social psychology scales (singly or in combination), namely
- right-wing authoritarian (RWA) measures which were developed in the 1980s by Altemeyer and other authoritarian personality researchers,
- and the social dominance orientation (SDO) scale developed in the 1990s by social dominance theorists.
In May 2019, Monmouth University Polling Institute conducted a study in collaboration with Altemeyer in order to empirically test the hypothesis using the SDO and RWA measures.
The finding was that social dominance orientation and affinity for authoritarian leadership are highly correlated with followers of Trumpism. This study further confirmed of the studies discussed in:
- MacWilliams (2016),
- Feldman (2020),
- Choma and Hancock (2017),
- and Van Assche & Pettigrew (2016).
The research does not imply that the followers always behave in an authoritarian manner but that expression is contingent, which means there is reduced influence if it is not triggered by fear and what the subject perceives as threats.
Similar social psychological techniques for analyzing Trumpism have been effective in identifying adherents of similar movements in Europe, including in Belgium and France:
- Lubbers & Scheepers, 2002;
- Swyngedouw & Giles, 2007;
- Van Hiel & Mervielde, 2002;
- Van Hiel, 2012),
- the Netherlands (Cornelis & Van Hiel, 2014)
- and Italy (Leone, Desimoni & Chirumbolo, 2014).
Quoting comments from participants in focus groups made up of people who had voted for Democrat Obama in 2012 but flipped to Trump in 2016, pollster Diane Feldman noted the anti-government, anti-coastal-elite anger: "'They think they're better than us, they're P.C., they're virtue-signallers.' '[Trump] doesn't come across as one of those people who think they're better than us and are screwing us.' 'They lecture us.' 'They don't even go to church.' 'They're in charge, and they're ripping us off.'"
Comparisons to animal social behavior:
Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich explained the central role of dominance in his speech "Principles of Trumpism", comparing the needed leadership style to that of a violent bear. Psychology researcher Dan P. McAdams thinks a better comparison is to the dominance behavior of alpha male chimpanzees such as Yeroen, the subject of an extensive study of chimp social behavior conducted by renowned primatologist Frans de Waal.
Christopher Boehm, a professor of biology and anthropology agrees, writing, "his model of political posturing has echoes of what I saw in the wild in six years in Tanzania studying the Gombe chimpanzees," and "seems like a classic alpha display."
Using the example of Yeroen, McAdams describes the similarities:
- "On Twitter, Trump's incendiary tweets are like Yeroen's charging displays. In chimp colonies, the alpha male occasionally goes berserk and starts screaming, hooting, and gesticulating wildly as he charges toward other males nearby.
- Pandemonium ensues as rival males cower in fear ... Once the chaos ends, there is a period of peace and order, wherein rival males pay homage to the alpha, visiting him, grooming him, and expressing various forms of submission.
- In Trump's case, his tweets are designed to intimidate his foes and rally his submissive base ... These verbal outbursts reinforce the president's dominance by reminding everybody of his wrath and his force."
Primatologist Dame Jane Goodall explains that like the dominance performances of Trump, "In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays: Stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks. The more vigorous and imaginative the display, the faster the individual is likely to rise in the hierarchy, and the longer he is likely to maintain that position."
The comparison has been echoed by political observers sympathetic to Trump. Nigel Farage, an enthusiastic backer of Trump, stated that in the 2016 United States presidential debates where Trump loomed up on Clinton, he "looked like a big silverback gorilla", and added that "he is that big alpha male. The leader of the pack!"
`
McAdams points out the audience gets to vicariously share in the sense of dominance due to the parasocial bonding that his performance produces for his fans, as shown by Shira Gabriel's research studying the phenomenon in Trump's role in The Apprentice.
McAdams writes that the "television audience vicariously experienced the world according to Donald Trump", a world where Trump says "Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat."
Collective narcissism
Further information:
Cultural anthropologist Paul Stoller thinks Trump employed celebrity culture-glitz, illusion and fantasy to construct a shared alternate reality where lies become truth and reality's resistance to one's own dreams is overcome by the right attitude and bold self-confidence.
Trump's father indoctrinated his children from an early age into the positive thinking approach to reality advocated by the family's pastor Norman Vincent Peale. Trump said that Peale considered him the greatest student of his philosophy that regards facts as not important, because positive attitudes will instead cause what you "image" to materialize.
Trump biographer Gwenda Blair thinks Trump "weaponized" Peale's self-help philosophy.
Collective narcissism measures have been shown to be a powerful predictor of membership in authoritarian movements including Trump's.
In his book Believe Me which details Trump's exploitation of white evangelical politics of fear, Messiah College history professor John Fea points out the narcissistic nature of the fanciful appeals to nostalgia, noting that "In the end, the practice of nostalgia is inherently selfish because it focuses entirely on our own experience of the past and not on the experience of others.
For example, people nostalgic for the world of Leave It to Beaver may fail to recognize that other people, perhaps even some of the people living in the Cleaver's suburban "paradise" of the 1950s, were not experiencing the world in a way that they would describe as 'great.'
Nostalgia can give us tunnel vision. Its selective use of the past fails to recognize the complexity and breadth of the human experience ... ."
According to Fea, the hopelessness of achieving an idealized past "causes us to imagine a future filled with horror" leading to conspiratorial narratives that easily mobilize white evangelicals.
As a result, they are easily captivated by a strongman such as Trump who repeats and amplifies their fears while posing as the deliverer from them. In his review of Fea's analysis of the impact of conspiracy theories on white evangelical Trump supporters, scholar of religious politics David Gutterman writes: "The greater the threat, the more powerful the deliverance."
Gutterman's view is that "Donald J. Trump did not invent this formula; evangelicals have, in their lack of spiritual courage, demanded and gloried in this message for generations. Despite the literal biblical reassurance to 'fear not,' white evangelicals are primed for fear, their identity is stoked by fear, and the sources of fear are around every unfamiliar turn.
Social theory scholar John Cash notes that disaster narratives of impending horrors have a broad audience, pointing to a 2010 Pew study which found that 41 percent of those in the US think that the world will probably be destroyed by the middle of the century. Cash points out that certainties may be found in other narratives which also have the effect of uniting like minded individuals into shared "us versus them" narratives.
Cash thinks that psychoanalytic theorist Joel Whitebook is correct that "Trumpism as a social experience can be understood as a psychotic like phenomenon, that "[Trumpism is] an intentional [...] attack on our relation to reality." Whitebook thinks Trump's playbook is like that of Putin's strategist Vladislav Surkov who employs "ceaseless shapeshifting, appealing to nationalist skinheads one moment and human rights groups the next."
Cash compares Alice in Wonderland to Trump's ability to seemingly embrace disparate fantasies in a series of contradictory tweets and pronouncements, for example appearing to encourage the "neo-Nazi protestors" after Charlottesville or for audiences with felt grievances about America's first black president, the claim that Obama wiretapped him.
Cash writes: "Unlike the resilient Alice, who ... insists on truth and accuracy when confronted by a world of reversals, contradictions, nonsense and irrationality, Trump reverses this process. ... Trump has dragged the uninhibited and distorted world of the other side of the looking-glass into our shared world."
Lifton sees important differences between Trumpism and typical cults, such as not advancing a totalist ideology and lack of isolation from the outside world. Lifton identifies similarities with cults that disparage the "fake world" created by the cult's titanic enemies.
Cultlike persuasion techniques are used, such as echoing of catch phrases. Examples include the use of call and response ("Clinton" triggers "lock her up"; immigrants" triggers "build that wall"; "who will pay for it?" triggers "Mexico").
All of the above deepens the sense of unity between the leader and the community. Participants and observers at rallies have remarked on a liberating feeling which Lifton calls a "high state" that "can even be called experiences of transcendence".
Conspiracy theories
See also: List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
Conservative culture commentator David Brooks observes that under Trump, this post-truth mindset, heavily reliant on conspiracy themes, came to dominate Republican identity, providing its believers a sense of superiority since such insiders possess important information most people do not have.
This results in an empowering sense of agency with the liberation, entitlement and group duty to reject "experts" and the influence of hidden cabals seeking to dominate them.
Prior to 2015, Trump already had established a bond with followers due to television and media appearances. For those sharing his political views, Trump's use of Twitter to share his views caused those bonds to intensify, causing his supporters to feel a deepened empathetic bond as with a friend—sharing his anger and outrage, taking pride in his successes, sharing in his denial of failures and his oftentimes conspiratorial views.
Brooks thinks sharing of conspiracy theories has become the most powerful community bonding mechanism of the 21st century.
Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics describes the political efficacy of conspiracy theories. Some attribute Trump's political success to making such narratives a rhetorical staple. The conspiracy theory QAnon asserts that top Democrats run a child sex-trafficking ring and Trump is trying to dismantle it. An October 2020 Yahoo-YouGov poll showed that elements of the QAnon claims are said to be true by half of Trump supporters polled.
Some social psychologists see the predisposition of Trumpists towards interpreting social interactions in terms of dominance frameworks as extending to their relationship towards facts. A study by Felix Sussenbach and Adam B. Moore found that the dominance motive strongly correlated with hostility towards disconfirming facts and affinity for conspiracies among 2016 Trump voters but not among Clinton voters.
Many critics note Trump's skill in exploiting narrative, emotion, and a whole host of rhetorical ploys to draw supporters into the group's common adventure as characters in a story much bigger than themselves.
It is a story that involves not just a community-building call to arms to defeat titanic threats, or of the leader's heroic deeds restoring American greatness, but of a restoration of each supporter's individual sense of liberty and control Trump channels and amplifies these aspirations, explaining in one of his books that his bending of the truth is effective because it plays to people's greatest fantasies.
By contrast, Clinton was dismissive of such emotion-filled storytelling and ignored the emotional dynamics of the Trumpist narrative.
Cult of personality:
Trump's support has been compared to a cult of personality. Trump's message and self-representation involved the creation of an identity as a non-politician, businessman, and great leader, distancing himself from traditional politicians and from the traditional Republican Party.
His strategy involved the creation of an ethos of "saving America" through populist intentions and fighting imagined enemies with "I versus them" rhetoric that constituted the formation of a cult of personality.
Trump's contingent of hard-core supporters allowed him to maintain a grip on his political party even after several actions and controversies that would have discredited other politicians.
News media and commentators have widely characterized Trump as the object of a personality cult. His support was found to satisfy all parameters needed to determine a personality cult based on Max Weber's concept of charismatic authority.
Research found examples of asymmetric bias by his supporters in favor of Trump that did not exist among left-leaning individuals among alleged cases of "Trump derangement syndrome".
Other research has argued that Trump's personality cult revolves around an "all-powerful, charismatic figure, contributing to a social milieu at risk for the erosion of democratic principles and the rise of fascism" based on the analysis of psychoanalysts and sociopolitical historians.
Research using the Big Five model of personality has found that his most loyal followers tend to score highly in conscientiousness / self-discipline, traits likely to be attracted to "personalistic, loyalty-demanding leaders" like Trump.
Several aspects of cult-like loyalty to Trump have been found to have religious parallels among certain supporters, and certain evangelicals have referred to him in religious terms, casting him as a divinely ordained savior and "chosen one".
Relationship with media:
Culture industry and pillarization:
Further information: Culture industry
Peter E. Gordon, Alex Ross, sociologist David L. Andrews and Harvard political theorist David Lebow look on Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's concept of the "culture industry" as useful for comprehending Trumpism.
As Ross explains the concept, the culture industry replicates "fascist methods of mass hypnosis ... blurring the line between reality and fiction", explaining, "Trump is as much a pop-culture phenomenon as he is a political one."
Gordon observes that these purveyors of popular culture are not just leveraging outrage, but are turning politics into a more commercially lucrative product, a "polarized, standardized reflection of opinion into forms of humor and theatricalized outrage within narrow niche markets ... within which one swoons to one's preferred slogan and already knows what one knows. Name just about any political position and what sociologists call 'pillarization'—or what the Frankfurt School called 'ticket' thinking—will predict, almost without fail, a full suite of opinions."
Trumpism is from Lebow's perspective, more of a result of this process than a cause. In the intervening years since Adorno's work, Lebow believes the culture industry has evolved into a politicizing culture market "based increasingly on the internet, constituting a self-referential hyperreality shorn from any reality of referants ... sensationalism and insulation intensify intolerance of dissonance and magnify hostility against alternative hyperrealities. In a self-reinforcing logic of escalation, intolerance and hostility further encourage sensationalism and the retreat into insularity.
From Gordon's view, "Trumpism itself, one could argue, is just another name for the culture industry, where the performance of undoing repression serves as a means for carrying on precisely as before."
From this viewpoint, the susceptibility to psychological manipulation of individuals with social dominance inclinations is not at the center of Trumpism, but is instead the "culture industry" which exploits these and other susceptibilities by using mechanisms that condition people to think in standardized ways.
The burgeoning culture industry respects no political boundaries as it develops these markets with Gordon emphasizing "This is true on the left as well as the right, and it is especially noteworthy once we countenance what passes for political discourse today. Instead of a public sphere, we have what Jürgen Habermas long ago called the refeudalization of society."
What Kreiss calls an "identity-based account of media" is important for understanding Trump's success because "citizens understand politics and accept information through the lens of partisan identity. ... The failure to come to grips with a socially embedded public and an identity group–based democracy has placed significant limits on our ability to imagine a way forward for journalism and media in the Trump era. As Fox News and Breitbart have discovered, there is power in the claim of representing and working for particular publics, quite apart from any abstract claims to present the truth."
Profitability of spectacle and outrage
Further information: Outrage discourse
Examining Trumpism as an entertainment product, some media research focuses on outrage discourse, relating the entertainment value of Trump's rhetoric to the commercial interests of media companies. Outrage narratives on political blogs, talk radio and cable news shows were, in the decades prior, a new genre which grew due to its profitability.
Media critic David Denby writes, "Like a good standup comic, Trump invites the audience to join him in the adventure of delivering his act—in this case, the barbarously entertaining adventure of running a Presidential campaign that insults everybody."
Denby claims that Trump is good at delivering entertainment that consumers demand. He observes that "The movement's standard of allowable behavior has been formed by popular culture—by standup comedy and, recently, by reality TV and by the snarking, trolling habits of the Internet. ... it's exactly vulgar sensationalism and buffoonery that his audience is buying. Donald Trump has been produced by America."
Trump made false assertions, mean spirited attacks and dog whistle appeals to racial and religious intolerance. CBS's CEO Les Moonves remarked that "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS," demonstrating how Trump's messaging is compatible with the financial goals of media companies.
Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center considers Trump a political "shock jock" who "thrives on creating disorder, in violating rules, in provoking outrage."
The political profitability of incivility was demonstrated by the amount of airtime devoted to Trump's 2016 primary campaign—estimated at two billion to almost five billion dollars.
The advantage of incivility was as true in social media, where "a BuzzFeed analysis found that the top 20 fake election news stories emanating from hoax sites and hyper-partisan blogs generated more engagement on Facebook (as measured by shares, reactions, and comments) than the top 20 election stories produced by 19 major news outlets combined, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and NBC News."
Social media:
Further information: Collective narcissism, Group polarization, and Social media use by Donald Trump
Surveying research of how Trumpist communication is well suited to social media, Brian Ott writes that, "commentators who have studied Trump's public discourse have observed speech patterns that correspond closely to what I identified as Twitter's three defining features [Simplicity, impulsivity, and incivility]."
Media critic Neal Gabler has a similar viewpoint writing that "What FDR was to radio and JFK to television, Trump is to Twitter." Outrage discourse expert Patrick O'Callaghan argues that social media is most effective when it utilizes the particular type of communication which Trump relies on.
O'Callaghan notes that sociologist Sarah Sobieraj and political scientist Jeffrey M. Berry almost perfectly described in 2011 the social media communication style used by Trump long before his presidential campaign. They explained that such discourse
- "[involves] efforts to provoke visceral responses (e.g.,
- anger,
- righteousness,
- fear,
- moral indignation)
- from the audience through the use of:
- overgeneralizations,
- sensationalism,
- misleading or patently inaccurate information,
- ad hominem attacks,
- and partial truths
- about opponents,
- who may be:
- individuals,
- organizations,
- or entire communities of interest
- (e.g., progressives or conservatives) or circumstance (e.g., immigrants).
- Outrage sidesteps the messy nuances of complex political issues in favor of
- melodrama,
- misrepresentative
- exaggeration,
- mockery,
- and improbable forecasts of impending doom.
- Outrage talk is not so much discussion as it is verbal competition, political theater with a scorecard."
Due to Facebook's and Twitter's narrowcasting environment in which outrage discourse thrives, Trump's employment of such messaging at almost every opportunity was from O'Callaghan's account extremely effective because tweets and posts were repeated in viral fashion among like minded supporters, thereby rapidly building a substantial information echo chamber, a phenomenon Cass Sunstein identifies as group polarization, and other researchers refer to as a kind of self re-enforcing homophily.
Within these information cocoons, it matters little to social media companies whether much of the information spread in such pillarized information silos is false, because as digital culture critic Olivia Solon points out, "the truth of a piece of content is less important than whether it is shared, liked, and monetized."
Citing Pew Research's survey that found 62% of US adults get their news from social media, Ott expresses alarm, "since the 'news' content on social media regularly features fake and misleading stories from sources devoid of editorial standards."
Media critic Alex Ross is similarly alarmed, observing, "Silicon Valley monopolies have taken a hands-off, ideologically vacant attitude toward the upswelling of ugliness on the Internet," and that "the failure of Facebook to halt the proliferation of fake news during the [Trump vs. Clinton] campaign season should have surprised no one. ... Traffic trumps ethics."
O'Callaghan's analysis of Trump's use of social media is that "outrage hits an emotional nerve and is therefore grist to the populist's or the social antagonist's mill. Secondly, the greater and the more widespread the outrage discourse, the more it has a detrimental effect on social capital. This is because it leads to mistrust and misunderstanding amongst individuals and groups, to entrenched positions, to a feeling of 'us versus them'.
So understood, outrage discourse not only produces extreme and polarizing views but also ensures that a cycle of such views continues. (Consider also in this context Wade Robison (2020) on the 'contagion of passion' and Cass Sunstein (2001, pp. 98–136) on 'cybercascades'.)"
Ott agrees, stating that contagion is the best word to describe the viral nature of outrage discourse on social media, and writing that "Trump's simple, impulsive, and uncivil Tweets do more than merely reflect sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia; they spread those ideologies like a social cancer."
Robison warns that emotional contagion should not be confused with the contagion of passions that James Madison and David Hume were concerned with. Robison states they underestimated the contagion of passions mechanism at work in movements, whose modern expressions include the surprising phenomena of rapidly mobilized social media supporters behind both the Arab Spring and the Trump presidential campaign writing, "It is not that we experience something and then, assessing it, become passionate about it, or not", and implying that "we have the possibility of a check on our passions."
Robison's view is that the contagion affects the way reality itself is experienced by supporters because it leverages how subjective certainty is triggered, so that those experiencing the contagiously shared alternate reality are unaware they have taken on a belief they should assess.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Trumpism:
- Similar movements, politicians and personalities
- Policies
- Beyond the United States
- See also:
- Trumpet of Patriots (Australian party)
- Authoritarian conservatism
- Blue MAGA
- Corporatocracy
- Enemy of the people
- Firehose of falsehood
- Flood the zone with shit
- God Emperor Trump (statue)
- List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
- National conservatism
- Radical right (United States)
- Reality distortion field
- Right-wing authoritarianism
- Freedom Caucus
- Agenda 47
- Political positions of Donald Trump
- Sedition Caucus
- Racial views of Donald Trump
- Organizations
Both Personal and Business legal affairs of Donald Trump
- YouTube Video: After reelection, what happens to Trump's criminal cases now?
- YouTube Video: Trump Threatens Chicago, His Alleged Creepy Note to Epstein Released & the Department of WAR! Jimmy Kimmel Live
- YouTube Video: Trump vs. Higher Education: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump
From 1973 until he was elected president in 2016, Donald Trump and his businesses were involved in over 4,000 legal cases in United States federal and state courts, including battles with casino patrons, million-dollar real estate lawsuits, personal defamation lawsuits, and over 100 business tax disputes.
He has also been accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault, with one accusation resulting in him being held civilly liable.
In 2015, Trump's lawyer Alan Garten called Trump's legal entanglements "a natural part of doing business" in the U.S. While litigation is indeed common in the real estate industry, Trump has been involved in more legal cases than his combined fellow magnates:
Many of the lawsuits were filed against patrons with debt to his casinos. Of all cases with a clear resolution, Trump was the victor 92 percent of the time.
Numerous legal matters and investigations occurred during and after Trump's first presidency, some being of historical importance. Between October 2021 and July 2022 alone, the Republican National Committee paid more than US$2 million to attorneys representing Trump in his presidential, personal, and business capacities.
In January 2023, a federal judge fined Trump and his attorney nearly $1 million, characterizing him as "a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries".
On December 6, 2022, the parent company of Trump's many businesses, the Trump Organization, was convicted on 17 criminal charges.
Trump has also been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation[ and is appealing an order to pay more than $80 million in damages to the victim, E. Jean Carroll.
Trump, together with his associates, has also been found liable for fraud regarding overvaluation of the Trump Organization and Trump's net worth, and is appealing a $364 million fine plus $100 million interest.
In 2024, Trump was convicted on numerous counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, although his sentencing was indefinitely postponed following his second election to the presidency.
In 2024, before Trump's election, a judge dismissed the federal charges relating to Trump's handling of classified documents. After his election, the special counsel decided to abandon the federal charges related to the 2020 election and the appeal of the documents case dismissal, citing the Justice Department policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents.
Lawsuits involving government entities:
U.S. federal government
1973 federal housing suit
In 1973, Trump was accused by the Justice Department of violations of the Fair Housing Act in the operation of 39 buildings. The department said that black "testers" were sent to more than half a dozen buildings and were denied apartments, but a similar white tester would then be offered an apartment in the same building.
The government alleged that Trump's corporation quoted different rental terms and conditions to blacks and made false "no vacancy" statements to blacks for apartments they managed in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.
Representing Trump, Roy Cohn filed a counter-suit against the government for $100 million, asserting that the charges were irresponsible and baseless. A federal judge threw out the countersuit, calling it a waste of "time and paper". Trump settled the charges out of court 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".
Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of Trump's book, The Art of the Deal, said that the housing case was "a classic example" of Trump being "a counterpuncher": someone accuses Trump of doing something horrible, and he "goes back at them with all guns blazing.... And admits nothing." If Trump loses, he will "declare victory".
The corporation was required to send a bi-weekly list of vacancies to the New York Urban League, a civil rights group, and give them priority for certain locations. In 1978 the Trump Organization again was in court for violating terms of the 1975 settlement; Trump denied the charges.
Other suits:
In 1988, the Justice Department sued Trump for violating procedures related to public notifications when buying voting stock in a company related to his attempted takeovers of Holiday Corporation and Bally Manufacturing Corporation in 1986. Trump agreed to pay $750,000 to settle the civil penalties of the antitrust lawsuit.
In 2016, the American Bar Association (ABA) commissioned a report to highlight Trump's excess litigation, entitled "Donald J. Trump is a Libel Bully but also a Libel Loser", but initially declined to publish it fearing being sued by Trump.
In 2001, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought a financial-reporting case against Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., alleging that the company had committed several "misleading statements in the company's third-quarter 1999 earnings release". Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. consented to the commission's cease-and-desist order, said the culprit had been dismissed, and that Trump had personally been unaware of the matter.
New York:
In 1985, New York City brought a lawsuit against Trump for allegedly using tactics to force out tenants of 100 Central Park South, which he intended to demolish together with the building next door. After ten years in court, the two sides negotiated a deal allowing the building to stand as condominiums.
In 2000, Donald Trump paid $250,000 to settle fines related to charges brought by New York State Lobbying Commission director David Grandeau. Trump was charged with circumventing state law to spend $150,000 lobbying against government approval of plans to construct an Indian-run casino in the Catskills, which would have diminished casino traffic to Trump's casinos in Atlantic City.
Trump is suing the town of Ossining, New York, over the property tax valuation on his 147-acre (59 ha) Trump National Golf Club Westchester, located in Briarcliff Manor's portion of the town, which Trump purchased for around $8 million at a foreclosure sale in the 1990s and to which he claimed, at the club's opening, to have added $45 million in facility improvements.
Although Trump stated in his 2015 FEC filing that the property was worth at least $50 million, his lawsuit seeks a $1.4 million valuation on the property, which includes a 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m2) clubhouse, five overnight suites, and permission to build 71 condominium units, in an effort to shave $424,176 from his annual local property tax obligations.
Trump filed the action after separately being sued by Briarcliff Manor for "intentional and illegal modifications" to a drainage system that caused more than $238,000 in damage to the village's library, public pool, and park facilities during a 2011 storm.
New York Attorney General lawsuits
Further information: New York investigations of The Trump Organization
On December 20, 2021, Trump filed a lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York over her ongoing civil investigation into potentially unlawful inflation and deflation of property values where it was best suited to avoid tax liability and gain other financial benefits by the Trump Organization.
Trump sought a permanent suspension of the investigation, which has been proceeding for over three years, because he alleged it was being used as a political tool to harass and intimidate him, his business, and his family through unwarranted subpoenas and aggressive public statements made by James both in her official capacity and personal capacity, James' office denied these claims, and in a separate statement accused Trump of using "over two years of delay tactics" through the courts to obstruct the investigation's progress.
On January 10, 2022, Trump filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the New York Attorney General from continuing her investigation until a final judgement on his complaint had been made, arguing her inquiry was entirely baseless. James moved to dismiss the suit on January 26, stating that Trump is a "state-court loser" seeking to bypass the legal process in the state through federal court.
On January 20, 2023, Trump's lawyers withdrew the suit. The same judge, Donald M. Middlebrooks, had just fined Trump and his attorneys almost $1 million for filing a "frivolous" defamation lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.
James has subpoenaed Trump to produce documents in connection with her investigation into the Trump Organization. On April 25, 2022, New York Judge Arthur Engoron found that Trump did not comply with the subpoena and declared him to be in civil contempt of court. He said Trump would be fined $10,000 per day until he complies
In November 2022, Trump sued James in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida to block her access to the records of the trust he set up to hold his companies when he became president, the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Judge Donald Middlebrooks denied his emergency motion for a preliminary injunction.
On January 20, 2023, Trump withdrew the lawsuit. The same judge had just fined Trump and his lawyer almost $1 million for filing a racketeering lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
Trump University litigation
Main article: Trump University § Allegations of impropriety and lawsuits
In 2013, in a lawsuit filed by New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, Trump was accused of defrauding more than 5,000 people of $40 million for the opportunity to learn Trump's real estate investment techniques in a for-profit training program, Trump University, which operated from 2005 to 2011.
Trump ultimately stopped using the term "University" following a 2010 order from New York regulators, who called Trump's use of the word "misleading and even illegal"; the state had previously warned Trump in 2005 to drop the term or not offer seminars in New York.
Although Trump has claimed a 98% approval rating on course evaluations, former students recounted high-pressure tactics from instructors seeking the highest possible ratings, including threats of withholding graduation certificates.
In addition, the high reviews were solicited before the courses ended, when the students still anticipated receiving benefits that ultimately never materialized. Subsequently, more than 2,000 students sought and received course refunds before the end of their paid seminars.
In a separate class action civil suit against Trump University in mid-February 2014, a San Diego federal judge allowed claimants in California, Florida, and New York to proceed. a Trump counterclaim, alleging that the state attorney general's investigation was accompanied by a campaign donation shakedown, was investigated by a New York ethics board and dismissed in August 2015. Trump filed a $1 million defamation suit against former Trump University student Tarla Makaeff, who had spent about $37,000 on seminars, after she joined the class action lawsuit and publicized her classroom experiences on social media.
Trump University was later ordered by a U.S. district judge in April 2015 to pay Makaeff and her lawyers $798,774.24 in legal fees and costs. Donald Trump was found to have defrauded students, and was forced to pay $25 million in restitution.
Other U.S. state and local governments:
In 1991, Trump Plaza was fined $200,000 by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission for moving African American and female employees from craps tables in order to accommodate high roller Robert LiButti, a mob figure and alleged John Gotti associate, who was said to fly into fits of racist rage when he was on losing streaks. There is no indication that Trump was ever questioned in that investigation, he was not held personally liable, and Trump denies even knowing what LiButti looked like.
In 1991, one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was found guilty of circumventing state regulations about casino financing when Donald Trump's father bought $3.5 million in chips that he had no plans to gamble. Trump Castle was forced to pay a $30,000 fine under the settlement, according to New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement director Jack Sweeney. Trump was not disciplined for the illegal advance on his inheritance, which was not confiscated.
In 2006, the Town of Palm Beach began fining Trump $250 per day for ordinance violations related to his erection of an 80-foot-tall (24 m) flagpole flying a 15-by-25-foot (4.6 by 7.6 m) American flag on his property. Trump sued the town for $25 million, saying that they abridged his free speech, also disputing an ordinance that local businesses be "town-serving".
The two parties settled as part of a court-ordered mediation, in which Trump was required to donate $100,000 to veterans' charities. At the same time, the town ordinance was modified allowing Trump to enroll out-of-town members in his Mar-a-Lago social club.
In 2008, Trump filed a $100 million lawsuit for alleged fraud and civil rights violations against the California city of Rancho Palos Verdes, over thwarted luxury home development and expansion plans upon part of a landslide-prone golf course in the area, which was purchased by Trump in 2002 for $27 million.
Trump had previously sued a local school district over land leased from them in the re-branded Trump National Golf Club, and had further angered some local residents by renaming a thoroughfare after himself. The $100 million suit was ultimately withdrawn in 2012 with Trump and the city agreeing to modified geological surveys and permit extensions for some 20 proposed luxury homes (in addition to 36 homes previously approved).
Trump ultimately opted for a permanent conservation easement instead of expanded housing development on the course's driving range.
In 2015, Trump initiated a $100 million lawsuit against Palm Beach County claiming that officials, in a "deliberate and malicious" act, pressured the FAA to direct air traffic to the Palm Beach International Airport over his Mar-a-Lago estate, because he said the airplanes damaged the building and disrupted its ambiance.
Trump had previously sued the county twice over airport noise; the first lawsuit, in 1995, ended with an agreement between Trump and the county; Trump's second lawsuit, in 2010, was dismissed.
Nevada early voting Latino turnout controversy:
On November 8, 2016, Trump filed a lawsuit claiming early voting polling places in Clark County, Nevada, were kept open too late. These precincts had a high turnout of Latino voters. Nevada state law explicitly stated that polls were to stay open to accommodate eligible voters in line at closing time.
Hillary Clinton campaign advisor Neera Tanden accused the Trump campaign of trying to suppress Latino voter turnout. A political analyst from Nevada, Jon Ralston, tweeted that the Trump lawsuit was "insane" in a state that clearly allowed the polls to remain open until everyone in line had voted.
Former Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller posted the statute that stated "voting must continue until those voters have voted". Miller said: "If there are people in line waiting to vote at 7 pm, voting must continue until everyone votes.... We still live in America, right?"
A Nevada judge denied Trump's request to separate early voting ballots. Judge Gloria Sturman, of the District Court for Clark County Nevada, ruled that County Registrar of Voters Joe P. Gloria was already obligated by state law to maintain the records that the Trump campaign was seeking. Sturman said: "That is offensive to me because it seems to go against the very principle that a vote is secret."
Diana Orrock, the Republican National Committeewoman for Nevada and a vocal Trump ally, said she was unaware of the lawsuit before Politico contacted her. "I know that the [Clark County] registrar was on TV this morning saying that anybody who's in line was allowed to participate in the voting process until all of them came through," she said. "If that's what they did, I don't have a problem with that ... I don't know that filing a suit's going to accomplish anything." Orrock doubted the lawsuit would have any impact.
Outside the U.S.
In 2003, the city of Stuttgart denied TD Trump Deutschland AG, a Trump Organization subsidiary, the permission to build a planned tower due to questions over its financing.
Trump Deutschland sued the city of Stuttgart, and lost. In 2004 Trump's German corporate partner brought suit against the Trump Organization for failure to pay back a EUR 2 million pre-payment as promised.
In 2011, Donald Trump sued Scotland, alleging that it built the Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm after assuring him it would not be built. He had recently built a golf course there and planned to build an adjacent hotel. Trump lost his suit, with the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom unanimously ruling in favor of the Scottish government in 2015.
In October 2016, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that Trump, together with two principals of a connected developer, could be sued for various claims, including oppression, collusion and breach of fiduciary duties, in relation to his role in the marketing of units in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto, Canada.
A subsequent application for leave to appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada in March 2017. Also in October 2016, JCF Capital ULC (a private firm that had bought the construction loan on the building) announced that it was seeking court approval under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to have the building sold in order to recoup its debt, which then totaled $301 million.
The court allowed for its auction which took place in March 2017, but no bidders, apart from one stalking horse offer, took part.
Other lawsuits, 1990–2009
1990s
Business:
In late 1990, Trump was sued for $2 million by a business analyst for defamation, and Trump settled out of court. Shortly before Trump Taj Mahal opened in April 1990, the analyst had said that the project would fail by the end of that year.
Trump threatened to sue the analyst's firm unless the analyst recanted or was fired. The analyst refused to retract the statements, and his firm fired him for ostensibly unrelated reasons.
Trump Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy in November 1990, the first of several such bankruptcies. The NYSE later ordered the firm to compensate the analyst $750,000; the analyst did not release the details of his settlement with Trump.
In 1991, Trump sued the manufacturers of a helicopter that crashed in 1989, killing three executives of his New Jersey hotel casino business. The helicopter fell 2,800 feet (850 m) after the main four-blade rotor and tail rotor broke off the craft, killing Jonathan Benanav, an executive of Trump Plaza, and two others: Mark Grossinger Etess, president of Trump Taj Mahal, and Stephen F. Hyde, chief executive of the Atlantic City casinos.
One of the defendant companies was owned by the Italian government, providing a basis for removing it to federal court, where the case was dismissed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the dismissal in 1992, and the Supreme Court denied Trump's petition to hear the case in the same year.
In 1993, Donald Trump sued Jay Pritzker, a Chicago financier and Trump's business partner since 1979 on the Grand Hyatt hotel. Trump alleged that Pritzker overstated earnings in order to collect excessive management fees. In 1994, Pritzker sued Trump for violating their agreement by, among other ways, failing to remain solvent. The two parties ended the feud in 1995 in a sealed settlement, in which Trump retained some control of the hotel and Pritzker would receive reduced management fees and pay Trump's legal expenses.
In 1993, Vera Coking sued Trump and his demolition contractor for damage to her home during construction of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. In 1997, she dropped the suit against Trump and settled with her contractor for $90,000. Coking had refused to sell her home to Trump and ultimately won a 1998 Supreme Court decision that prevented Atlantic City from using eminent domain to condemn her property.
In 1996, Trump was sued by more than 20 African-American residents of Indiana who charged that Trump reneged on promises to hire 70% of his work force from the minority community for his riverboat casino on Lake Michigan. The suit also charged that he hadn't honored his commitments to steer sufficient contracts to minority-owned businesses in Gary, Indiana. The suit was eventually dismissed due to procedural and jurisdiction issues.
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. Both owners filed lawsuits against one another and other parties, including the State of New Jersey, beginning with Wynn's antitrust accusation against Trump.
After two years in court, Wynn's Mirage casino sued Trump in 1999 alleging that his company had engaged in a conspiracy to harm Mirage and steal proprietary information, primarily lists of wealthy Korean gamblers.
In response, Trump's attorneys claimed that Trump's private investigator dishonored his contract by working as a "double agent" for the Mirage casino by secretly taping conversations with Trump. All the cases were settled at the same time on the planned day of an evidentiary hearing in court in February 2000, which was never held.
Personal and sexual:
In 1992, Trump sued ex-wife Ivana Trump for not honoring a gag clause in their divorce agreement by disclosing facts about him in her bestselling book. Trump won the gag order.
The divorce was granted in 1990 on grounds that Ivana claimed Donald Trump's treatment of her was "cruel and inhuman treatment". Years later, Ivana said that she and Donald "are the best of friends".
A sexual assault claim for child rape at a party of Jeffrey Epstein in 1994 was filed against Trump in New York in June 2016. It was dropped on November 4, 2016.
In April 1997, Jill Harth Houraney filed a $125,000,000 lawsuit against Trump for sexual harassment in 1993, claiming he "'groped' her under her dress and told her he wanted to make her his 'sex slave'".
Harth voluntarily withdrew the suit when her husband settled a parallel case. Trump has called the allegations "meritless".
2000s
From 2000 on, Trump tried to partner with a German venture in building a "Trump Tower Europe" in Germany. The company founded for this, "TD Trump Deutschland AG" was dissolved in 2003, several lawsuits following in the years thereafter.
Trump sued Leona Helmsley, and Helmsley counter-sued Trump due to contentions regarding ownership and operation of the Empire State Building. In 2002, Trump announced that he and his Japanese business partners, were selling the Empire State Building to partners of his rival Leona Helmsley.
In 2004, Donald Trump sued Richard T. Fields in Broward County Circuit Court (in Florida); Fields was once Trump's business partner in the casino business, but had recently become a successful casino developer in Florida apart from Trump. Fields counter-sued Trump in Florida court. Trump alleged that Fields misled other parties into believing he still consulted for Trump, and Fields alleged improprieties in Trump's business.
The two businessmen agreed in 2008 to drop the lawsuits when Fields agreed to buy Trump Marina in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for $316 million, but the deal was unsettled again in 2009 because Trump resigned his leadership of Trump Entertainment after Fields lowered his bid. Fields never bought the company, which went into bankruptcy about the same time and was sold for $38 million. Trump's lawsuit was settled in 2010.
In 2004, the Trump Organization partnered with Bayrock Group on a $200 million hotel and condo project in Fort Lauderdale Beach, to be called Trump International Hotel & Tower.
After proceeding for five years, real estate market devaluation stymied the project in 2009 and Trump dissolved his licensing deal, demanding that his name be removed from the building. Soon after this, the project defaulted on a $139 million loan in 2010. Investors later sued the developers for fraud.
Trump petitioned to have his name removed from the suit, saying he had only lent his name to the project. However his request was refused since he had participated in advertising for it. The insolvent building project spawned over 10 lawsuits, some of which were still not settled in early 2016.
After the 2008 housing-market collapse, Deutsche Bank attempted to collect $40 million that Donald Trump personally guaranteed against their $640 million loan for Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. Rather than paying the debt, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for $3 billion for undermining the project and damage to his reputation. Deutsche Bank then filed suit to obtain the $40 million. The two parties settled in 2010 with Deutsche Bank extending the loan term by five years.
In 2008, developer Leslie Dick Worldwide Ltd., New York, filed a RICO complaint against 17 parties, including Donald Trump, financier George Soros, Fortress Investment Group and Cerberus Capital Management, over the 2003 sale of the General Motors Corp. Building in midtown Manhattan. The case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice a year later.
In 2009, Donald Trump sued a law firm he had used, Morrison Cohen, for $5 million for mentioning his name and providing links to related news articles on its website. This lawsuit followed a lawsuit by Trump alleging overcharging by the law firm, and a countersuit by Morrison Cohen seeking unpaid legal fees. The suit was dismissed in a 15-page ruling by Manhattan Supreme Court justice Eileen Bransten, who ruled that the links to news articles concerned "matters of public interest."
In 2009, Trump was sued by investors who had made deposits for condos in the canceled Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico. The investors said that Trump misrepresented his role in the project, stating after its failure that he had been little more than a spokesperson for the entire venture, disavowing any financial responsibility for the debacle.
Investors were informed that their investments would not be returned due to the cancellation of construction. In 2013, Trump settled the lawsuit with more than one hundred prospective condo owners for an undisclosed amount.
Other lawsuits, 2010–present:
Lawsuit against CBS for harming Trump's electoral chances
In October 2024, Trump sued CBS News for releasing two different clips of an interview with Kamala Harris, Trump's opponent in the presidential election, on the television program 60 Minutes, alleging deceitful manipulation to harm his electoral chances.
In July 2025, CBS's parent company Paramount, which needs the Trump administration's approval for a planned merger, agreed to pay $16 million to Trump's future presidential library and to release transcripts of future interviews with presidential candidates on 60 Minutes.
Construction and property law matters:
In 2013, 87-year-old Jacqueline Goldberg unsuccessfully sued Trump on allegations that he cheated her in a condominium sale by bait-and-switch when she was purchasing properties at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.
Defamation matters
Lawsuits filed by Trump
In 2011, an appellate court upheld a New Jersey Superior Court judge's decision dismissing Trump's $5 billion defamation lawsuit against author Timothy L. O'Brien, who had reported in his book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald (2005), that Trump's true net worth was really between $150 and $250 million.
Trump had reportedly told O'Brien he was worth billions and, in 2005, had publicly stated such. Trump said that the author's alleged underestimation of his net worth was motivated by malice and had cost him business deals and damage to his reputation. The appellate court, however, ruled against Trump, citing the consistency of O'Brien's three confidential sources.
In 2014, the former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin ultimately settled a $5 million arbitration judgment against her, having been sued by Trump after alleging that the Miss USA 2012 pageant results were rigged.
Monnin wrote on her Facebook page that another contestant told her during a rehearsal that she had seen a list of the top five finalists, and when those names were called in their precise order, Monnin realized the pageant election process was suspect, compelling Monnin to resign her Miss Pennsylvania title.
The Trump Organization's lawyer said that Monnin's allegations had cost the pageant a lucrative BP sponsorship deal and threatened to discourage women from entering Miss USA contests in the future. According to Monnin, testimony from the Miss Universe Organization and Ernst & Young revealed that the top 15 finalists were selected by pageant directors regardless of preliminary judges' scores.
As part of the settlement, Monnin was not required to retract her original statements. Monnin sued her lawyer for malpractice because he did not attend the arbitration hearing and did not inform Monnin that it was taking place. She said that the settlement "meant she never had to pay Trump a dollar out of her own pocket."
On July 28, 2023, a federal district court judge dismissed an October 2022 Trump lawsuit against CNN, stating that CNN's multiple uses of the term "big lie" about Trump's claims of election fraud did not constitute actionable defamation.
The judge wrote that CNN's statements were opinion, not factually verifiable statements, and that "no reasonable viewer" would infer that "Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people".
In December 2022, Trump sued the Pulitzer Prize board for defamation. Trump had requested the board to revoke the prize they had awarded to The Washington Post and The New York Times in 2018 for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The board rejected his request, stating that their "reviews concluded 'no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.'" Trump's suit alleged that the statement was malicious and intended to damage his reputation.
In February 2025, the Florida Court of Appeals denied the board's motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit.
In October 2023, Trump filed a lawsuit in London against Orbis Business Intelligence and Christopher Steele (who was later removed from the suit) alleging that Orbis violated British data protection laws when compiling a 2016 dossier about Trump, later called the Steele dossier.
Trump accused Steele of making "'shocking and scandalous claims' that were false and harmed his reputation". Trump's witness statement said: "I can confirm that I did not, at any time engage in perverted sexual behaviour including the hiring of prostitutes to engage in 'golden showers' in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow."
Trump asserted "The inaccurate personal data in the Dossier has, and continues, to cause me significant damage and distress." On February 1, 2024, the High Court sided with Orbis and dismissed Trump's claim stating that the filing was outside the six-year period of limitations and the case was "bound to fail". In March 2024, Trump was ordered to pay legal fees of £300,000 ($382,000) to Orbis.
In December 2024, the Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC News, settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump against ABC News, by agreeing to donate $15 million to Trump's future presidential library foundation and paying $1 million in Trump's legal fees.
Disney also agreed to ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos publishing a statement saying they regretted that Stephanopoulos, in an interview with Trump, had repeatedly said that Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll.
On July 18, 2025, Trump sued the Wall Street Journal, its publishing company Dow Jones & Company, Dow Jones's owner News Corp, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch, and two Wall Street Journal journalists for defamation, seeking $10 billion in damages. A day earlier, the paper had published an article stating that in 2003 Trump had written a lewd note with a drawing of a nude woman that was included in a 50th birthday album for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Lawsuits filed against Trump:
On January 17, 2017, Summer Zervos, represented by attorney Gloria Allred, filed a defamation suit against President-elect Donald Trump for claiming that she had lied in her public sexual assault allegations against him. In March 2021, a New York appeals court dismissed Trump's appeal and allowed the suit to proceed. Later in the year, the court ordered Trump to answer questions under oath, but Zervos withdrew from the case before Trump had to testify.
Former FBI agent Peter Strzok (who was fired and seeks to be reinstated) and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page (who resigned and seeks back pay) have filed lawsuits against Trump. They both claim that their job losses were political retribution for criticizing Trump in their text messages with each other before his 2016 election. In February 2023, a judge said that Trump could be deposed in these lawsuits.
Trump has been accused of racism for insisting that a group of black and Latino teenagers were guilty of raping a white woman in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence in 2002.
In October 2024, the men sued Trump for defamation after he said in the televised September presidential debate that they had committed the crime and killed the woman. The men requested a jury trial and asked for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Trump lawsuit against the Des Moines Register:
On December 17, 2024, Trump sued the Des Moines Register, its parent company Gannet, and J. Ann Selzer and her polling firm Selzer & Company for a violation of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, accusing them of "brazen election interference".
Shortly before the 2024 presidential election, the newspaper had released a poll that showed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris leading Trump by three points. Because the Republican governor of Iowa had adopted an anti SLAPP law in May 2025, Trump dropped his federal lawsuit, which was widely considered a SLAPP lawsuit, and as of July refiled it at the state level.
Trump $50 million copyright lawsuit against Bob Woodward:
In 2023, Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward, the book's publisher Simon & Schuster LLC, and Simon & Schuster's former parent company Paramount for copyright violation when they published the Trump interviews Woodward taped for his book Rage in the audiobook The Trump Tapes, asking for $50 million in damages. The judge dismissed the case in July 2025, giving Trump a month to file an amended plausible claim.
Financial matters
ALM lawsuit:
In July 2011, New York firm ALM Unlimited filed a lawsuit against Trump for non-payment. ALM had been hired in 2003 to seek offers from clothing companies for a Trump fashion line, and it had arranged a meeting between Trump and PVH, which licensed the Trump name for dress shirts and neckwear.
ALM, which had received over $300,000 during a three-year period, alleged in the lawsuit that Trump's discontinuation of payments in 2008 was against their initial agreement. In pre-trial depositions, Trump and two of his business officials – attorney George H. Ross and executive vice president of global licensing Cathy Glosser – gave contradictory statements regarding whether ALM was entitled to payments.
Trump, who felt that ALM had only a limited role in the deal between him and PVH, said "I have thousands of checks that I sign a week, and I don't look at very many of the checks; and eventually I did look, and when I saw them (ALM) I stopped paying them because I knew it was a mistake or somebody made a mistake."
Trump and ALM failed to settle, and in January 2013 a judge ordered that the case go to trial. During the trial in April 2013, Trump said that ALM's role in the PVH agreement was insubstantial, stating that Regis Philbin (rather than ALM) was the one who recommended PVH to him.
Trump's attorney, Alan Garten, said ALM was not legally entitled to any money. The judge ruled in favor of Trump later that month because there had never been a valid contract between him and ALM.
ACN lawsuit
Main article: ACN Inc.
Investors sued Donald Trump and his family for fraud, false advertising, and unfair competition. They alleged that Trump recommended the multi-level marketing company ACN as a good investment and that Trump did not disclose that he was being paid by ACN. In January 2024, a U.S. District Judge dismissed the case from federal court, recommending plaintiffs file in state courts.
Mary L. Trump lawsuit
Further information:
In September 2020, Trump's niece, Mary L. Trump, sued Trump and his siblings Robert and Maryanne Trump, alleging that they fraudulently kept her and her brother out of the will of Fred Trump (Donald's father), including by conspiring with a trustee assigned to her, and acted to devalue her interests in the family business—effectively defrauding her of tens of millions of dollars.
Further, she alleges that these accomplices pressured her to sign a settlement agreement by threatening to bankrupt interests benefitting her and cut off the healthcare insurance for her infant nephew, who was then suffering from cerebral palsy. Her suit was dismissed in November 2022, and she appealed. In June 2023, her appeal was denied.
Copyright infringement:
In September 2020, musician Eddy Grant sued Trump for unauthorized use of Grant's 1983 chart hit "Electric Avenue" in an August 2020 presidential campaign video. Trump posted the video on Twitter where it was viewed more than 13 million times before Twitter took it down after Grant's copyright complaint. Grant's song plays during 40 seconds of the animated 55-second video.
Trump unsuccessfully attempted to have the suit dismissed, citing fair use and "absolute presidential immunity". Grant asked for $300,000 in damages.
Trump's attorney told the court that the deposition contained sensitive information about Trump's presidential campaign strategy. He asked that Trump and campaign advisor Dan Scavino's testimony be permanently sealed because it would give an "unwarranted competitive advantage" to his opponents in the 2024 presidential election, and because it "could be used against them in other, parallel, litigations unrelated to this matter.".
The case, Grant v. Trump (1:20-cv-07103), is pending in federal court in the Southern District New York. In September 2024, the judge ruled that fair use did not apply to the campaign ad and that Trump had to pay Grant damages in an amount to be determined by a jury, as well as Grant's legal fees.
On August 11, 2024, the estate of musician Isaac Hayes filed a lawsuit against Trump for unauthorized use of Hayes' 1966 chart hit "Hold On, I'm Comin'" across 134 campaign rallies. Hayes' estate demanded a "cessation of use, removal of all related videos, a public disclaimer, and payment of $3 million in licensing fees".
On August 21, 2024, the record label of singer Beyoncé sent a cease-and-desist notice to Trump's presidential campaign for unauthorized use of Beyonce's 2016 hit single "Freedom" in a promotional video. The song was used in the background of a video featuring Trump getting off a plane in Michigan and posted to Twitter by campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
By the next day, it was reported that the video was deleted from Cheung's account.
Breach of contract matters
2013:
In 2013 Trump sued comedian Bill Maher for $5 million for breach of contract. Maher had appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and had offered to pay $5 million to a charity if Trump produced his birth certificate to prove that Trump's mother had not mated with an orangutan.
This was said by Maher in response to Trump having previously challenged Obama to produce his birth certificate, and offering $5 million payable to a charity of Obama's choice, if Obama produced his college applications, transcripts, and passport records.
Trump produced his birth certificate and filed a lawsuit after Maher was not forthcoming, claiming that Maher's $5 million offer was legally binding. "I don't think he was joking," Trump said. "He said it with venom." Trump withdrew his lawsuit against the comedian after eight weeks.
2014:
In 2014, model Alexia Palmer filed a civil suit against Trump Model Management for promising a $75,000 annual salary but paying only $3,380.75 for three years' work.
Palmer, who came to the US at age 17 from Jamaica under the H-1B visa program in 2011, claimed to be owed more than $200,000. Palmer contended that Trump Model Management charged, in addition to a management fee, "obscure expenses" from postage to limousine rides that consumed the remainder of her compensation.
Palmer alleged that Trump Model Management promised to withhold only 20% of her net pay as agency expenses, but after charging her for those "obscure expenses", ended up taking 80%.
Trump attorney Alan Garten claimed the lawsuit is "bogus and completely frivolous". Palmer filed a class-action lawsuit against the modeling agency with similar allegations. The case was dismissed from U.S. federal court in March 2016, in part because Palmer's immigration status, via H1-B visa sponsored by Trump, required labor complaints to be filed through a separate process.
2015:
In 2015, Trump sued Univision, demanding $500 million for breach of contract and defamation when they dropped their planned broadcast of the Miss USA pageant. The network said that the decision was made because of Trump's "insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants". Trump settled the lawsuit with Univision CEO Randy Falco out of court.
In July 2015, Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court for breach of contract against Spanish celebrity chef José Andrés, claiming that he backed out of a deal to open the flagship restaurant at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Andrés replied that Trump's lawsuit was "both unsurprising and without merit" and filed an $8 million counterclaim against a Trump Organization subsidiary.
Also in July 2015, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian decided to withdraw from the Washington, D.C., project together with Andrés in the wake of Trump's comments on Mexican illegal immigrants, and is expected to lose his own $500,000 restaurant lease deposit as a result.
Trump denounced and then sued Zakarian in August 2015 for a sum "in excess of $10 million" for lost rent and other damages. Trump's lawsuit called Zakarian's offense at his remarks "curious in light of the fact that Mr. Trump's publicly shared views on immigration have remained consistent for many years, and Mr. Trump's willingness to frankly share his opinions is widely known".
Disputes with both chefs were eventually settled in April 2017.
In 2015, restaurant workers at Trump SoHo filed a lawsuit claiming that from 2009 to at least the time of the filing, gratuities added to customers' checks were illegally withheld from employees. The Trump Organization responded that the dispute is between the employees and their employer, a third-party contractor.
In 2019, the third-party contractor settled with the workers for an undisclosed amount.
2018
In July 2018, Noel Cintron, the personal driver for Donald Trump before he became the president of the United States, filed a lawsuit Cintron v Trump Organization LLC with the Supreme Court of the State of New York (Manhattan).
The lawsuit claims that during his 25-year employment by Trump, he was not compensated for overtime and the second time his salary was raised he was induced to surrender his health insurance, an action which saved Trump approximately $17,866 per year.
In his lawsuit, Cintron sought $178,200 of overtime back pay, plus $5,000 in penalties that are seen under the New York State Labor Law. Cintron dropped the lawsuit on August 30, 2018, with the case being submitted to arbitration for resolution.
2023:
On April 12, 2023, Trump sued his former attorney, Michael Cohen, for breach of contract. Trump sought $500 million in damages. Trump dropped the suit on October 5, 2023.
Breach of confidentiality and conspiracy:
In 2021, Trump sued The New York Times, three of its journalists, and his niece Mary L. Trump in New York County Supreme Court over disclosure of some of his tax information in a 2018 article in the Times. The article, which went on to win a Pulitzer prize, revealed that Trump had received over $400 million from his father and had used questionable techniques to minimize his tax burden.
Trump claimed that the journalists had conspired with Mary Trump to obtain confidential information, resulting in her breaching the confidentiality agreement she signed in 2001.
The case against the Times and its journalists was dismissed in May 2023 on First Amendment grounds. Trump was ordered to pay the legal costs of the New York Times and paid $392,000 in February 2024.
A ruling the next month allowed Donald to pursue his claim against Mary who appealed the ruling. The appeals court ruled in May to let the case proceed, stating that there was "a substantial basis in law" for breach of contract but that the duration of the confidentiality agreement needed to be determined and that Donald had to prove whether the disclosure had caused him any damages.
Assault claims:
In September 2015, five men who had demonstrated outside of a Trump presidential campaign event at Trump Tower in New York City sued Donald Trump, alleging that Trump's security staff punched one of them. They said that Trump's security guards had been advised by city police that the protests there were permitted. Several people videotaped the incident.
A New York judge had ordered a videotaped deposition in 2019. Trump invoked presidential privilege, and the deposition was delayed until October 18, 2021. His testimony under oath lasted for over 4 hours. The lawsuit was eventually settled in November 2022.
In June 2015, the Culinary Workers Union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging that the owners of Trump Hotel Las Vegas "violated the federally protected rights of workers to participate in union activities" and engaged in "incidents of alleged physical assault, verbal abuse, intimidation, and threats by management".
In October 2015, the Trump Ruffin Commercial and Trump Ruffin Tower I, the owners of Trump Hotel Las Vegas, sued the Culinary Workers Union and another union, alleging that they had knowingly distributed flyers that falsely stated that Donald Trump had stayed at a rival unionized hotel, rather than his own non-unionized hotel, during a trip to Las Vegas.
E. Jean Carroll's defamation and assault claims began trial in Manhattan federal court on April 25, 2023. On May 9, 2023, after deliberating for less than three hours, a jury of six men and three women found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, but also did not find him liable for rape. The jury then awarded Carroll about $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. On January 26, 2024, following another trial, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll an additional $83.3 million in damages.
Lawsuit for inciting violence at March 2016 campaign rally:
During a campaign rally on March 1, 2016, in Louisville, Kentucky, Trump repeatedly said "get 'em out of here" while pointing at anti-Trump protesters as they were forcibly escorted out by his supporters.
Three protesters say they were repeatedly shoved and punched while Trump pointed at them from the podium, citing widely shared video evidence of the events. They also cited previous statements by Trump about paying the legal bills of supporters who got violent, or suggesting a demonstrator deserved to be "roughed up."
The lawsuit accuses Donald Trump of inciting violence against protesters in Louisville, Kentucky. The plaintiffs are Kashiya Nwanguma (21), Molly Shah (36) and Henry Brousseau (17).
The suit is against Trump, his campaign, and three Trump supporters (Matthew Heimbach, Alvin Bamberger and an unnamed defendant). Bamberger, who was wearing a Veteran's uniform in the video, apologized to the Korean War Veterans Association immediately after the event, writing that he "physically pushed a young woman down the aisle toward the exit" after "Trump kept saying 'get them out, get them out."
Trump's attorneys requested to get the case dismissed, arguing he was protected by free speech laws, and wasn't trying to get his supporters to resort to violence. They also stated that Trump had no duty to the protesters, and they had assumed the personal risk of injury by deciding to protest at the rally.
On Saturday, April 1, 2017, Judge David J. Hale in Louisville ruled against the dismissal of a lawsuit, stating there was ample evidence to support that the injuries of the protesters were a "direct and proximate result" of Trump's words and actions. Hale wrote, "It is plausible that Trump's direction to 'get 'em out of here' advocated the use of force," and, "It was an order, an instruction, a command." Hale wrote that the Supreme Court has ruled out some protections for free speech when used to incite violence.
Defendant Heimbach requested to dismiss the discussion in the lawsuit about his association with a white nationalist group, and also requested to dismiss discussion of statements he made about how a President Trump would advance the interests of the group. The request was declined, with the judge saying the information could be important for determining punitive damages because they add context.
Hale also declined to remove the allegation that plaintiff Nwanguma, who is African-American, was victim to ethnic, racial and sexist slurs at the rally from the crowd. The judge stated that this context may support claims by the plaintiffs' of incitement and negligence by Trump and the Trump campaign. The judge wrote, "While the words themselves are repulsive, they are relevant to show the atmosphere in which the alleged events occurred."
The judge stated that all people have a duty to use care to prevent foreseeable injury. "In sum, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that their harm was foreseeable and that the Trump Defendants had a duty to prevent it." The case was referred a federal magistrate, Judge H. Brent Brennenstuhl, who will handle preliminary litigation, discovery and settlement efforts.
Heimbach filed a separate counterclaim in April 2017, arguing that Trump was "responsible for any injuries" he [Heimbach] "might have inflicted because Mr. Trump directed him and others to take action". Heimbach, "a self-employed landscaper", and a member of the Traditionalist Youth Network, "which advocates separate American 'ethno states', "spends much of his time" online writing "against Jews, gays and immigrants and urging whites to stand up for their race."
He wrote his own lawsuit which requested that Trump pay Heimbach's "legal fees, citing a promise Mr. Trump made at an earlier rally to pay legal costs of anyone who removed protesters."
Heimbach's "counterclaim" against Trump has "probed the limits of free speech and public protest while confronting the courts with a unique legal argument".
On May 5, Trump's lawyers submitted legal filings that argue that Heimbach's "indemnity claim should be dismissed on the same grounds". According to a University of Virginia law professor, Leslie Kendrick, this indemnity or "impleader" case is "highly unusual."
New York University's Samuel Issacharoff, a professor of constitutional law, argued that care must be taken to not allow speech, in the "context of a political rally" to be "turned into something that is legally sanctionable."
Payments related to alleged affairs
See also:
On March 30, 2023, Trump was indicted regarding payments to Stormy Daniels.
Adult film actress Stormy Daniels has alleged that she and Trump had an extramarital affair in 2006, months after the birth of his youngest child.
Just before the 2016 presidential election Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 by Trump's attorney Michael Cohen as part of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), through an LLC set up by Cohen; he says he used his own money for the payment.
In February 2018, Daniels sued the LLC asking to be released from the agreement so she could tell her story. Cohen filed a private arbitration proceeding and obtained a restraining order to keep her from discussing the case. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump denied the allegations.
On March 6, 2018, Daniels sued Trump in California Superior Court, claiming the NDA never came into effect because Trump hadn't personally signed it.
On March 16, Cohen, with Trump's approval, asked for Daniels' suit to be moved from state to federal court, given that they lived in different states and the matter concerned a large sum; Cohen asserted that Daniels could owe $20 million in liquidated damages for breaching the agreement.
The filing marked the first time that Trump himself, through his personal attorney, had taken part in the Daniels litigation. In early April 2018, Trump said he hadn't known that Cohen paid Daniels, why Cohen did so or where Cohen got the money. On April 30, Daniels further sued Trump for defamation. In May 2018, Trump's annual financial disclosure revealed that he reimbursed Cohen in 2017 for expenditures related to the Daniels case.
In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, admitting paying hush money of $130,000 and $150,000 "at the direction of a candidate for federal office" to two women who alleged affairs with that candidate, "with the purpose of influencing the election". The figures match sums of payments made to Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
American Media, Inc. had reportedly in 2016 bought for $150,000 the rights to a story by McDougal alleging an affair with a married Trump from 2006 which lasted between nine months to a year. David Pecker (AMI CEO/chairman and friend of Trump), Dylan Howard (AMI chief content officer) and Allen Weisselberg (chief financial officer of the Trump Organization) were reportedly granted witness immunity in exchange for their testimony regarding the illegal payments.
In response, Trump said that he only knew about the payments "later on". Trump also said regarding the payments: "They didn't come out of the campaign, they came from me."
The Wall Street Journal reported on November 9, 2018, that federal prosecutors have evidence of Trump's "central role" in payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal that violated campaign-finance laws.
In a December 7, 2018, sentencing memorandum for Cohen, federal prosecutors implicated Trump in directing Cohen to commit the campaign finance law felonies for which Cohen had pleaded guilty. Shortly after the memorandum court filing, Trump tweeted: "Totally clears the president. Thank you!" Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
On December 13, 2018, Trump denied directing Cohen to make hush payments. That same day, NBC News reported that Trump was present in an August 2015 meeting with Cohen and David Pecker when they discussed how American Media could help counter negative stories about Trump's relationships with women, confirming previous reporting by The Wall Street Journal.
In 2019, Cohen testified to Congress that Trump did order him to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 as hush money and then lie about the payment.
A criminal investigation initiated by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. fell dormant.
In November 2022, the New York Times reported Vance's successor Alvin Bragg was reviving the investigation. The Times reported in March 2023 that Bragg's office had recently signaled to Trump's attorneys that he likely faced indictment in the Daniels matter. Michael Cohen testified before the grand jury on March 13, and prosecutors offered Trump an opportunity to testify too.
By March 17, federal, state and local law enforcement and security agencies were discussing contingencies for a likely Trump indictment. He was indicted on March 30.
Trump was convicted on all 34 felony counts on May 30, 2024. He became the first U.S. president to have been convicted of a felony in any state or federal court.
Lawsuits over congressional subpoenas
Further information: Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP
In March 2019, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform opened an investigation into Trump's finances, and issued a subpoena for ten years of his tax returns. Trump later sued the chairman of the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, seeking to quash the subpoena.
In April 2019, Trump (along with his children Eric, Ivanka and Donald Jr, as well as the Trump Organization) sued Deutsche Bank, Capital One, his accounting firm Mazars USA, and House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings, in an attempt to prevent congressional subpoenas revealing information about Trump's finances.
On May 20, 2019, DC District Court judge Amit Mehta ruled that Mazars must comply with the subpoena.
Trump's attorneys filed notice to appeal to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit the next day. On May 22, 2019, judge Edgardo Ramos of the federal District Court in Manhattan rejected the Trump suits against Deutsche Bank and Capital One, ruling the banks must comply with congressional subpoenas.
On October 7, 2019, Judge Victor Marrero of the federal District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a 75-page ruling that Trump must comply with the subpoena and provide his tax returns to a New York grand jury.
Minutes later, however, Trump's attorney filed an emergency request with the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, which immediately placed a temporary stay on the subpoena.
In November, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the District Court ruling and ordered Trump to turn over his tax returns to Congress. Trump soon appealed to the Supreme Court, which blocked the order by the Second Circuit temporarily.
On February 25, 2021, the House Oversight Committee in the 117th Congress reissued the subpoena to Mazars USA for the same documents it had previously sought.
Lawsuits over the January 6 riot
Main article: January 6 United States Capitol attack
Blassingame v. Trump: Two U.S. Capitol police officers sued Trump for allegedly inciting the protests that took over the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Thompson v. Trump: Congressman Bennie Thompson, the NAACP, and 11 other members of the U.S. House of Representatives sued Trump in February, 2021 for allegedly conspiring to incite the deadly violence.
Swalwell v. Trump: Congressman Eric Swalwell filed a lawsuit against Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., and two others of violating federal civil rights laws and local incitement laws after they spoke at a rally near the White House on January 6 before members of the crowd moved on to the Capitol.
In January 2023, a federal judge denied a request by Trump to toss out the cases. Trump appealed, arguing he was immune. In December, the federal appeals court rejected his argument. As Trump did not appeal to the Supreme Court by a February 2024 deadline, the lawsuits can proceed.
Lawsuits over social media ban:
In July 2021, Trump, who had been banned from the social media platforms after the January 6 United States Capitol attack, brought class action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and Google, private companies whose terms of service their users must agree to. Trump contended that the platforms were basically acting as government agents and violated his free speech rights under the First Amendment when they banned him from posting.
Trump's racketeering lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and others
On March 24, 2022, Trump sued Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and 26 others, alleging that they "maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty [Russia]" during the 2016 presidential election, and that Trump had lost at least $24 million as a result. In the RICO lawsuit, he asked for a jury trial and $72 million in damages.
In September, U.S. district judge Donald M. Middlebrooks dismissed the suit, stating that it "ignored existing laws, U.S. Supreme Court precedent, and basic legal theory". The judge also wrote in a footnote that Trump had the lawsuit filed in the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, which has only one federal judge, district judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee. Trump appealed the decision on October 11.
On November 2, Clinton and the other defendants filed a motion in the district court asking for sanctions against Trump's attorneys and to make Trump pay their legal bills of more than $1 million.
On January 19, 2023, judge Middlebrooks sanctioned Trump and his attorney, Alina Habba, $938,000 to cover the legal costs for the 31 defendants Trump cited in the suit. Middlebrooks wrote, in part:
On February 3, 2023, Trump offered to post a $1.03 m`illion bond to appeal the judgment.
On February 27, 2024, Trump filed an appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking to remove the sanctions and reinstate the original lawsuit.
Investigations
Mueller Special Counsel investigation
Main articles:
The Special Counsel investigation is a United States law enforcement investigation of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and any Russian (or other foreign) interference in the election, including exploring any possible links or coordination between Trump's campaign and the Russian government, "and any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."
Since May 2017, the investigation has been led by a United States Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Mueller's investigation took over several FBI investigations including those involving former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security advisor Michael Flynn.
It has been noted that Trump has experienced a high turnover with respect to the attorneys handling this matter, as well as a large number of prominent lawyers and law firms publicly declining offers to join Trump's legal team.
On March 22, 2019, Mueller concluded his investigation and gave the final report to Attorney General William Barr. On March 24, Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress summarizing the findings of the report. The report writes that the investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign", found that:
However, ultimately "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities".
On the question of obstruction of justice, Barr stated that Mueller did not reach a conclusion; he quotes the special counsel as saying "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
Barr wrote, "The special counsel's decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the attorney general to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime," adding that he and Rosenstein "concluded that the evidence developed during the special counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
House Oversight Committee investigation and subpoenas:
In April 2019, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas seeking financial details from Trump's banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, and his accounting firm, Mazars USA. In response, Trump sued the banks, Mazars, and committee chair Elijah Cummings to prevent the disclosures.
In May, DC District Court judge Amit Mehta ruled that Mazars must comply with the subpoena, and judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District Court of New York ruled that the banks must also comply.
Trump's attorneys appealed the rulings, arguing that Congress was attempting to usurp the "exercise of law-enforcement authority that the Constitution reserves to the executive branch". The documents were surrendered in September 2022, after Trump agreed to discontinue his appeal.
Inaugural committee:
The New York Times reported in December 2018 that federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn are investigating whether Middle Eastern foreigners sought to buy influence over American policies by using straw donors to illegally funnel donations to Trump's inaugural committee and a pro-Trump Super PAC.
The Trump inaugural committee received a subpoena from federal prosecutors on February 4, 2019. The SDNY subpoena demanded a comprehensive array of documents involving the committee's donors, finances, attendees and activities. The subpoena reportedly covered:
Donald J. Trump Foundation
Main article: Donald J. Trump Foundation
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, media began reporting in detail on how the Donald J. Trump Foundation was funded and how Donald Trump used its funds. The Washington Post in particular reported several cases of possible misuse, self-dealing and possible tax evasion.
Regarding the various irregularities in the Trump Foundation, former head of the Internal Revenue Service's Office of Exempt Organizations Division Marc Owens told The Washington Post that he was surprised by the "laundry list of issues".
The office of New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman investigated the foundation "to make sure it's complying with the laws governing charities in New York." The Trump Foundation was found to have committed fraud and to have misappropriated funds, and was ordered to be shut down.
Controversy over tax returns
Main article: Tax returns of Donald Trump
In October 2016, The New York Times published some tax documents from 1995. Trump claimed on his tax returns that he lost money, but did not recognize it in the form of canceled debts. Trump might have performed a stock-for-debt swap. This would have allowed Trump to avoid paying income taxes for at least 18 years.
An audit of Trump's tax returns for 2002 through 2008 was "closed administratively by agreement with the I.R.S. without assessment or payment, on a net basis, of any deficiency."
Tax attorneys believe the government may have reduced what Trump was able to claim as a loss without requiring him to pay any additional taxes. It is unknown whether the I.R.S. challenged Trump's use of the swaps because he has not released his tax returns.
Trump's lawyers advised against Trump using the equity for debt swap, as they believed it to be potentially illegal.
After a protracted legal battle against subpoenas to release his tax returns, including two appeals to the United States Supreme Court, in February 2021 the high court permitted the records to be released to prosecutors and a grand jury.
Campaign contributions:
According to a New York state report, Trump circumvented corporate and personal campaign donation limits in the 1980s – although he did not break any laws – by donating money to candidates from 18 different business subsidiaries, rather than giving primarily in his own name. 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.
Georgia 2020 election investigation
Main articles:
Trump is facing a state and federal investigation in the state of Georgia regarding his efforts to reverse his loss there in the 2020 election. In a phone call, Trump pressured Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, to change the state's election results.
Trump is reportedly at risk for charges including:
On November 18, 2022, the federal investigation was subsumed in the Smith special counsel investigation.
United States 2020 election investigation
Main articles:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is probing Trump's months-long efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
By March 2022, the DOJ had seated several grand juries, including one regarding the fake electors scheme, to help prosecutors decide whether to bring charges against Trump's inner circle.
New York investigations of The Trump Organization
Main article: New York investigations of The Trump Organization
An investigation in the state of New York, examining the business dealings of the Trump Organization. The investigation is probing possible loan fraud and tax fraud.
Mark Pomerantz, an attorney with extensive experience in prosecuting white-collar and organized crime as the former head of the criminal division in the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office, joined the investigation as a special assistant district attorney on February 2, 2021.
Trump's legal team argued that while he was president, he was not required to respond to subpoenas, which delayed investigations and resulted in court cases such as Trump v. Vance.
On May 18, 2021, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office would be pursuing the case "in a criminal capacity", upgrading from a formerly civil investigation.
On October 20, 2021, the district attorney of Westchester County announced a criminal investigation into The Trump Organization. The charges could include:
On September 21, 2022, James filed a civil lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization, and three of Trump's adult children, alleging fraud and misrepresentation. On December 6, 2022, The Trump Organization would be convicted of 17 criminal charges.
Among its two corporate entities, the Trump Corporation would be convicted of nine criminal charges, while the Trump Payroll Corporation would be convicted of eight criminal charges.
On February 16, 2024 New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that four of the defendants in New York's civil case against the Trump Organization (Donald Trump, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Allen Weisselberg) be required to pay a total of $364 million, with Donald Trump being ordered to pay $355 million. Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump were ordered pay $4 million each, while Allen Weisselberg was ordered to pay $1 million
Engoron also barred Donald Trump for three years from serving in top roles at any New York company, including his own Trump Organization, while his two older sons, including de facto Trump Organization head Eric Trump, were barred for two years.
On March 25, 2024, the required payment for Donald Trump was lowered to $175 million, and was required to be paid within a 10 day deadline.
Trump would post the bond on April 1, 2024, thus ensuring that his assets and properties could not be seized until at least the time he finished appealing the verdict. On August 21, 2025, the appeals court upheld Trump's liability but voided the penalty as excessive.
FBI search of Mar-a-Lago
Main article: FBI search of Mar-a-Lago
See also: Donald Trump § Post-presidency investigations
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. The search focused on material Trump brought to his residence when he left the White House. The agents took 26 boxes of material and documents; eleven sets of documents were classified as confidential, secret, or top secret, including sensitive compartmented information.
Trump was at Trump Tower in New York City during the search.
On November 18, 2022, the White House documents investigation was subsumed into the Smith special counsel investigation.
January 6 Committee:
On October 13, 2022, members of the U.S. House of Representatives January 6 Committee unanimously voted on live television to subpoena Trump to testify about the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a 14-page letter reply, Trump remained defiant.
On October 21, 2022, the committee formally issued the subpoena, demanding that he hand over documents by November 4 and provide testimony by November 14.
Trump did not do so.
On December 19, 2022, the Committee voted unanimously to refer Trump and the lawyer John Eastman to the U.S. Department of Justice for prosecution.
Recommended charges for Trump included:
The Department of Justice had previously on November 18, 2022, transferred the investigation to the Smith special counsel investigation.
On August 1, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump in the District of Columbia U.S. District Court on the following charges for his conduct following the 2020 presidential election through the January 6 Capitol attack:
The indictment mentioned six unnamed co-conspirators. It is Trump's third indictment and the first indictment against a U.S. president concerning actions while in office. Trump appeared at an arraignment on August 3, where he pleaded not guilty. The charge with the longest sentence carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
On February 2, 2024, Judge Tanya Chutkan said she would not schedule a trial until the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decided whether Trump was immune from prosecution. After that court unanimously ruled that Trump was not immune,
Trump appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled on July 1 that former presidents have "some immunity from criminal prosecution" for their "official acts" made during their presidency.
As a result, on August 27, the special counsel issued a superseding indictment that maintained the same four charges but omitted some specific allegations.
IRS audit:
As of May 2024, an ongoing IRS audit found Trump allegedly double-dipped on tax losses from his Chicago skyscraper, which could cost him upwards of $100 million in back taxes and penalties.
Use of bankruptcy laws:
Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy, but hotel and casino businesses of his have been declared bankrupt six times between 1991 and 2009 to re-negotiate debt with banks and owners of stock and bonds.
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.
These types of bankruptcies are common in the business world for restructuring to avoid having to close a business. In the case of Trump's bankruptcies, three were tied directly to gaming industry, which as a whole had suffered during the time the bankruptcies were declared.
According to a report by Forbes in 2011, the four bankruptcies were the result of over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses:
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."
He indicated that many "great entrepreneurs" do the same.
1991:
In 1991, Trump Taj Mahal was unable to service its debt and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Forbes indicated that this first bankruptcy was the only one where Trump's personal financial resources were involved. Time, however, maintains that $72 million of his personal money was also involved in a later 2004 bankruptcy.
1992:
On November 2, 1992, the Trump Plaza Hotel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Trump lost his 49 percent stake in the luxury hotel to Citibank and five other lenders. In return Trump received more favorable terms on the remaining $550+ million owed to the lenders, and retain his position as chief executive, though he would not be paid and would not have a role in day-to-day operations.
2004:
Donald Trump's third corporate bankruptcy was on October 21, 2004, involving Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, the publicly traded holding company for his three Atlantic City casinos and some others. Trump lost over half of his 56% ownership and gave bondholders stock in exchange for surrendering part of the debt. No longer CEO, Trump retained a role as chairman of the board.
In May 2005 the company emerged from bankruptcy as Trump Entertainment Resorts Holdings. In his 2007 book, Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life, Trump wrote: "I figured it was the bank's problem, not mine. What the hell did I care? I actually told one bank, 'I told you you shouldn't have loaned me that money. I told you the goddamn deal was no good.'"
2009:
Trump's fourth corporate bankruptcy occurred in 2009, when Trump and his daughter Ivanka resigned from the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts; four days later the company, which owed investors $1.74 billion against its $2.06 billion of assets, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At that time, Trump Entertainment Resorts had three properties in Atlantic City:
Trump and some investors bought the company back that same year for $225 million.
As part of the agreement, Trump withdrew a $100 million lawsuit he had filed against the casino's owners alleging damage to the Trump brand. Trump re-negotiated the debt, reducing by over $1 billion the repayments required to bondholders.
In 2014, Trump sued his former company to remove his name from the buildings since he no longer ran the company, having no more than a 10% stake; he lost the suit.
Trump Entertainment Resorts filed again for bankruptcy in 2014 and was purchased by billionaire philanthropist Carl Icahn in 2016, who acquired Trump Taj Mahal in the deal.
Other allegations:
Allegations of business links to organized crime:
Trump maintained a connection with organized crime members to supply the concrete for Trump Tower. According to former New York mobster Michael Franzese, "the mob controlled all the concrete business in the city of New York," and that while Trump was not "in bed with the mob ... he certainly had a deal with us. ... he didn't have a choice."
Mafia-connected union boss John Cody supplied Trump with concrete in exchange for giving his mistress a high-level apartment with a pool, which required extra structural reinforcement. Trump admitted in 2014 that he had "had no choice" but to work with "concrete guys who are mobbed up." He further stated that "I don't like getting close to people like that, but they respected me."
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.
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."
Trump helped a financier for the Scarfo family get a casino license, and constructed a casino using firms controlled by Nicodemo Scarfo.
Trump also bought real estate from Philadelphia crime family member Salvatore Testa, and bought concrete from companies associated with the Genovese crime family and the Gambino crime family.
Trump Plaza paid a $450,000 fine leveled by the Casino Gaming Commission for giving $1.6 million in rare automobiles to Robert LiButti, the acquaintance of John Gotti already mentioned.
Starting in 2003, the Trump Organization worked with Felix Sater, who had a 1998 racketeering conviction for a $40 million stock fraud scheme orchestrated by the Russian mafia, and who had then become an informant against the mafia. Trump's attorney has said that Sater worked with Trump scouting real estate opportunities, but was never formally employed.
Destruction of documents:
In June 2016, a USA Today article reported that Donald Trump and his companies have been deleting emails and other documents on a large scale, including evidence in lawsuits, sometimes in defiance of court orders and under subpoena since as early as 1973.
In October 2016, Kurt Eichenwald published new research findings in Newsweek. The findings were first published by Paul Singer on June 13, 2016 and gained larger attention after a new report in Newsweek on October 31, 2016.
According to Newsweek, Trump and his companies "hid or destroyed thousands of documents" involving several court cases from as early as 1973.
"Over the course of decades, Donald Trump's companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders.... In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records."
In 1973, Trump, his father and their company were in court for civil charges for refusing to rent apartments to African Americans. After their lawyers had delayed court requests for documents for several months, Trump, then being under subpoena, said his company had destroyed corporate records of the past six months "for saving space".
In a court case beginning in 2005 against Power Plant Entertainment, LLC, an affiliate of real estate developer Cordish Cos., it was revealed that Trump's companies had deleted the data requested by court. Cordish Cos. had built two American Indian casinos in Florida under the Hard Rock brand and Donald Trump accused them of cheating him out of that deal.
Nonetheless, Trump's lawyers had refused to instruct workers to keep all records related to the case during litigation. Trump had established a procedure to delete all data from their employees' computers every year at least since 2003, despite knowing at least since 2001 that he might want to file a lawsuit.
Even after the lawsuit was filed, Trump Hotels disposed of a computer of a key witness without having made a backup of the data. A former general counsel of the Trump casino unit confirmed that all data were deleted from nearly all companies' computers annually.
Trump and his lawyers claimed they were not keeping records and digital data although it was revealed that Trump had launched his own high-speed internet provider in 1998 and an IBM Domino server had been installed for emails and digital files in 1999.
In August 2022, Axios published photographs, taken while Trump was president, of paper with Trump's handwriting torn into pieces and thrown in toilets, possible evidence of violations of Presidential Records Act.
Unpaid security bills:
In August 2024, NBC Montana reported that local governments have invoiced him for police presence at his campaign stops, and that some of these invoices remained unpaid.
See also
From 1973 until he was elected president in 2016, Donald Trump and his businesses were involved in over 4,000 legal cases in United States federal and state courts, including battles with casino patrons, million-dollar real estate lawsuits, personal defamation lawsuits, and over 100 business tax disputes.
He has also been accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault, with one accusation resulting in him being held civilly liable.
In 2015, Trump's lawyer Alan Garten called Trump's legal entanglements "a natural part of doing business" in the U.S. While litigation is indeed common in the real estate industry, Trump has been involved in more legal cases than his combined fellow magnates:
Many of the lawsuits were filed against patrons with debt to his casinos. Of all cases with a clear resolution, Trump was the victor 92 percent of the time.
Numerous legal matters and investigations occurred during and after Trump's first presidency, some being of historical importance. Between October 2021 and July 2022 alone, the Republican National Committee paid more than US$2 million to attorneys representing Trump in his presidential, personal, and business capacities.
In January 2023, a federal judge fined Trump and his attorney nearly $1 million, characterizing him as "a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries".
On December 6, 2022, the parent company of Trump's many businesses, the Trump Organization, was convicted on 17 criminal charges.
Trump has also been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation[ and is appealing an order to pay more than $80 million in damages to the victim, E. Jean Carroll.
Trump, together with his associates, has also been found liable for fraud regarding overvaluation of the Trump Organization and Trump's net worth, and is appealing a $364 million fine plus $100 million interest.
In 2024, Trump was convicted on numerous counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, although his sentencing was indefinitely postponed following his second election to the presidency.
In 2024, before Trump's election, a judge dismissed the federal charges relating to Trump's handling of classified documents. After his election, the special counsel decided to abandon the federal charges related to the 2020 election and the appeal of the documents case dismissal, citing the Justice Department policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents.
Lawsuits involving government entities:
U.S. federal government
1973 federal housing suit
In 1973, Trump was accused by the Justice Department of violations of the Fair Housing Act in the operation of 39 buildings. The department said that black "testers" were sent to more than half a dozen buildings and were denied apartments, but a similar white tester would then be offered an apartment in the same building.
The government alleged that Trump's corporation quoted different rental terms and conditions to blacks and made false "no vacancy" statements to blacks for apartments they managed in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.
Representing Trump, Roy Cohn filed a counter-suit against the government for $100 million, asserting that the charges were irresponsible and baseless. A federal judge threw out the countersuit, calling it a waste of "time and paper". Trump settled the charges out of court 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".
Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of Trump's book, The Art of the Deal, said that the housing case was "a classic example" of Trump being "a counterpuncher": someone accuses Trump of doing something horrible, and he "goes back at them with all guns blazing.... And admits nothing." If Trump loses, he will "declare victory".
The corporation was required to send a bi-weekly list of vacancies to the New York Urban League, a civil rights group, and give them priority for certain locations. In 1978 the Trump Organization again was in court for violating terms of the 1975 settlement; Trump denied the charges.
Other suits:
In 1988, the Justice Department sued Trump for violating procedures related to public notifications when buying voting stock in a company related to his attempted takeovers of Holiday Corporation and Bally Manufacturing Corporation in 1986. Trump agreed to pay $750,000 to settle the civil penalties of the antitrust lawsuit.
In 2016, the American Bar Association (ABA) commissioned a report to highlight Trump's excess litigation, entitled "Donald J. Trump is a Libel Bully but also a Libel Loser", but initially declined to publish it fearing being sued by Trump.
In 2001, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought a financial-reporting case against Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., alleging that the company had committed several "misleading statements in the company's third-quarter 1999 earnings release". Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. consented to the commission's cease-and-desist order, said the culprit had been dismissed, and that Trump had personally been unaware of the matter.
New York:
In 1985, New York City brought a lawsuit against Trump for allegedly using tactics to force out tenants of 100 Central Park South, which he intended to demolish together with the building next door. After ten years in court, the two sides negotiated a deal allowing the building to stand as condominiums.
In 2000, Donald Trump paid $250,000 to settle fines related to charges brought by New York State Lobbying Commission director David Grandeau. Trump was charged with circumventing state law to spend $150,000 lobbying against government approval of plans to construct an Indian-run casino in the Catskills, which would have diminished casino traffic to Trump's casinos in Atlantic City.
Trump is suing the town of Ossining, New York, over the property tax valuation on his 147-acre (59 ha) Trump National Golf Club Westchester, located in Briarcliff Manor's portion of the town, which Trump purchased for around $8 million at a foreclosure sale in the 1990s and to which he claimed, at the club's opening, to have added $45 million in facility improvements.
Although Trump stated in his 2015 FEC filing that the property was worth at least $50 million, his lawsuit seeks a $1.4 million valuation on the property, which includes a 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m2) clubhouse, five overnight suites, and permission to build 71 condominium units, in an effort to shave $424,176 from his annual local property tax obligations.
Trump filed the action after separately being sued by Briarcliff Manor for "intentional and illegal modifications" to a drainage system that caused more than $238,000 in damage to the village's library, public pool, and park facilities during a 2011 storm.
New York Attorney General lawsuits
Further information: New York investigations of The Trump Organization
On December 20, 2021, Trump filed a lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York over her ongoing civil investigation into potentially unlawful inflation and deflation of property values where it was best suited to avoid tax liability and gain other financial benefits by the Trump Organization.
Trump sought a permanent suspension of the investigation, which has been proceeding for over three years, because he alleged it was being used as a political tool to harass and intimidate him, his business, and his family through unwarranted subpoenas and aggressive public statements made by James both in her official capacity and personal capacity, James' office denied these claims, and in a separate statement accused Trump of using "over two years of delay tactics" through the courts to obstruct the investigation's progress.
On January 10, 2022, Trump filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the New York Attorney General from continuing her investigation until a final judgement on his complaint had been made, arguing her inquiry was entirely baseless. James moved to dismiss the suit on January 26, stating that Trump is a "state-court loser" seeking to bypass the legal process in the state through federal court.
On January 20, 2023, Trump's lawyers withdrew the suit. The same judge, Donald M. Middlebrooks, had just fined Trump and his attorneys almost $1 million for filing a "frivolous" defamation lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.
James has subpoenaed Trump to produce documents in connection with her investigation into the Trump Organization. On April 25, 2022, New York Judge Arthur Engoron found that Trump did not comply with the subpoena and declared him to be in civil contempt of court. He said Trump would be fined $10,000 per day until he complies
In November 2022, Trump sued James in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida to block her access to the records of the trust he set up to hold his companies when he became president, the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Judge Donald Middlebrooks denied his emergency motion for a preliminary injunction.
On January 20, 2023, Trump withdrew the lawsuit. The same judge had just fined Trump and his lawyer almost $1 million for filing a racketeering lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
Trump University litigation
Main article: Trump University § Allegations of impropriety and lawsuits
In 2013, in a lawsuit filed by New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, Trump was accused of defrauding more than 5,000 people of $40 million for the opportunity to learn Trump's real estate investment techniques in a for-profit training program, Trump University, which operated from 2005 to 2011.
Trump ultimately stopped using the term "University" following a 2010 order from New York regulators, who called Trump's use of the word "misleading and even illegal"; the state had previously warned Trump in 2005 to drop the term or not offer seminars in New York.
Although Trump has claimed a 98% approval rating on course evaluations, former students recounted high-pressure tactics from instructors seeking the highest possible ratings, including threats of withholding graduation certificates.
In addition, the high reviews were solicited before the courses ended, when the students still anticipated receiving benefits that ultimately never materialized. Subsequently, more than 2,000 students sought and received course refunds before the end of their paid seminars.
In a separate class action civil suit against Trump University in mid-February 2014, a San Diego federal judge allowed claimants in California, Florida, and New York to proceed. a Trump counterclaim, alleging that the state attorney general's investigation was accompanied by a campaign donation shakedown, was investigated by a New York ethics board and dismissed in August 2015. Trump filed a $1 million defamation suit against former Trump University student Tarla Makaeff, who had spent about $37,000 on seminars, after she joined the class action lawsuit and publicized her classroom experiences on social media.
Trump University was later ordered by a U.S. district judge in April 2015 to pay Makaeff and her lawyers $798,774.24 in legal fees and costs. Donald Trump was found to have defrauded students, and was forced to pay $25 million in restitution.
Other U.S. state and local governments:
In 1991, Trump Plaza was fined $200,000 by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission for moving African American and female employees from craps tables in order to accommodate high roller Robert LiButti, a mob figure and alleged John Gotti associate, who was said to fly into fits of racist rage when he was on losing streaks. There is no indication that Trump was ever questioned in that investigation, he was not held personally liable, and Trump denies even knowing what LiButti looked like.
In 1991, one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was found guilty of circumventing state regulations about casino financing when Donald Trump's father bought $3.5 million in chips that he had no plans to gamble. Trump Castle was forced to pay a $30,000 fine under the settlement, according to New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement director Jack Sweeney. Trump was not disciplined for the illegal advance on his inheritance, which was not confiscated.
In 2006, the Town of Palm Beach began fining Trump $250 per day for ordinance violations related to his erection of an 80-foot-tall (24 m) flagpole flying a 15-by-25-foot (4.6 by 7.6 m) American flag on his property. Trump sued the town for $25 million, saying that they abridged his free speech, also disputing an ordinance that local businesses be "town-serving".
The two parties settled as part of a court-ordered mediation, in which Trump was required to donate $100,000 to veterans' charities. At the same time, the town ordinance was modified allowing Trump to enroll out-of-town members in his Mar-a-Lago social club.
In 2008, Trump filed a $100 million lawsuit for alleged fraud and civil rights violations against the California city of Rancho Palos Verdes, over thwarted luxury home development and expansion plans upon part of a landslide-prone golf course in the area, which was purchased by Trump in 2002 for $27 million.
Trump had previously sued a local school district over land leased from them in the re-branded Trump National Golf Club, and had further angered some local residents by renaming a thoroughfare after himself. The $100 million suit was ultimately withdrawn in 2012 with Trump and the city agreeing to modified geological surveys and permit extensions for some 20 proposed luxury homes (in addition to 36 homes previously approved).
Trump ultimately opted for a permanent conservation easement instead of expanded housing development on the course's driving range.
In 2015, Trump initiated a $100 million lawsuit against Palm Beach County claiming that officials, in a "deliberate and malicious" act, pressured the FAA to direct air traffic to the Palm Beach International Airport over his Mar-a-Lago estate, because he said the airplanes damaged the building and disrupted its ambiance.
Trump had previously sued the county twice over airport noise; the first lawsuit, in 1995, ended with an agreement between Trump and the county; Trump's second lawsuit, in 2010, was dismissed.
Nevada early voting Latino turnout controversy:
On November 8, 2016, Trump filed a lawsuit claiming early voting polling places in Clark County, Nevada, were kept open too late. These precincts had a high turnout of Latino voters. Nevada state law explicitly stated that polls were to stay open to accommodate eligible voters in line at closing time.
Hillary Clinton campaign advisor Neera Tanden accused the Trump campaign of trying to suppress Latino voter turnout. A political analyst from Nevada, Jon Ralston, tweeted that the Trump lawsuit was "insane" in a state that clearly allowed the polls to remain open until everyone in line had voted.
Former Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller posted the statute that stated "voting must continue until those voters have voted". Miller said: "If there are people in line waiting to vote at 7 pm, voting must continue until everyone votes.... We still live in America, right?"
A Nevada judge denied Trump's request to separate early voting ballots. Judge Gloria Sturman, of the District Court for Clark County Nevada, ruled that County Registrar of Voters Joe P. Gloria was already obligated by state law to maintain the records that the Trump campaign was seeking. Sturman said: "That is offensive to me because it seems to go against the very principle that a vote is secret."
Diana Orrock, the Republican National Committeewoman for Nevada and a vocal Trump ally, said she was unaware of the lawsuit before Politico contacted her. "I know that the [Clark County] registrar was on TV this morning saying that anybody who's in line was allowed to participate in the voting process until all of them came through," she said. "If that's what they did, I don't have a problem with that ... I don't know that filing a suit's going to accomplish anything." Orrock doubted the lawsuit would have any impact.
Outside the U.S.
In 2003, the city of Stuttgart denied TD Trump Deutschland AG, a Trump Organization subsidiary, the permission to build a planned tower due to questions over its financing.
Trump Deutschland sued the city of Stuttgart, and lost. In 2004 Trump's German corporate partner brought suit against the Trump Organization for failure to pay back a EUR 2 million pre-payment as promised.
In 2011, Donald Trump sued Scotland, alleging that it built the Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm after assuring him it would not be built. He had recently built a golf course there and planned to build an adjacent hotel. Trump lost his suit, with the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom unanimously ruling in favor of the Scottish government in 2015.
In October 2016, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that Trump, together with two principals of a connected developer, could be sued for various claims, including oppression, collusion and breach of fiduciary duties, in relation to his role in the marketing of units in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto, Canada.
A subsequent application for leave to appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada in March 2017. Also in October 2016, JCF Capital ULC (a private firm that had bought the construction loan on the building) announced that it was seeking court approval under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to have the building sold in order to recoup its debt, which then totaled $301 million.
The court allowed for its auction which took place in March 2017, but no bidders, apart from one stalking horse offer, took part.
Other lawsuits, 1990–2009
1990s
Business:
In late 1990, Trump was sued for $2 million by a business analyst for defamation, and Trump settled out of court. Shortly before Trump Taj Mahal opened in April 1990, the analyst had said that the project would fail by the end of that year.
Trump threatened to sue the analyst's firm unless the analyst recanted or was fired. The analyst refused to retract the statements, and his firm fired him for ostensibly unrelated reasons.
Trump Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy in November 1990, the first of several such bankruptcies. The NYSE later ordered the firm to compensate the analyst $750,000; the analyst did not release the details of his settlement with Trump.
In 1991, Trump sued the manufacturers of a helicopter that crashed in 1989, killing three executives of his New Jersey hotel casino business. The helicopter fell 2,800 feet (850 m) after the main four-blade rotor and tail rotor broke off the craft, killing Jonathan Benanav, an executive of Trump Plaza, and two others: Mark Grossinger Etess, president of Trump Taj Mahal, and Stephen F. Hyde, chief executive of the Atlantic City casinos.
One of the defendant companies was owned by the Italian government, providing a basis for removing it to federal court, where the case was dismissed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the dismissal in 1992, and the Supreme Court denied Trump's petition to hear the case in the same year.
In 1993, Donald Trump sued Jay Pritzker, a Chicago financier and Trump's business partner since 1979 on the Grand Hyatt hotel. Trump alleged that Pritzker overstated earnings in order to collect excessive management fees. In 1994, Pritzker sued Trump for violating their agreement by, among other ways, failing to remain solvent. The two parties ended the feud in 1995 in a sealed settlement, in which Trump retained some control of the hotel and Pritzker would receive reduced management fees and pay Trump's legal expenses.
In 1993, Vera Coking sued Trump and his demolition contractor for damage to her home during construction of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. In 1997, she dropped the suit against Trump and settled with her contractor for $90,000. Coking had refused to sell her home to Trump and ultimately won a 1998 Supreme Court decision that prevented Atlantic City from using eminent domain to condemn her property.
In 1996, Trump was sued by more than 20 African-American residents of Indiana who charged that Trump reneged on promises to hire 70% of his work force from the minority community for his riverboat casino on Lake Michigan. The suit also charged that he hadn't honored his commitments to steer sufficient contracts to minority-owned businesses in Gary, Indiana. The suit was eventually dismissed due to procedural and jurisdiction issues.
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. Both owners filed lawsuits against one another and other parties, including the State of New Jersey, beginning with Wynn's antitrust accusation against Trump.
After two years in court, Wynn's Mirage casino sued Trump in 1999 alleging that his company had engaged in a conspiracy to harm Mirage and steal proprietary information, primarily lists of wealthy Korean gamblers.
In response, Trump's attorneys claimed that Trump's private investigator dishonored his contract by working as a "double agent" for the Mirage casino by secretly taping conversations with Trump. All the cases were settled at the same time on the planned day of an evidentiary hearing in court in February 2000, which was never held.
Personal and sexual:
In 1992, Trump sued ex-wife Ivana Trump for not honoring a gag clause in their divorce agreement by disclosing facts about him in her bestselling book. Trump won the gag order.
The divorce was granted in 1990 on grounds that Ivana claimed Donald Trump's treatment of her was "cruel and inhuman treatment". Years later, Ivana said that she and Donald "are the best of friends".
A sexual assault claim for child rape at a party of Jeffrey Epstein in 1994 was filed against Trump in New York in June 2016. It was dropped on November 4, 2016.
In April 1997, Jill Harth Houraney filed a $125,000,000 lawsuit against Trump for sexual harassment in 1993, claiming he "'groped' her under her dress and told her he wanted to make her his 'sex slave'".
Harth voluntarily withdrew the suit when her husband settled a parallel case. Trump has called the allegations "meritless".
2000s
From 2000 on, Trump tried to partner with a German venture in building a "Trump Tower Europe" in Germany. The company founded for this, "TD Trump Deutschland AG" was dissolved in 2003, several lawsuits following in the years thereafter.
Trump sued Leona Helmsley, and Helmsley counter-sued Trump due to contentions regarding ownership and operation of the Empire State Building. In 2002, Trump announced that he and his Japanese business partners, were selling the Empire State Building to partners of his rival Leona Helmsley.
In 2004, Donald Trump sued Richard T. Fields in Broward County Circuit Court (in Florida); Fields was once Trump's business partner in the casino business, but had recently become a successful casino developer in Florida apart from Trump. Fields counter-sued Trump in Florida court. Trump alleged that Fields misled other parties into believing he still consulted for Trump, and Fields alleged improprieties in Trump's business.
The two businessmen agreed in 2008 to drop the lawsuits when Fields agreed to buy Trump Marina in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for $316 million, but the deal was unsettled again in 2009 because Trump resigned his leadership of Trump Entertainment after Fields lowered his bid. Fields never bought the company, which went into bankruptcy about the same time and was sold for $38 million. Trump's lawsuit was settled in 2010.
In 2004, the Trump Organization partnered with Bayrock Group on a $200 million hotel and condo project in Fort Lauderdale Beach, to be called Trump International Hotel & Tower.
After proceeding for five years, real estate market devaluation stymied the project in 2009 and Trump dissolved his licensing deal, demanding that his name be removed from the building. Soon after this, the project defaulted on a $139 million loan in 2010. Investors later sued the developers for fraud.
Trump petitioned to have his name removed from the suit, saying he had only lent his name to the project. However his request was refused since he had participated in advertising for it. The insolvent building project spawned over 10 lawsuits, some of which were still not settled in early 2016.
After the 2008 housing-market collapse, Deutsche Bank attempted to collect $40 million that Donald Trump personally guaranteed against their $640 million loan for Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. Rather than paying the debt, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for $3 billion for undermining the project and damage to his reputation. Deutsche Bank then filed suit to obtain the $40 million. The two parties settled in 2010 with Deutsche Bank extending the loan term by five years.
In 2008, developer Leslie Dick Worldwide Ltd., New York, filed a RICO complaint against 17 parties, including Donald Trump, financier George Soros, Fortress Investment Group and Cerberus Capital Management, over the 2003 sale of the General Motors Corp. Building in midtown Manhattan. The case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice a year later.
In 2009, Donald Trump sued a law firm he had used, Morrison Cohen, for $5 million for mentioning his name and providing links to related news articles on its website. This lawsuit followed a lawsuit by Trump alleging overcharging by the law firm, and a countersuit by Morrison Cohen seeking unpaid legal fees. The suit was dismissed in a 15-page ruling by Manhattan Supreme Court justice Eileen Bransten, who ruled that the links to news articles concerned "matters of public interest."
In 2009, Trump was sued by investors who had made deposits for condos in the canceled Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico. The investors said that Trump misrepresented his role in the project, stating after its failure that he had been little more than a spokesperson for the entire venture, disavowing any financial responsibility for the debacle.
Investors were informed that their investments would not be returned due to the cancellation of construction. In 2013, Trump settled the lawsuit with more than one hundred prospective condo owners for an undisclosed amount.
Other lawsuits, 2010–present:
Lawsuit against CBS for harming Trump's electoral chances
In October 2024, Trump sued CBS News for releasing two different clips of an interview with Kamala Harris, Trump's opponent in the presidential election, on the television program 60 Minutes, alleging deceitful manipulation to harm his electoral chances.
In July 2025, CBS's parent company Paramount, which needs the Trump administration's approval for a planned merger, agreed to pay $16 million to Trump's future presidential library and to release transcripts of future interviews with presidential candidates on 60 Minutes.
Construction and property law matters:
In 2013, 87-year-old Jacqueline Goldberg unsuccessfully sued Trump on allegations that he cheated her in a condominium sale by bait-and-switch when she was purchasing properties at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.
Defamation matters
Lawsuits filed by Trump
In 2011, an appellate court upheld a New Jersey Superior Court judge's decision dismissing Trump's $5 billion defamation lawsuit against author Timothy L. O'Brien, who had reported in his book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald (2005), that Trump's true net worth was really between $150 and $250 million.
Trump had reportedly told O'Brien he was worth billions and, in 2005, had publicly stated such. Trump said that the author's alleged underestimation of his net worth was motivated by malice and had cost him business deals and damage to his reputation. The appellate court, however, ruled against Trump, citing the consistency of O'Brien's three confidential sources.
In 2014, the former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin ultimately settled a $5 million arbitration judgment against her, having been sued by Trump after alleging that the Miss USA 2012 pageant results were rigged.
Monnin wrote on her Facebook page that another contestant told her during a rehearsal that she had seen a list of the top five finalists, and when those names were called in their precise order, Monnin realized the pageant election process was suspect, compelling Monnin to resign her Miss Pennsylvania title.
The Trump Organization's lawyer said that Monnin's allegations had cost the pageant a lucrative BP sponsorship deal and threatened to discourage women from entering Miss USA contests in the future. According to Monnin, testimony from the Miss Universe Organization and Ernst & Young revealed that the top 15 finalists were selected by pageant directors regardless of preliminary judges' scores.
As part of the settlement, Monnin was not required to retract her original statements. Monnin sued her lawyer for malpractice because he did not attend the arbitration hearing and did not inform Monnin that it was taking place. She said that the settlement "meant she never had to pay Trump a dollar out of her own pocket."
On July 28, 2023, a federal district court judge dismissed an October 2022 Trump lawsuit against CNN, stating that CNN's multiple uses of the term "big lie" about Trump's claims of election fraud did not constitute actionable defamation.
The judge wrote that CNN's statements were opinion, not factually verifiable statements, and that "no reasonable viewer" would infer that "Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people".
In December 2022, Trump sued the Pulitzer Prize board for defamation. Trump had requested the board to revoke the prize they had awarded to The Washington Post and The New York Times in 2018 for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The board rejected his request, stating that their "reviews concluded 'no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.'" Trump's suit alleged that the statement was malicious and intended to damage his reputation.
In February 2025, the Florida Court of Appeals denied the board's motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit.
In October 2023, Trump filed a lawsuit in London against Orbis Business Intelligence and Christopher Steele (who was later removed from the suit) alleging that Orbis violated British data protection laws when compiling a 2016 dossier about Trump, later called the Steele dossier.
Trump accused Steele of making "'shocking and scandalous claims' that were false and harmed his reputation". Trump's witness statement said: "I can confirm that I did not, at any time engage in perverted sexual behaviour including the hiring of prostitutes to engage in 'golden showers' in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow."
Trump asserted "The inaccurate personal data in the Dossier has, and continues, to cause me significant damage and distress." On February 1, 2024, the High Court sided with Orbis and dismissed Trump's claim stating that the filing was outside the six-year period of limitations and the case was "bound to fail". In March 2024, Trump was ordered to pay legal fees of £300,000 ($382,000) to Orbis.
In December 2024, the Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC News, settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump against ABC News, by agreeing to donate $15 million to Trump's future presidential library foundation and paying $1 million in Trump's legal fees.
Disney also agreed to ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos publishing a statement saying they regretted that Stephanopoulos, in an interview with Trump, had repeatedly said that Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll.
On July 18, 2025, Trump sued the Wall Street Journal, its publishing company Dow Jones & Company, Dow Jones's owner News Corp, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch, and two Wall Street Journal journalists for defamation, seeking $10 billion in damages. A day earlier, the paper had published an article stating that in 2003 Trump had written a lewd note with a drawing of a nude woman that was included in a 50th birthday album for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Lawsuits filed against Trump:
On January 17, 2017, Summer Zervos, represented by attorney Gloria Allred, filed a defamation suit against President-elect Donald Trump for claiming that she had lied in her public sexual assault allegations against him. In March 2021, a New York appeals court dismissed Trump's appeal and allowed the suit to proceed. Later in the year, the court ordered Trump to answer questions under oath, but Zervos withdrew from the case before Trump had to testify.
Former FBI agent Peter Strzok (who was fired and seeks to be reinstated) and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page (who resigned and seeks back pay) have filed lawsuits against Trump. They both claim that their job losses were political retribution for criticizing Trump in their text messages with each other before his 2016 election. In February 2023, a judge said that Trump could be deposed in these lawsuits.
Trump has been accused of racism for insisting that a group of black and Latino teenagers were guilty of raping a white woman in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence in 2002.
In October 2024, the men sued Trump for defamation after he said in the televised September presidential debate that they had committed the crime and killed the woman. The men requested a jury trial and asked for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Trump lawsuit against the Des Moines Register:
On December 17, 2024, Trump sued the Des Moines Register, its parent company Gannet, and J. Ann Selzer and her polling firm Selzer & Company for a violation of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, accusing them of "brazen election interference".
Shortly before the 2024 presidential election, the newspaper had released a poll that showed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris leading Trump by three points. Because the Republican governor of Iowa had adopted an anti SLAPP law in May 2025, Trump dropped his federal lawsuit, which was widely considered a SLAPP lawsuit, and as of July refiled it at the state level.
Trump $50 million copyright lawsuit against Bob Woodward:
In 2023, Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward, the book's publisher Simon & Schuster LLC, and Simon & Schuster's former parent company Paramount for copyright violation when they published the Trump interviews Woodward taped for his book Rage in the audiobook The Trump Tapes, asking for $50 million in damages. The judge dismissed the case in July 2025, giving Trump a month to file an amended plausible claim.
Financial matters
ALM lawsuit:
In July 2011, New York firm ALM Unlimited filed a lawsuit against Trump for non-payment. ALM had been hired in 2003 to seek offers from clothing companies for a Trump fashion line, and it had arranged a meeting between Trump and PVH, which licensed the Trump name for dress shirts and neckwear.
ALM, which had received over $300,000 during a three-year period, alleged in the lawsuit that Trump's discontinuation of payments in 2008 was against their initial agreement. In pre-trial depositions, Trump and two of his business officials – attorney George H. Ross and executive vice president of global licensing Cathy Glosser – gave contradictory statements regarding whether ALM was entitled to payments.
Trump, who felt that ALM had only a limited role in the deal between him and PVH, said "I have thousands of checks that I sign a week, and I don't look at very many of the checks; and eventually I did look, and when I saw them (ALM) I stopped paying them because I knew it was a mistake or somebody made a mistake."
Trump and ALM failed to settle, and in January 2013 a judge ordered that the case go to trial. During the trial in April 2013, Trump said that ALM's role in the PVH agreement was insubstantial, stating that Regis Philbin (rather than ALM) was the one who recommended PVH to him.
Trump's attorney, Alan Garten, said ALM was not legally entitled to any money. The judge ruled in favor of Trump later that month because there had never been a valid contract between him and ALM.
ACN lawsuit
Main article: ACN Inc.
Investors sued Donald Trump and his family for fraud, false advertising, and unfair competition. They alleged that Trump recommended the multi-level marketing company ACN as a good investment and that Trump did not disclose that he was being paid by ACN. In January 2024, a U.S. District Judge dismissed the case from federal court, recommending plaintiffs file in state courts.
Mary L. Trump lawsuit
Further information:
- Fred Trump § Wealth and death,
- Fred Trump Jr.,
- Mary L. Trump § Conflicts within the Trump family,
- and Too Much and Never Enough
In September 2020, Trump's niece, Mary L. Trump, sued Trump and his siblings Robert and Maryanne Trump, alleging that they fraudulently kept her and her brother out of the will of Fred Trump (Donald's father), including by conspiring with a trustee assigned to her, and acted to devalue her interests in the family business—effectively defrauding her of tens of millions of dollars.
Further, she alleges that these accomplices pressured her to sign a settlement agreement by threatening to bankrupt interests benefitting her and cut off the healthcare insurance for her infant nephew, who was then suffering from cerebral palsy. Her suit was dismissed in November 2022, and she appealed. In June 2023, her appeal was denied.
Copyright infringement:
In September 2020, musician Eddy Grant sued Trump for unauthorized use of Grant's 1983 chart hit "Electric Avenue" in an August 2020 presidential campaign video. Trump posted the video on Twitter where it was viewed more than 13 million times before Twitter took it down after Grant's copyright complaint. Grant's song plays during 40 seconds of the animated 55-second video.
Trump unsuccessfully attempted to have the suit dismissed, citing fair use and "absolute presidential immunity". Grant asked for $300,000 in damages.
Trump's attorney told the court that the deposition contained sensitive information about Trump's presidential campaign strategy. He asked that Trump and campaign advisor Dan Scavino's testimony be permanently sealed because it would give an "unwarranted competitive advantage" to his opponents in the 2024 presidential election, and because it "could be used against them in other, parallel, litigations unrelated to this matter.".
The case, Grant v. Trump (1:20-cv-07103), is pending in federal court in the Southern District New York. In September 2024, the judge ruled that fair use did not apply to the campaign ad and that Trump had to pay Grant damages in an amount to be determined by a jury, as well as Grant's legal fees.
On August 11, 2024, the estate of musician Isaac Hayes filed a lawsuit against Trump for unauthorized use of Hayes' 1966 chart hit "Hold On, I'm Comin'" across 134 campaign rallies. Hayes' estate demanded a "cessation of use, removal of all related videos, a public disclaimer, and payment of $3 million in licensing fees".
On August 21, 2024, the record label of singer Beyoncé sent a cease-and-desist notice to Trump's presidential campaign for unauthorized use of Beyonce's 2016 hit single "Freedom" in a promotional video. The song was used in the background of a video featuring Trump getting off a plane in Michigan and posted to Twitter by campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
By the next day, it was reported that the video was deleted from Cheung's account.
Breach of contract matters
2013:
In 2013 Trump sued comedian Bill Maher for $5 million for breach of contract. Maher had appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and had offered to pay $5 million to a charity if Trump produced his birth certificate to prove that Trump's mother had not mated with an orangutan.
This was said by Maher in response to Trump having previously challenged Obama to produce his birth certificate, and offering $5 million payable to a charity of Obama's choice, if Obama produced his college applications, transcripts, and passport records.
Trump produced his birth certificate and filed a lawsuit after Maher was not forthcoming, claiming that Maher's $5 million offer was legally binding. "I don't think he was joking," Trump said. "He said it with venom." Trump withdrew his lawsuit against the comedian after eight weeks.
2014:
In 2014, model Alexia Palmer filed a civil suit against Trump Model Management for promising a $75,000 annual salary but paying only $3,380.75 for three years' work.
Palmer, who came to the US at age 17 from Jamaica under the H-1B visa program in 2011, claimed to be owed more than $200,000. Palmer contended that Trump Model Management charged, in addition to a management fee, "obscure expenses" from postage to limousine rides that consumed the remainder of her compensation.
Palmer alleged that Trump Model Management promised to withhold only 20% of her net pay as agency expenses, but after charging her for those "obscure expenses", ended up taking 80%.
Trump attorney Alan Garten claimed the lawsuit is "bogus and completely frivolous". Palmer filed a class-action lawsuit against the modeling agency with similar allegations. The case was dismissed from U.S. federal court in March 2016, in part because Palmer's immigration status, via H1-B visa sponsored by Trump, required labor complaints to be filed through a separate process.
2015:
In 2015, Trump sued Univision, demanding $500 million for breach of contract and defamation when they dropped their planned broadcast of the Miss USA pageant. The network said that the decision was made because of Trump's "insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants". Trump settled the lawsuit with Univision CEO Randy Falco out of court.
In July 2015, Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court for breach of contract against Spanish celebrity chef José Andrés, claiming that he backed out of a deal to open the flagship restaurant at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Andrés replied that Trump's lawsuit was "both unsurprising and without merit" and filed an $8 million counterclaim against a Trump Organization subsidiary.
Also in July 2015, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian decided to withdraw from the Washington, D.C., project together with Andrés in the wake of Trump's comments on Mexican illegal immigrants, and is expected to lose his own $500,000 restaurant lease deposit as a result.
Trump denounced and then sued Zakarian in August 2015 for a sum "in excess of $10 million" for lost rent and other damages. Trump's lawsuit called Zakarian's offense at his remarks "curious in light of the fact that Mr. Trump's publicly shared views on immigration have remained consistent for many years, and Mr. Trump's willingness to frankly share his opinions is widely known".
Disputes with both chefs were eventually settled in April 2017.
In 2015, restaurant workers at Trump SoHo filed a lawsuit claiming that from 2009 to at least the time of the filing, gratuities added to customers' checks were illegally withheld from employees. The Trump Organization responded that the dispute is between the employees and their employer, a third-party contractor.
In 2019, the third-party contractor settled with the workers for an undisclosed amount.
2018
In July 2018, Noel Cintron, the personal driver for Donald Trump before he became the president of the United States, filed a lawsuit Cintron v Trump Organization LLC with the Supreme Court of the State of New York (Manhattan).
The lawsuit claims that during his 25-year employment by Trump, he was not compensated for overtime and the second time his salary was raised he was induced to surrender his health insurance, an action which saved Trump approximately $17,866 per year.
In his lawsuit, Cintron sought $178,200 of overtime back pay, plus $5,000 in penalties that are seen under the New York State Labor Law. Cintron dropped the lawsuit on August 30, 2018, with the case being submitted to arbitration for resolution.
2023:
On April 12, 2023, Trump sued his former attorney, Michael Cohen, for breach of contract. Trump sought $500 million in damages. Trump dropped the suit on October 5, 2023.
Breach of confidentiality and conspiracy:
In 2021, Trump sued The New York Times, three of its journalists, and his niece Mary L. Trump in New York County Supreme Court over disclosure of some of his tax information in a 2018 article in the Times. The article, which went on to win a Pulitzer prize, revealed that Trump had received over $400 million from his father and had used questionable techniques to minimize his tax burden.
Trump claimed that the journalists had conspired with Mary Trump to obtain confidential information, resulting in her breaching the confidentiality agreement she signed in 2001.
The case against the Times and its journalists was dismissed in May 2023 on First Amendment grounds. Trump was ordered to pay the legal costs of the New York Times and paid $392,000 in February 2024.
A ruling the next month allowed Donald to pursue his claim against Mary who appealed the ruling. The appeals court ruled in May to let the case proceed, stating that there was "a substantial basis in law" for breach of contract but that the duration of the confidentiality agreement needed to be determined and that Donald had to prove whether the disclosure had caused him any damages.
Assault claims:
In September 2015, five men who had demonstrated outside of a Trump presidential campaign event at Trump Tower in New York City sued Donald Trump, alleging that Trump's security staff punched one of them. They said that Trump's security guards had been advised by city police that the protests there were permitted. Several people videotaped the incident.
A New York judge had ordered a videotaped deposition in 2019. Trump invoked presidential privilege, and the deposition was delayed until October 18, 2021. His testimony under oath lasted for over 4 hours. The lawsuit was eventually settled in November 2022.
In June 2015, the Culinary Workers Union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging that the owners of Trump Hotel Las Vegas "violated the federally protected rights of workers to participate in union activities" and engaged in "incidents of alleged physical assault, verbal abuse, intimidation, and threats by management".
In October 2015, the Trump Ruffin Commercial and Trump Ruffin Tower I, the owners of Trump Hotel Las Vegas, sued the Culinary Workers Union and another union, alleging that they had knowingly distributed flyers that falsely stated that Donald Trump had stayed at a rival unionized hotel, rather than his own non-unionized hotel, during a trip to Las Vegas.
E. Jean Carroll's defamation and assault claims began trial in Manhattan federal court on April 25, 2023. On May 9, 2023, after deliberating for less than three hours, a jury of six men and three women found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, but also did not find him liable for rape. The jury then awarded Carroll about $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. On January 26, 2024, following another trial, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll an additional $83.3 million in damages.
Lawsuit for inciting violence at March 2016 campaign rally:
During a campaign rally on March 1, 2016, in Louisville, Kentucky, Trump repeatedly said "get 'em out of here" while pointing at anti-Trump protesters as they were forcibly escorted out by his supporters.
Three protesters say they were repeatedly shoved and punched while Trump pointed at them from the podium, citing widely shared video evidence of the events. They also cited previous statements by Trump about paying the legal bills of supporters who got violent, or suggesting a demonstrator deserved to be "roughed up."
The lawsuit accuses Donald Trump of inciting violence against protesters in Louisville, Kentucky. The plaintiffs are Kashiya Nwanguma (21), Molly Shah (36) and Henry Brousseau (17).
The suit is against Trump, his campaign, and three Trump supporters (Matthew Heimbach, Alvin Bamberger and an unnamed defendant). Bamberger, who was wearing a Veteran's uniform in the video, apologized to the Korean War Veterans Association immediately after the event, writing that he "physically pushed a young woman down the aisle toward the exit" after "Trump kept saying 'get them out, get them out."
Trump's attorneys requested to get the case dismissed, arguing he was protected by free speech laws, and wasn't trying to get his supporters to resort to violence. They also stated that Trump had no duty to the protesters, and they had assumed the personal risk of injury by deciding to protest at the rally.
On Saturday, April 1, 2017, Judge David J. Hale in Louisville ruled against the dismissal of a lawsuit, stating there was ample evidence to support that the injuries of the protesters were a "direct and proximate result" of Trump's words and actions. Hale wrote, "It is plausible that Trump's direction to 'get 'em out of here' advocated the use of force," and, "It was an order, an instruction, a command." Hale wrote that the Supreme Court has ruled out some protections for free speech when used to incite violence.
Defendant Heimbach requested to dismiss the discussion in the lawsuit about his association with a white nationalist group, and also requested to dismiss discussion of statements he made about how a President Trump would advance the interests of the group. The request was declined, with the judge saying the information could be important for determining punitive damages because they add context.
Hale also declined to remove the allegation that plaintiff Nwanguma, who is African-American, was victim to ethnic, racial and sexist slurs at the rally from the crowd. The judge stated that this context may support claims by the plaintiffs' of incitement and negligence by Trump and the Trump campaign. The judge wrote, "While the words themselves are repulsive, they are relevant to show the atmosphere in which the alleged events occurred."
The judge stated that all people have a duty to use care to prevent foreseeable injury. "In sum, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that their harm was foreseeable and that the Trump Defendants had a duty to prevent it." The case was referred a federal magistrate, Judge H. Brent Brennenstuhl, who will handle preliminary litigation, discovery and settlement efforts.
Heimbach filed a separate counterclaim in April 2017, arguing that Trump was "responsible for any injuries" he [Heimbach] "might have inflicted because Mr. Trump directed him and others to take action". Heimbach, "a self-employed landscaper", and a member of the Traditionalist Youth Network, "which advocates separate American 'ethno states', "spends much of his time" online writing "against Jews, gays and immigrants and urging whites to stand up for their race."
He wrote his own lawsuit which requested that Trump pay Heimbach's "legal fees, citing a promise Mr. Trump made at an earlier rally to pay legal costs of anyone who removed protesters."
Heimbach's "counterclaim" against Trump has "probed the limits of free speech and public protest while confronting the courts with a unique legal argument".
On May 5, Trump's lawyers submitted legal filings that argue that Heimbach's "indemnity claim should be dismissed on the same grounds". According to a University of Virginia law professor, Leslie Kendrick, this indemnity or "impleader" case is "highly unusual."
New York University's Samuel Issacharoff, a professor of constitutional law, argued that care must be taken to not allow speech, in the "context of a political rally" to be "turned into something that is legally sanctionable."
Payments related to alleged affairs
See also:
On March 30, 2023, Trump was indicted regarding payments to Stormy Daniels.
Adult film actress Stormy Daniels has alleged that she and Trump had an extramarital affair in 2006, months after the birth of his youngest child.
Just before the 2016 presidential election Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 by Trump's attorney Michael Cohen as part of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), through an LLC set up by Cohen; he says he used his own money for the payment.
In February 2018, Daniels sued the LLC asking to be released from the agreement so she could tell her story. Cohen filed a private arbitration proceeding and obtained a restraining order to keep her from discussing the case. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump denied the allegations.
On March 6, 2018, Daniels sued Trump in California Superior Court, claiming the NDA never came into effect because Trump hadn't personally signed it.
On March 16, Cohen, with Trump's approval, asked for Daniels' suit to be moved from state to federal court, given that they lived in different states and the matter concerned a large sum; Cohen asserted that Daniels could owe $20 million in liquidated damages for breaching the agreement.
The filing marked the first time that Trump himself, through his personal attorney, had taken part in the Daniels litigation. In early April 2018, Trump said he hadn't known that Cohen paid Daniels, why Cohen did so or where Cohen got the money. On April 30, Daniels further sued Trump for defamation. In May 2018, Trump's annual financial disclosure revealed that he reimbursed Cohen in 2017 for expenditures related to the Daniels case.
In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, admitting paying hush money of $130,000 and $150,000 "at the direction of a candidate for federal office" to two women who alleged affairs with that candidate, "with the purpose of influencing the election". The figures match sums of payments made to Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
American Media, Inc. had reportedly in 2016 bought for $150,000 the rights to a story by McDougal alleging an affair with a married Trump from 2006 which lasted between nine months to a year. David Pecker (AMI CEO/chairman and friend of Trump), Dylan Howard (AMI chief content officer) and Allen Weisselberg (chief financial officer of the Trump Organization) were reportedly granted witness immunity in exchange for their testimony regarding the illegal payments.
In response, Trump said that he only knew about the payments "later on". Trump also said regarding the payments: "They didn't come out of the campaign, they came from me."
The Wall Street Journal reported on November 9, 2018, that federal prosecutors have evidence of Trump's "central role" in payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal that violated campaign-finance laws.
In a December 7, 2018, sentencing memorandum for Cohen, federal prosecutors implicated Trump in directing Cohen to commit the campaign finance law felonies for which Cohen had pleaded guilty. Shortly after the memorandum court filing, Trump tweeted: "Totally clears the president. Thank you!" Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
On December 13, 2018, Trump denied directing Cohen to make hush payments. That same day, NBC News reported that Trump was present in an August 2015 meeting with Cohen and David Pecker when they discussed how American Media could help counter negative stories about Trump's relationships with women, confirming previous reporting by The Wall Street Journal.
In 2019, Cohen testified to Congress that Trump did order him to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 as hush money and then lie about the payment.
A criminal investigation initiated by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. fell dormant.
In November 2022, the New York Times reported Vance's successor Alvin Bragg was reviving the investigation. The Times reported in March 2023 that Bragg's office had recently signaled to Trump's attorneys that he likely faced indictment in the Daniels matter. Michael Cohen testified before the grand jury on March 13, and prosecutors offered Trump an opportunity to testify too.
By March 17, federal, state and local law enforcement and security agencies were discussing contingencies for a likely Trump indictment. He was indicted on March 30.
Trump was convicted on all 34 felony counts on May 30, 2024. He became the first U.S. president to have been convicted of a felony in any state or federal court.
Lawsuits over congressional subpoenas
Further information: Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP
In March 2019, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform opened an investigation into Trump's finances, and issued a subpoena for ten years of his tax returns. Trump later sued the chairman of the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, seeking to quash the subpoena.
In April 2019, Trump (along with his children Eric, Ivanka and Donald Jr, as well as the Trump Organization) sued Deutsche Bank, Capital One, his accounting firm Mazars USA, and House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings, in an attempt to prevent congressional subpoenas revealing information about Trump's finances.
On May 20, 2019, DC District Court judge Amit Mehta ruled that Mazars must comply with the subpoena.
Trump's attorneys filed notice to appeal to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit the next day. On May 22, 2019, judge Edgardo Ramos of the federal District Court in Manhattan rejected the Trump suits against Deutsche Bank and Capital One, ruling the banks must comply with congressional subpoenas.
On October 7, 2019, Judge Victor Marrero of the federal District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a 75-page ruling that Trump must comply with the subpoena and provide his tax returns to a New York grand jury.
Minutes later, however, Trump's attorney filed an emergency request with the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, which immediately placed a temporary stay on the subpoena.
In November, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the District Court ruling and ordered Trump to turn over his tax returns to Congress. Trump soon appealed to the Supreme Court, which blocked the order by the Second Circuit temporarily.
On February 25, 2021, the House Oversight Committee in the 117th Congress reissued the subpoena to Mazars USA for the same documents it had previously sought.
Lawsuits over the January 6 riot
Main article: January 6 United States Capitol attack
Blassingame v. Trump: Two U.S. Capitol police officers sued Trump for allegedly inciting the protests that took over the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Thompson v. Trump: Congressman Bennie Thompson, the NAACP, and 11 other members of the U.S. House of Representatives sued Trump in February, 2021 for allegedly conspiring to incite the deadly violence.
Swalwell v. Trump: Congressman Eric Swalwell filed a lawsuit against Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., and two others of violating federal civil rights laws and local incitement laws after they spoke at a rally near the White House on January 6 before members of the crowd moved on to the Capitol.
In January 2023, a federal judge denied a request by Trump to toss out the cases. Trump appealed, arguing he was immune. In December, the federal appeals court rejected his argument. As Trump did not appeal to the Supreme Court by a February 2024 deadline, the lawsuits can proceed.
Lawsuits over social media ban:
In July 2021, Trump, who had been banned from the social media platforms after the January 6 United States Capitol attack, brought class action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and Google, private companies whose terms of service their users must agree to. Trump contended that the platforms were basically acting as government agents and violated his free speech rights under the First Amendment when they banned him from posting.
- Twitter. In May 2022, the court dismissed the case against Twitter, ruling that the free speech clause did not apply to Twitter since it was a private company and there was no evidence that it had acted for the government. Trump appealed the dismissal in June. In February 2025, the case was settled with Elon Musk, who had bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X in 2023, agreeing to pay Trump's legal fees and $10 million into the nonprofit that will fund Trump's future presidential library.
- Meta. In January 2025, Meta Platforms agreed to pay $25 million to settle the lawsuit against Facebook. Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg has lobbied Trump to settle the ongoing antitrust lawsuit FTC v. Meta which aims to force Meta to sell Instagram and Whatsapp.
- Google. Lawyers for Google and Trump have asked the court for a continuance until September 2, 2025, to "come to an agreement on a path forward". The Justice Department's lawsuit against Google for having a monopoly on online searches is ongoing; the Justice Department also wants Google to sell its Chrome browser.
Trump's racketeering lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and others
On March 24, 2022, Trump sued Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and 26 others, alleging that they "maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty [Russia]" during the 2016 presidential election, and that Trump had lost at least $24 million as a result. In the RICO lawsuit, he asked for a jury trial and $72 million in damages.
In September, U.S. district judge Donald M. Middlebrooks dismissed the suit, stating that it "ignored existing laws, U.S. Supreme Court precedent, and basic legal theory". The judge also wrote in a footnote that Trump had the lawsuit filed in the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, which has only one federal judge, district judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee. Trump appealed the decision on October 11.
On November 2, Clinton and the other defendants filed a motion in the district court asking for sanctions against Trump's attorneys and to make Trump pay their legal bills of more than $1 million.
On January 19, 2023, judge Middlebrooks sanctioned Trump and his attorney, Alina Habba, $938,000 to cover the legal costs for the 31 defendants Trump cited in the suit. Middlebrooks wrote, in part:
- Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose. Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer.
On February 3, 2023, Trump offered to post a $1.03 m`illion bond to appeal the judgment.
On February 27, 2024, Trump filed an appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking to remove the sanctions and reinstate the original lawsuit.
Investigations
Mueller Special Counsel investigation
Main articles:
The Special Counsel investigation is a United States law enforcement investigation of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and any Russian (or other foreign) interference in the election, including exploring any possible links or coordination between Trump's campaign and the Russian government, "and any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."
Since May 2017, the investigation has been led by a United States Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Mueller's investigation took over several FBI investigations including those involving former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security advisor Michael Flynn.
It has been noted that Trump has experienced a high turnover with respect to the attorneys handling this matter, as well as a large number of prominent lawyers and law firms publicly declining offers to join Trump's legal team.
On March 22, 2019, Mueller concluded his investigation and gave the final report to Attorney General William Barr. On March 24, Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress summarizing the findings of the report. The report writes that the investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign", found that:
- Russia "perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency"
- and that the 2016 Trump presidential campaign "expected it would benefit electorally" from Russian hacking efforts.
However, ultimately "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities".
On the question of obstruction of justice, Barr stated that Mueller did not reach a conclusion; he quotes the special counsel as saying "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
Barr wrote, "The special counsel's decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the attorney general to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime," adding that he and Rosenstein "concluded that the evidence developed during the special counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
House Oversight Committee investigation and subpoenas:
In April 2019, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas seeking financial details from Trump's banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, and his accounting firm, Mazars USA. In response, Trump sued the banks, Mazars, and committee chair Elijah Cummings to prevent the disclosures.
In May, DC District Court judge Amit Mehta ruled that Mazars must comply with the subpoena, and judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District Court of New York ruled that the banks must also comply.
Trump's attorneys appealed the rulings, arguing that Congress was attempting to usurp the "exercise of law-enforcement authority that the Constitution reserves to the executive branch". The documents were surrendered in September 2022, after Trump agreed to discontinue his appeal.
Inaugural committee:
The New York Times reported in December 2018 that federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn are investigating whether Middle Eastern foreigners sought to buy influence over American policies by using straw donors to illegally funnel donations to Trump's inaugural committee and a pro-Trump Super PAC.
The Trump inaugural committee received a subpoena from federal prosecutors on February 4, 2019. The SDNY subpoena demanded a comprehensive array of documents involving the committee's donors, finances, attendees and activities. The subpoena reportedly covered:
- allegations of conspiracy to defraud the United States government,
- money laundering,
- false statements,
- mail and wire fraud,
- disclosure violations
- and prohibitions against contributions by foreign nations.
Donald J. Trump Foundation
Main article: Donald J. Trump Foundation
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, media began reporting in detail on how the Donald J. Trump Foundation was funded and how Donald Trump used its funds. The Washington Post in particular reported several cases of possible misuse, self-dealing and possible tax evasion.
Regarding the various irregularities in the Trump Foundation, former head of the Internal Revenue Service's Office of Exempt Organizations Division Marc Owens told The Washington Post that he was surprised by the "laundry list of issues".
The office of New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman investigated the foundation "to make sure it's complying with the laws governing charities in New York." The Trump Foundation was found to have committed fraud and to have misappropriated funds, and was ordered to be shut down.
Controversy over tax returns
Main article: Tax returns of Donald Trump
In October 2016, The New York Times published some tax documents from 1995. Trump claimed on his tax returns that he lost money, but did not recognize it in the form of canceled debts. Trump might have performed a stock-for-debt swap. This would have allowed Trump to avoid paying income taxes for at least 18 years.
An audit of Trump's tax returns for 2002 through 2008 was "closed administratively by agreement with the I.R.S. without assessment or payment, on a net basis, of any deficiency."
Tax attorneys believe the government may have reduced what Trump was able to claim as a loss without requiring him to pay any additional taxes. It is unknown whether the I.R.S. challenged Trump's use of the swaps because he has not released his tax returns.
Trump's lawyers advised against Trump using the equity for debt swap, as they believed it to be potentially illegal.
After a protracted legal battle against subpoenas to release his tax returns, including two appeals to the United States Supreme Court, in February 2021 the high court permitted the records to be released to prosecutors and a grand jury.
Campaign contributions:
According to a New York state report, Trump circumvented corporate and personal campaign donation limits in the 1980s – although he did not break any laws – by donating money to candidates from 18 different business subsidiaries, rather than giving primarily in his own name. 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.
Georgia 2020 election investigation
Main articles:
Trump is facing a state and federal investigation in the state of Georgia regarding his efforts to reverse his loss there in the 2020 election. In a phone call, Trump pressured Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, to change the state's election results.
Trump is reportedly at risk for charges including:
- Criminal Solicitation to Commit Election Fraud,
- Intentional Interference with Performance of Election Duties,
- Conspiracy to Commit Election Fraud,
- Criminal Solicitation,
- Racketeering, and a dozen other statutes.
On November 18, 2022, the federal investigation was subsumed in the Smith special counsel investigation.
United States 2020 election investigation
Main articles:
- United States Justice Department investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election
- Trump fake electors plot
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is probing Trump's months-long efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
By March 2022, the DOJ had seated several grand juries, including one regarding the fake electors scheme, to help prosecutors decide whether to bring charges against Trump's inner circle.
New York investigations of The Trump Organization
Main article: New York investigations of The Trump Organization
An investigation in the state of New York, examining the business dealings of the Trump Organization. The investigation is probing possible loan fraud and tax fraud.
Mark Pomerantz, an attorney with extensive experience in prosecuting white-collar and organized crime as the former head of the criminal division in the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office, joined the investigation as a special assistant district attorney on February 2, 2021.
Trump's legal team argued that while he was president, he was not required to respond to subpoenas, which delayed investigations and resulted in court cases such as Trump v. Vance.
On May 18, 2021, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office would be pursuing the case "in a criminal capacity", upgrading from a formerly civil investigation.
On October 20, 2021, the district attorney of Westchester County announced a criminal investigation into The Trump Organization. The charges could include:
- Grand Larceny in the first degree,
- Insurance fraud in the first degree,
- Criminal Tax Fraud in the first degree,
- Falsifying business records in the first degree,
- Scheme to defraud in the first degree,
- and Enterprise Corruption.
On September 21, 2022, James filed a civil lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization, and three of Trump's adult children, alleging fraud and misrepresentation. On December 6, 2022, The Trump Organization would be convicted of 17 criminal charges.
Among its two corporate entities, the Trump Corporation would be convicted of nine criminal charges, while the Trump Payroll Corporation would be convicted of eight criminal charges.
On February 16, 2024 New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that four of the defendants in New York's civil case against the Trump Organization (Donald Trump, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Allen Weisselberg) be required to pay a total of $364 million, with Donald Trump being ordered to pay $355 million. Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump were ordered pay $4 million each, while Allen Weisselberg was ordered to pay $1 million
Engoron also barred Donald Trump for three years from serving in top roles at any New York company, including his own Trump Organization, while his two older sons, including de facto Trump Organization head Eric Trump, were barred for two years.
On March 25, 2024, the required payment for Donald Trump was lowered to $175 million, and was required to be paid within a 10 day deadline.
Trump would post the bond on April 1, 2024, thus ensuring that his assets and properties could not be seized until at least the time he finished appealing the verdict. On August 21, 2025, the appeals court upheld Trump's liability but voided the penalty as excessive.
FBI search of Mar-a-Lago
Main article: FBI search of Mar-a-Lago
See also: Donald Trump § Post-presidency investigations
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. The search focused on material Trump brought to his residence when he left the White House. The agents took 26 boxes of material and documents; eleven sets of documents were classified as confidential, secret, or top secret, including sensitive compartmented information.
Trump was at Trump Tower in New York City during the search.
On November 18, 2022, the White House documents investigation was subsumed into the Smith special counsel investigation.
January 6 Committee:
On October 13, 2022, members of the U.S. House of Representatives January 6 Committee unanimously voted on live television to subpoena Trump to testify about the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a 14-page letter reply, Trump remained defiant.
On October 21, 2022, the committee formally issued the subpoena, demanding that he hand over documents by November 4 and provide testimony by November 14.
Trump did not do so.
On December 19, 2022, the Committee voted unanimously to refer Trump and the lawyer John Eastman to the U.S. Department of Justice for prosecution.
Recommended charges for Trump included:
- obstruction of an official proceeding;
- conspiracy to defraud the United States;
- conspiracy to make a false statement;
- and attempts to "incite," "assist" or "aid or comfort" an insurrection.
The Department of Justice had previously on November 18, 2022, transferred the investigation to the Smith special counsel investigation.
On August 1, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump in the District of Columbia U.S. District Court on the following charges for his conduct following the 2020 presidential election through the January 6 Capitol attack:
- conspiracy to defraud the United States under Title 18 of the United States Code,
- obstructing an official proceeding
- conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002,
- and conspiracy against rights under the Enforcement Act of 1870.
The indictment mentioned six unnamed co-conspirators. It is Trump's third indictment and the first indictment against a U.S. president concerning actions while in office. Trump appeared at an arraignment on August 3, where he pleaded not guilty. The charge with the longest sentence carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
On February 2, 2024, Judge Tanya Chutkan said she would not schedule a trial until the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decided whether Trump was immune from prosecution. After that court unanimously ruled that Trump was not immune,
Trump appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled on July 1 that former presidents have "some immunity from criminal prosecution" for their "official acts" made during their presidency.
As a result, on August 27, the special counsel issued a superseding indictment that maintained the same four charges but omitted some specific allegations.
IRS audit:
As of May 2024, an ongoing IRS audit found Trump allegedly double-dipped on tax losses from his Chicago skyscraper, which could cost him upwards of $100 million in back taxes and penalties.
Use of bankruptcy laws:
Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy, but hotel and casino businesses of his have been declared bankrupt six times between 1991 and 2009 to re-negotiate debt with banks and owners of stock and bonds.
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.
These types of bankruptcies are common in the business world for restructuring to avoid having to close a business. In the case of Trump's bankruptcies, three were tied directly to gaming industry, which as a whole had suffered during the time the bankruptcies were declared.
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's Taj Mahal (1991),
- Trump Plaza Hotel (1992),
- Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (2004),
- and Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009).
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."
He indicated that many "great entrepreneurs" do the same.
1991:
In 1991, Trump Taj Mahal was unable to service its debt and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Forbes indicated that this first bankruptcy was the only one where Trump's personal financial resources were involved. Time, however, maintains that $72 million of his personal money was also involved in a later 2004 bankruptcy.
1992:
On November 2, 1992, the Trump Plaza Hotel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Trump lost his 49 percent stake in the luxury hotel to Citibank and five other lenders. In return Trump received more favorable terms on the remaining $550+ million owed to the lenders, and retain his position as chief executive, though he would not be paid and would not have a role in day-to-day operations.
2004:
Donald Trump's third corporate bankruptcy was on October 21, 2004, involving Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, the publicly traded holding company for his three Atlantic City casinos and some others. Trump lost over half of his 56% ownership and gave bondholders stock in exchange for surrendering part of the debt. No longer CEO, Trump retained a role as chairman of the board.
In May 2005 the company emerged from bankruptcy as Trump Entertainment Resorts Holdings. In his 2007 book, Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life, Trump wrote: "I figured it was the bank's problem, not mine. What the hell did I care? I actually told one bank, 'I told you you shouldn't have loaned me that money. I told you the goddamn deal was no good.'"
2009:
Trump's fourth corporate bankruptcy occurred in 2009, when Trump and his daughter Ivanka resigned from the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts; four days later the company, which owed investors $1.74 billion against its $2.06 billion of assets, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At that time, Trump Entertainment Resorts had three properties in Atlantic City:
- Trump Taj Mahal,
- Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino (closed in 2014),
- and Trump Marina (formerly Trump's Castle, sold in 2011).
Trump and some investors bought the company back that same year for $225 million.
As part of the agreement, Trump withdrew a $100 million lawsuit he had filed against the casino's owners alleging damage to the Trump brand. Trump re-negotiated the debt, reducing by over $1 billion the repayments required to bondholders.
In 2014, Trump sued his former company to remove his name from the buildings since he no longer ran the company, having no more than a 10% stake; he lost the suit.
Trump Entertainment Resorts filed again for bankruptcy in 2014 and was purchased by billionaire philanthropist Carl Icahn in 2016, who acquired Trump Taj Mahal in the deal.
Other allegations:
Allegations of business links to organized crime:
Trump maintained a connection with organized crime members to supply the concrete for Trump Tower. According to former New York mobster Michael Franzese, "the mob controlled all the concrete business in the city of New York," and that while Trump was not "in bed with the mob ... he certainly had a deal with us. ... he didn't have a choice."
Mafia-connected union boss John Cody supplied Trump with concrete in exchange for giving his mistress a high-level apartment with a pool, which required extra structural reinforcement. Trump admitted in 2014 that he had "had no choice" but to work with "concrete guys who are mobbed up." He further stated that "I don't like getting close to people like that, but they respected me."
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.
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."
Trump helped a financier for the Scarfo family get a casino license, and constructed a casino using firms controlled by Nicodemo Scarfo.
Trump also bought real estate from Philadelphia crime family member Salvatore Testa, and bought concrete from companies associated with the Genovese crime family and the Gambino crime family.
Trump Plaza paid a $450,000 fine leveled by the Casino Gaming Commission for giving $1.6 million in rare automobiles to Robert LiButti, the acquaintance of John Gotti already mentioned.
Starting in 2003, the Trump Organization worked with Felix Sater, who had a 1998 racketeering conviction for a $40 million stock fraud scheme orchestrated by the Russian mafia, and who had then become an informant against the mafia. Trump's attorney has said that Sater worked with Trump scouting real estate opportunities, but was never formally employed.
Destruction of documents:
In June 2016, a USA Today article reported that Donald Trump and his companies have been deleting emails and other documents on a large scale, including evidence in lawsuits, sometimes in defiance of court orders and under subpoena since as early as 1973.
In October 2016, Kurt Eichenwald published new research findings in Newsweek. The findings were first published by Paul Singer on June 13, 2016 and gained larger attention after a new report in Newsweek on October 31, 2016.
According to Newsweek, Trump and his companies "hid or destroyed thousands of documents" involving several court cases from as early as 1973.
"Over the course of decades, Donald Trump's companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders.... In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records."
In 1973, Trump, his father and their company were in court for civil charges for refusing to rent apartments to African Americans. After their lawyers had delayed court requests for documents for several months, Trump, then being under subpoena, said his company had destroyed corporate records of the past six months "for saving space".
In a court case beginning in 2005 against Power Plant Entertainment, LLC, an affiliate of real estate developer Cordish Cos., it was revealed that Trump's companies had deleted the data requested by court. Cordish Cos. had built two American Indian casinos in Florida under the Hard Rock brand and Donald Trump accused them of cheating him out of that deal.
Nonetheless, Trump's lawyers had refused to instruct workers to keep all records related to the case during litigation. Trump had established a procedure to delete all data from their employees' computers every year at least since 2003, despite knowing at least since 2001 that he might want to file a lawsuit.
Even after the lawsuit was filed, Trump Hotels disposed of a computer of a key witness without having made a backup of the data. A former general counsel of the Trump casino unit confirmed that all data were deleted from nearly all companies' computers annually.
Trump and his lawyers claimed they were not keeping records and digital data although it was revealed that Trump had launched his own high-speed internet provider in 1998 and an IBM Domino server had been installed for emails and digital files in 1999.
In August 2022, Axios published photographs, taken while Trump was president, of paper with Trump's handwriting torn into pieces and thrown in toilets, possible evidence of violations of Presidential Records Act.
Unpaid security bills:
In August 2024, NBC Montana reported that local governments have invoiced him for police presence at his campaign stops, and that some of these invoices remained unpaid.
See also
- Legal challenges to Executive Order 13768
- Legal challenges to Executive Order 13769
- Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election
- Legal affairs of the first Donald Trump presidency
- Legal affairs of the second Donald Trump presidency
To ensure that you understand the legal interpretation (and seriousness) of an authoritarian act, Wikipedia defines it as follows:
An "authoritarian act" is any action by a leader or government that consolidates power and represses individual freedoms, constitutional checks, and democratic norms. It is a means of maintaining control through force, fear, or manipulation, often while claiming to act in the public's best interest.
Key characteristics of authoritarian acts
Recent examples of alleged authoritarian acts
Begin: Targeting of political opponents and civil society under the second Trump administration
During Donald Trump's second presidency, the Trump administration took a series of actions using the government to target his political opponents and civil society. His actions were described by the media as part of his promised "retribution" and "revenge" campaign, within the context of a strongly personalist and leader-centered conception of politics.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, he repeatedly stated that he had "every right" to go after his political opponents.
He undertook a massive expansion of presidential power under a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory, and several of his actions ignored or violated federal laws, regulations, and the Constitution, according to American legal scholars.
He threatened, signed executive actions, and ordered investigations into his political opponents, critics, and organizations aligned with the Democratic Party. He politicized the civil service undertaking mass layoffs of government employees to recruit workers more loyal to himself.
He ended the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence, weaponizing it and ordering it to target his political enemies. He utilized several government agencies to retaliate against his political enemies and continued filing personal lawsuits against his political opponents, companies, and news organizations that angered him.
By July 2025, Trump had extracted more than $1.2 billion in settlements in a "cultural crackdown" against a variety of institutions that largely chose to settle rather than fight back.
He engaged in an unprecedented targeting of law firms and lawyers that previously represented positions adverse to himself. He targeted higher education by demanding it give federal oversight of curriculum and targeted activists, legal immigrants, tourists, and students with visas who expressed criticism of his policies or engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy. He detained and deported United States citizens.
Trump's actions against civil society have been described by legal experts and political scientists as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding, and negatively impacting free speech and the rule of law.
Background:
Trump frequently promised to exact retribution against perceived political enemies through his 2024 campaign, and has said he has "every right" to go after political opponents. A central campaign theme for Trump's second presidential bid was "retribution". Trump framed the 2024 election as "the final battle", and openly promised to leverage the power of the presidency for political reprisals.
Trump repeatedly suggested that he supports outlawing political dissent that he regards as misleading or that questions the legitimacy of his presidency, for example saying that criticism of judges who did not rule in favor of him "should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that."
He also repeatedly called for press companies who have produced unfavorable coverage of him to have their licenses revoked, and said that he would jail reporters who refuse to name the sources of leaks. The New York Times described Trump as using "grievance as a political tool, portraying himself as the victim of what he claims is a powerful and amorphous 'deep state.'"
Actions taken:
Mass firings and expansion of presidential power
Trump undertook mass firings of federal employees, inspectors general, and Democratic members of independent agencies and oversight boards who could attempt to block or constrain his moves in express defiance of existing laws prohibiting such actions.
His actions were described by legal experts as unprecedented or in violation of federal law, and with the intent of replacing them with workers more aligned with his agenda.
In a peer-reviewed journal article, Donald Moynihan described the exercise as an anti-statist restructuring of American government centered around political loyalty. Legal analysts described such firings as setting up Supreme Court cases that could expand his power over independent executive branch agencies that Congress set up to be insulated from presidential control based on a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory.
His actions removed checks and balances within the executive branch by ignoring agencies such as the Office of Legal Counsel.
In an executive order on February 18, Trump declared the executive branch an extension of his own person, and that only he and the United States Attorney General had final say on the interpretation of all executive branch law. He sent teams to administer loyalty tests to some federal employees, intelligence, and law enforcement candidates.
His actions politicized the civil service, especially among law enforcement. His actions against civil society were described by legal experts and hundreds of political scientists as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding, and as negatively impacting the rule of law.
Targeting the judicial system and judges:
Following legal setbacks to his executive orders, Trump increased his criticism of the judiciary and called for impeachment of federal judges who ruled against him.
By mid-July, a Washington Post analysis found he defied judges and the courts in roughly one third of all cases against him, actions which were described by legal experts as unprecedented for any presidential administration and threatened to undermine the judiciary's role in checking executive power.
It described the Trump administration as:
His defiance of court orders and a claimed right to disobey the courts raised fears among legal experts of a constitutional crisis.
He engaged in an unprecedented targeting of law firms and lawyers that previously represented positions adverse to himself.
His verbal attacks against the judiciary saw an increase in threats and harassment against judges and their families who ruled against him. On April 25, 2025, the FBI arrested Milwaukee County Circuit judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly blocking immigration enforcement. The move was widely characterized as an authoritarian act by legal experts.
His actions were described by scholars as potentially creating a "two-track legal system" or "dual state".
On June 24, 2025, Trump sued all 15 federal judges in Maryland in a dispute over his deportation orders in an escalation of his conflict with the judiciary.
On July 28, Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a misconduct complaint against Chief Judge James Boasberg for allegedly violating the presumption of regularity in what Politico described as part of a political effort "to cast as rogue partisans federal judges who have blocked President Donald Trump's priorities".
During his second presidency, Trump bypassed the Senate and the Courts to install loyalist prosecutors through the use of loopholes in federal law. Trump appointed prosecutors on an "interim" 120 day basis, voided the court-ordered replacement or preempted them, then re-installed them as an "acting" attorney for an additional 210 days.
Notably on July 29, Trump fired Acting Attorney for New Jersey Desiree Leigh Grace in favor of his personal attorney, Alina Habba, despite the expiration of Habba's 120-day appointment.
Trump and his administration targeted and condemned judges globally who were involved in trials against his political allies such as in Brazil, France, Israel and Britain, arguing that they were biased and suppressing free speech rights.
According to scholars in constitutional law and democracy, the rebukes "violate long-standing diplomatic norms, challenge a key tenet of national sovereignty, and signify a potential retreat from the United States' long-standing approach of promoting the independent rule of law in other democracies".
Using government agencies for reprisals:
Upon taking office, Trump weaponized a variety of government agencies to target and harass his political rivals. An NPR analysis found that in his first 100 days, to retaliate and harass his opponents he utilized the departments of:
He notably took aim to control the IRS, firing thousands of career staff and installing political allies in their place in an attempt to end its independence, and shared its tax data with ICE to deport migrants that led to several departures at the agency and privacy concerns.
-
Historians described Trump's efforts to politicize the IRS as more brazen than prior actions taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, noting his public announcement of his intention for the IRS to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status due to his disputes with the university.
His efforts bypassed rules established by Congress to prevent presidential meddling at the agency. As a result of Trump's targeting of liberal activists, law firms, and news organizations, some liberal donors slowed their charitable giving to organizations out of fear of investigations and organizations being stripped of their tax-exempt status by the IRS.
Compiling data on Americans:
Trump tasked Palantir Technologies and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to compile and merge data across federal agencies into a master list containing information on every American.
The New York Times estimated such collection would entail roughly 314 areas, including Americans':
Trump's efforts to gather this data were described as having "elbowed past the objections of career staff, data security protocols, national security experts and legal privacy protections".
The move received criticism from privacy experts and civil society groups, who noted the siloed nature of government data made it hard to hack and leak in a single data breach. It was also criticized for potentially allowing Trump to target and harass his political opponents and grant the president "untold surveillance power".
Trump made requests to all 50 states to give his administration access to all personally sensitive data held by them on American citizens, saying it needed the data to verify election integrity, to identify waste and fraud and to keep ineligible immigrants off benefit rolls.
Critics described such efforts as an attempt to monitor immigrants and ideological opponents, surveil Americans, and spread false claims of fraud. The moves broke longstanding norms and legal protections.
Launching Justice Department investigations
See also:
Trump ended the post-Watergate norm of independence for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and weaponized it to investigate his political opponents, calling them "scum".
His administration publicized actions against local leaders, judges, and federal officials who opposed his agenda along with what The New York Times described as "people who have simply gotten on the president's bad side" in an attempt to stigmatize them.
Trump made numerous suggestions, requests and demands to arrest, investigate or prosecute his political opponents, including by explicitly or indirectly ordering investigations into political opponents and celebrities such as:
Trump's interim DC Attorney General Ed Martin and head of the Weaponization Working Group stated the Justice Department would publicly name and shame individuals they did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute.
Legal experts described this approach as violating the department's ethical and procedural rulebook, and that many of his other actions publicizing investigations were "so outside the bounds that it could undermine any criminal case"
Trump used the Justice Department to punish his enemies and reward his allies while making unfounded claims of prior "weaponization" against him. Trump ordered the attorney general to investigate the Biden administration for "weaponization of the federal government" and "government censorship of speech".
The Guardian described the investigations as "politically charged reviews into his personal grievances"
The orders made misleading accusations against the Biden administration and asserted they had committed criminal conduct against him and his supporters and demanded evidence be found to "correct past misconduct".
On June 5, 2025, Trump ordered his administration to investigate former President Joe Biden for his executive actions arguing he was too mentally impaired to do the job and casting doubts as to the legitimacy of his pardons, although he admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims. Legal experts described the investigation as unlikely to do anything except fire up his core supporters.
On January 27, the DOJ fired more than a dozen officials who worked on criminal cases against Trump alleging a lack of trust in faithfully executing his agenda. It also announced a "special project" to investigate prosecutors who had previously brought charges against January 6 rioters, and launched a "weaponization working group" to review and investigate officials at both the state and federal levels who previously investigated Trump and provide the White House quarterly reports on its findings.
Several FBI agents and the FBI Agents Association sued the Trump administration to prevent the publication of the names of 5,000 FBI agents for their involvement in investigating the January 6 attack, and Trump later said he would fire some agents involved in investigating the attack.
On March 14, 2025, Trump gave a norm-breaking political speech at the Justice Department's Great Hall promising it would "expose" his enemies in what The Associated Press described as "the latest manifestation of Trump's unparalleled takeover of the department".
The Economist described Trump as "paying a price for erasing any expectation the department would operate independently" in reducing its credibility in its response to the Epstein files.
Foreign diplomats described the Justice Department's seeming politicization, the apparent decline of the rule of law, and integrity of the US legal system as potentially complicating transnational criminal investigations.
By August 4, The New York Times reported that judges had increasingly doubted "the fundamental honesty and credibility of Justice Department lawyers in ways that would have been unthinkable only months ago" following instances of the Justice Department having "repeatedly misled the courts, violated their orders and demonized judges who have ruled against them".
On the evening of September 21, 2025, Trump posted multiple messages on his Truth Social account encouraging and directing Pam Bondi to prosecute his political opponents, specifically calling out Sen. Adam Schiff, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Trump stated the lack of prosecutions was "killing our reputation and credibility". The majority of the posts involved criticizing Erik Siebert, a Justice Department official who reportedly stated there was not enough evidence to launch a prosecution against Letitia James, appearing to confirm reports of such comments.
He also said he would promote Lindsey Halligan, his personal aide reviewing materials at the Smithsonian Institution to match his agenda, with taking on the case. Politico described the response as a "remarkable public message to the nation's top law enforcement officer, linking his personal grievances over his own criminal prosecutions and congressional impeachments to a potential decision by federal prosecutors to level criminal charges against his adversaries."
Investigating Democratic and liberal organizations:
Trump threatened, signed executive actions, and ordered investigations into his political opponents, critics, and organizations aligned with the Democratic Party. On April 24, 2025, Trump directed the Justice Department in a presidential memorandum to investigate the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue in an attempt to cripple the Democratic Party's political infrastructure.
It marked the third time in three weeks Trump ordered the government to target his perceived enemies and domestic opponents, which The New York Times described as "eroding a post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence far more than he ever did in his first term".
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September 2025, the Trump administration announced a widespread crackdown of liberal groups and donors, claiming without evidence that a network of liberal organizations promoted violence and would be dismantled. Trump stated he was looking into labeling some "terrorist organizations", and JD Vance promised to go after non-profits such as the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation that had provided financial support for liberal and progressive causes.
Critics widely condemned the moves, and warned the administration was using the assassination as a pretext to crack down on political opponents.
Eric Adams investigation
It was reported on February 14 that the efforts by Trump to dismiss the case into New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which caused the resignation of seven government prosecutors, came in the same week as the administration was negotiating with the mayor over immigration enforcement initiatives and Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan made reference to an "agreement".
Earlier, Adams had agreed with Homan to give access to the city's Rikers Island jail for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without—via a "loophole ... [Adams] appears to have found"—violating the city’s sanctuary laws and joined Homan in a joint interview conducted by Phil McGraw, among one or more other joint interviews.
The report came after February 10, 2025, when the DOJ under Trump instructed federal prosecutors to drop charges against Adams, citing concerns that the case had been affected by publicity and was interfering with his ability to govern. The memo directing this move, written by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, stated that the prosecution had limited Adams' capacity to focus on issues such as immigration and crime.
The Justice Department's decision did not assess the strength of the evidence or legal arguments in the case. The memo was issued months before the city's Democratic primary, where Adams is seeking reelection. The charges were to be dropped "as soon as is practicable" pending a further review of Adams' case following the general election in November 2025.
Danielle Sassoon, the US attorney in charge of the case, refused to dismiss the charges, telling Attorney General Pam Bondi that "I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations". Sassoon later resigned, accusing Bove and the Trump administration of making an illicit deal with Adams to dismiss the charges, becoming the first of seven prosecutors to resign due to the order to dismiss charges.
Actions against the legal profession
In March 2025, Trump said that he would be targeting law firms, a move experts call unprecedented. He first ordered that security clearances be revoked for all of the attorneys at Covington & Burling who are involved in the firm's representation of former special counsel Jack Smith.
Smith led federal investigations and prosecutions of Trump in both an election obstruction case and a classified documents case. Trump then signed executive orders 14230 and 14237, each aimed at another firm
The first ordered that the security clearances of all Perkins Coie employees be suspended, and also prohibited the firm from receiving money from federal contractors and barred its attorneys from entering federal buildings. Perkins Coie had represented Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign, and in that capacity paid for opposition research that led to the Steele dossier.
The second involved similar orders for the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (known as Paul, Weiss), and for Mark Pomerantz, a previous partner at the firm. Pomerantz had worked with the Manhattan district attorney's office, which subsequently prosecuted Trump for falsifying business records. The firm had done pro bono work in January 6 cases.
Trump subsequently rescinded order 14237 after Paul, Weiss agreed to a set of conditions, such as promising to provide $40 million in free legal services to the administration and end its diversity policies. Within days, Trump issued executive order 14246, this time aimed at Jenner & Block, a firm that employed Andrew Weissmann after he worked on the Mueller special counsel investigation.
Two days later, Trump issued another executive order directed at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr (known as WilmerHale), where Robert Mueller had been a partner; the firm also employed Aaron Zebley and James Quarles, who had worked with the Mueller special counsel investigation.
Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the goal of these executive orders was to "intimidate professionals, to intimidate the legal profession from engaging in professional activities that go against Donald Trump and the current administration."
Perkins Coie filed a lawsuit challenging executive order 14230, and on March 12, Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order for parts of Trump's executive order. Howell said that the order likely violated several constitutional amendments and "casts a chilling harm of blizzard proportion across the entire legal profession".
The Department of Justice attempted to have Howell removed from the case, alleging that she is "insufficiently impartial", but the motion was denied. On March 28, Jenner & Block and Wilmer Hale also filed suit in the District of Columbia challenging their respective executive orders.
The same day, Judge John Bates issued a temporary restraining order for the executive order directed at Jenner & Block, and Judge Richard Leon issued a temporary restraining order for the executive order directed at WilmerHale.
Trump also issued a presidential memorandum, "Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court", targeting lawyers and law firms more generally if they filed "frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation" against the administration, as judged by the attorney general.
The menacing memo, again including revocation of security clearances and preventing any company that uses such a firm from getting federal contracts, has been seen as a threatening escalation and broadening of the president's campaign of retaliation against judges and lawyers who don't share his political views.
A variety of people in the legal profession condemned the memorandum as an attempt to intimidate firms so that they wouldn't take on clients who oppose government actions.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) also contacted 20 law firms, telling them that they were being investigated in relation to their DEI practices.
The series of actions against lawyers and law firms quickly started having the desired effect of making it harder for those who oppose Trump administration actions to find lawyers who would agree to represent them.
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Law professor Scott Cummings and a former senior Justice Department official have both called Trump's moves attacking law firms and targeting lawyers "authoritarian".
Senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Ben Wizner said Trump's threats are an attempt to "chill and intimidate" lawyers who challenge him.
In remarks delivered with the governor of Louisiana, President Trump told reporters that he thinks "The law firms have to behave themselves, and we've proven that."
Within the legal community, there have been varied responses to Trump's attacks on the profession. Law firms that haven't been targeted by Trump have largely been silent in response. A few firms have issued public statements, such as Albert Sellars LLP, whose response was a concise "Fuck that fascist nonsense."
The American Bar Association released a statement encouraging everyone in the profession to stand up against Trump's "efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession", following that with another statement joined by over 50 smaller bar associations across the country.
The deans of nearly 80 law schools from across the country also signed a joint letter condemning the administration's actions, stating that "Punishing lawyers for their representation and advocacy violates the First Amendment and undermines the Sixth Amendment."
Democratic state attorneys general sent a joint letter as well, condemning Trump's attempts to undermine the rule of law. Rachel Cohen, an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (also known as Skadden), organized an open letter, inviting other associates to sign on.
The letter, addressed to large law firms, called on them to take a stand, and as of March 27, 2025 over 1500 associates had signed it. Cohen also submitted a conditional resignation letter, calling on Skadden to fight Trump's actions, and they let her go the same day. Skadden later proactively approached the Trump administration before Trump targeted them with an executive order, coming to an agreement with the administration along the same lines as that reached by Paul, Weiss.
Pulling security protection and clearances:
Within 24 hours of being elected, Trump revoked the security clearance of his former national security adviser John Bolton as well as the clearances of 50 officials who signed on to a letter about the Hunter Biden laptop controversy, including ex-DNI director James Clapper and ex-CIA directors John Brennan and Leon Panetta.
Trump also revoked the security protection for his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, his aide Brian Hook, and Bolton, who all had faced assassination threats from Iran.
The revocation of security protection was described as part of Trump's vow to target those he perceives as adversaries. He also revoked protection for Anthony Fauci who had received several death threats, and said to reporters that he would not feel any responsibility if harm befell the former government officials he revoked security details from.
On January 29, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended former chair of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley's security clearance, withdrew the authorization for his security detail, and ordered a review of his actions as Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a view to demote him in rank. Hours after Trump was inaugurated, the official portrait of General Milley was removed from a Pentagon hallway where the portraits of all former chairmen are displayed.
On August 29, 2025, President Trump announced that effective September 1, Vice President Kamala Harris would no longer receive Secret Service protection, which also had included continual monitoring of intelligence information. She had been Trump’s opponent in the 2024 election. Reportedly, a recent threat assessment had found nothing alarming, and this decision was made several weeks before Harris’ book tour for 107 Days, about her campaign. Former vice-presidents typically receive such protection for 6 months. However, President Joe Biden had signed an executive order extending this for an additional year for Harris.
Actions against corporations and business:
Trump sought an unprecedented amount of control over US business: publicly attacked companies and their executives, demanded firings of corporate leaders who criticized or contradicted him, and demanded cuts of business profits by the federal government.
His administration confirmed that it maintained a loyalty scorecard of 553 American companies based on their "support of present and future administration initiatives".
Trump abandoned traditional Republican orthodoxy about protecting and promoting the free market, and sought greater and direct government control over private business which was widely described by academics, economists, commentators, and former corporate CEOs as an embrace of:
His demand and agreement with NVIDIA and AMD to provide the government with 15% of all overseas chip sales to China were described by critics as a "shakedown" and as potentially illegal and unconstitutional.
In an unprecedented move, the Pentagon became the largest shareholder of MP Materials, bypassing US procurement and contracting laws in the process.
As part of an agreement to allow Japan-based Nippon Steel buy US Steel, Trump was granted a personal, not governmental, golden share in US Steel, allowing him to influence board decisions and maintain veto power over certain decisions set to expire at the end of his presidential term, after which the Treasury and Commerce Departments would exercise control under all future presidents.
Intel agreed to grant the government a 10% equity stake in its company with no power to influence board decisions "with limited exceptions" in what NBC News described as "the president's latest extraordinary move to exert federal government control over private business".
Writing for Time magazine in 2024, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld described Trump's moves against capitalism from his first term as sharing "more in common with far-left progressive positions than with traditional GOP views, and are often far more progressive than the Biden Administration" and wrote that he expected such attacks to continue into his second term.
Actions against the media and free speech
Trump's actions against the media and those who expressed certain viewpoints were described as negatively impacting free speech. His actions were described as unprecedented in modern American history, and mirroring tactics used by authoritarian leaders.
He criticized and fired officials who reported facts, statistics, and analysis that went against his opinions, and ordered them removed or redone to suit his preferences.
Scientists expressed fear of expressing viewpoints contrary to administration preferences, and the government undertook widespread online resource removals.
His deportations of activists and political dissidents were described as violating their free speech rights.
Trump's actions were described as part of a revenge tour against the media, which some experts described as a "broad, systematic assault" on free speech. Trump claimed that some media groups should be "illegal", and frequently assaulted the "fake news" and suggested using law enforcement against them.
Sitting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Anna M. Gomez called Trump's lawsuit against 60 Minutes' parent company CBS News part of "a campaign to censor and control" and to harass the media "into covering the news the way they want it to be covered". As a result of Trump's threats, media executives instructed journalists and their staff to self-censor and reduce criticism of Trump.
On July 24, Trump passed an executive order encouraging tech companies to censor their chatbots to prevent "woke AI". This action marked the first time the federal government explicitly attempted to shape the ideological behavior of AI.
The order stated that companies selling their AI to the federal government must ensure their programs did not promote "destructive" diversity, equity and inclusion, and "concepts like:
The order drew comparisons by scholars to the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to censor and control AI to reflect the core values of the Communist Party, although they described Trump's efforts as taking a softer and coercive route by instead encouraging self-censorship.
Trump ordered cultural institutions, museums, and the Smithsonian to a comprehensive ideological review of its content. The review resulted in the widespread removal of information by the National Park Service at museums and parks across the country after the agency interpreted the order to include removing any mentions of:
In July 2025, Trump sued The Wall Street Journal for publishing a story relating to his past friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, marking the first time a sitting president sued a media organization for alleged defamation. In September, he also sued The New York Times for defamation.
Following comments by Attorney General Pam Bondi that the administration would go after "hate speech" in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's death, Jonathan Karl of ABC News asked the president for his opinion on comments made by some of his allies who considered hate speech to be free speech. In response, Trump said that his administration would "probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly, it's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart."
FCC investigations:
On January 22, Trump's FCC chair Brendan Carr revived three investigations into claims of bias from CBS, ABC, and NBC, but not Fox News, and Carr previously promised to punish news broadcasters he saw as unfair to Trump or Republicans in general.
On January 29, Carr ordered an investigation into underwriting announcements on NPR and PBS stations, and recommended that Congress stop funding these organizations (which aligns with the section of Project 2025 that Carr had authored).
In his first-term budgets, Trump had previously proposed eliminating funding for public broadcasting, art, libraries, and museums. Carr sent a letter to the heads of NPR and PBS with his complaints, but ignored requests for a copy from a Democratic FCC commissioner.
On May 1, NPR and PBS were targeted by an executive order instructing the cessation of their funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the investigation of all other federal funds they received.
On February 12, Carr launched investigations into Comcast, the parent company of NBC News and Universal Studios, over having diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Carr revived a 1960's-era policy prohibiting "news distortion" to target media outlets, and his actions were condemned by former Republican and Democratic FCC chairs and independent watchdog groups.
Legal experts told Ars Technica that the investigations could be used to "harass licensees and hold up applications related to business deals", and Carr stated that a news distortion complaint against 60 Minutes' Kamala Harris interview would factor into an FCC review of a CBS transfer of TV broadcast station licenses to Skydance.
On July 2, CBS agreed to pay Trump's presidential library $16 million to settle the lawsuit while admitting no guilt, which led to allegations of bribing a public official owing to its payment ahead of a merger between Paramount and Skydance Media that required FCC approval.
CBS later canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for financial reasons, although its timing ahead of the merger and after recent criticism Colbert made against the settlement payment which Colbert had criticized on the air three days earlier as "a big fat bribe" led to further allegations of political interference and potential bribery.
As part of the agreement, CBS agreed to create an Ombudsman to monitor its news channels to root out "bias" at CBS News, and on the same day, Trump also claimed the company had agreed to give it $26 million dollars worth of free airtime.
By July 25, 2025, liberal nonprofit group Media Matters reduced criticism of Trump and Republicans and contemplated shutting down entirely after numerous lawsuits launched against it by the FCC, Republican state attorneys general, and Elon Musk strained its cash reserves. The action was described by The New York Times as "offering a glimpse of what might be in store for even well-funded targets of his retribution campaigns".
Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan issued an injunction against the FCC investigation, writing that "It should alarm all Americans when the government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate"
On September 12, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, on his ABC late-night talk show, blamed Trump for not uniting the country after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and instead attacking Democrats.
On the September 15 episode, Kimmel said the "MAGA gang" was "desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" and was trying to "score political points" from the crime rather than sincerely grieving.
FCC chief Brendan Carr said Kimmel appeared to "directly mislead the American public" and threatened possible actions against ABC, including the revocation of the broadcast licenses of its owned-and-operated stations.
On September 17, Nexstar Media Group announced that they would pre-empt Kimmel on their 32 ABC affiliated stations "for the foreseeable future".
Nexstar had been seeking FCC approval for $6.2 billion merger at the time. ABC then announced that it would suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely
Variety described the suspension coming after "several prominent conservatives have called for any critic of [Kirk's] work to be silenced, no matter how nuanced the argument may be".
Following the suspension, Trump stated that any network that gave him bad press or allowed a host to criticize him should have their broadcast licenses revoked.
The following day, Trump restated that negative coverage of him should be illegal, stating that "When 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, it's no longer free speech".
He later reiterated his message, saying that "They'll take a great story and they'll make it bad. See, I think that's really illegal".
Restricting media access to the White House
Following his reelection, Trump launched lawsuits and created blacklists against certain media outlets, and took over the process run by the White House Correspondents' Association to choose what outlets could gain access to him.
He kicked out and prohibited certain outlets from access to events, and allowed right-wing outlets such as Real America's Voice, Blaze Media, and Newsmax into the press pool.
In February 2025, Associated Press journalists were barred from entry to press briefings in the White House after the Trump administration objected to the Associated Press using the name "Gulf of Mexico" instead of "Gulf of America" as chosen by Trump.
The Associated Press had recommended both names were to be used, as "Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change", and "the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years."
The Associated Press protested the Trump administration's action as violating the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later commented: "If we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable", as she described the name of 'Gulf of America' as a "fact".
The administration followed up by banning Associated Press journalists indefinitely from the Oval Office and Air Force One, citing the gulf naming issue. Trump said that month that the Associated Press would continue to be banned "until such time as they agree that it's the Gulf of America".
Associated Press filed a lawsuit on February 21, in which it states "The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government, ... The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American's freedom."
On April 8, 2025, federal district judge Trevor McFadden granted the preliminary injunction sought by AP and ruled that the White House must lift the access restrictions they have imposed on the Associated Press while the AP v. Budowich lawsuit moves forward.
On April 13, even though a court order was placed, the Trump administration blocked the AP from covering a meeting between Trump and Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office.
*
On July 21 2025, Trump banned The Wall Street Journal from access to him after it published a story about Trump's relationship with convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Actions against higher education
Trump's actions targeting higher education were described as part of an intimidation campaign against institutions viewed as hostile to his political views.
He targeted higher education by demanding it give federal oversight of curriculum and targeted activists, legal immigrants, tourists, and students with visas who expressed criticism of his policies or engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Trump froze billions of dollars in federal funding for multiple universities in express defiance of existing laws prohibiting such actions without following proper legal processes that did not happen.
Emboldened by Columbia University's decision to pay a $221 million fine to the Trump administration to resolve its claims and install an outside monitor to ensure compliance, Trump expanded his university targets to include additional universities.
The deals and demands made by Trump were criticized as coercive, a shakedown, and legalized extortion in what Axios described as pursuit of a "cultural crackdown".
In April 2025, the American Association of Colleges and Universities published a statement signed by more than 150 university and college presidents that condemned "unprecedented government overreach and political interference" in education from the Trump administration.
Also in April, faculties at several universities in the collegiate Big Ten Conference voted to approve a "mutual-defense compact" against Trump administration actions.
Historian of academic freedom in the United States Ellen Schrecker has compared the Trump administration's actions unfavorably to McCarthyism, saying that Trump's actions against universities are more severe and far-reaching than the persecution of communists in academia during the Second Red Scare.
On September 3rd, Judge Allison D. Burroughs found Trump's efforts to freeze billions of dollars of funding for Harvard illegal, writing that the government had infringed upon Harvard's free speech rights and that it was "difficult to conclude anything other than that defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country's premier universities".
See also
An "authoritarian act" is any action by a leader or government that consolidates power and represses individual freedoms, constitutional checks, and democratic norms. It is a means of maintaining control through force, fear, or manipulation, often while claiming to act in the public's best interest.
Key characteristics of authoritarian acts
- Expansion of executive power. Authoritarian actions often involve rewriting laws, changing rules, or reinterpreting the constitution to grant more power to the head of state and weaken other branches of government, such as the legislature and courts.
- Suppression of dissent. Limiting freedom of speech, harassing or imprisoning political opponents, and delegitimizing or shutting down independent media are common tactics. Authoritarians use cries of "fake news" to undermine critical coverage.
- Political violence. Authoritarian leaders may tolerate, encourage, or stoke violence to intimidate opponents and justify the expansion of security powers and the limitation of civil liberties.
- Erosion of democratic institutions. Acts may include packing courts with loyalists, manipulating election rules, or purging independent officials from civil service to ensure loyalty over qualifications.
- Spreading disinformation. Spreading falsehoods and conspiracy theories through coordinated networks is used to confuse the public and create distractions from power grabs. The goal is often not just to sell a lie but to undermine the very concept of objective truth.
- Targeting marginalized groups. Authoritarians often blame minorities, immigrants, or "outsiders" for a country's problems to create division and consolidate power through fearmongering.
Recent examples of alleged authoritarian acts
- Recent examples of actions described by critics as authoritarian include:
- Politically motivated investigations: The systematic use of law enforcement to pursue politically motivated investigations, while shielding allies, erodes the integrity of the justice system.
- Disregard for judicial orders: Ignoring court rulings or openly attacking judges who rule against the government undermines judicial independence and the rule of law.
- Attempting to bypass constitutional law: Actions such as issuing executive orders to revoke birthright citizenship, despite constitutional precedent, or threatening the suspension of habeas corpus have been identified as attempts to circumvent legal and constitutional limits.
- Deploying military domestically: The use of armed forces or federal agents for domestic crackdowns, particularly against protestors, is considered an authoritarian tactic, as seen during the 2020 events in Portland, Oregon.
- Targeting independent oversight: Purging inspectors general or other independent oversight officials weakens accountability and allows power to be consolidated.
Begin: Targeting of political opponents and civil society under the second Trump administration
During Donald Trump's second presidency, the Trump administration took a series of actions using the government to target his political opponents and civil society. His actions were described by the media as part of his promised "retribution" and "revenge" campaign, within the context of a strongly personalist and leader-centered conception of politics.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, he repeatedly stated that he had "every right" to go after his political opponents.
He undertook a massive expansion of presidential power under a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory, and several of his actions ignored or violated federal laws, regulations, and the Constitution, according to American legal scholars.
He threatened, signed executive actions, and ordered investigations into his political opponents, critics, and organizations aligned with the Democratic Party. He politicized the civil service undertaking mass layoffs of government employees to recruit workers more loyal to himself.
He ended the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence, weaponizing it and ordering it to target his political enemies. He utilized several government agencies to retaliate against his political enemies and continued filing personal lawsuits against his political opponents, companies, and news organizations that angered him.
By July 2025, Trump had extracted more than $1.2 billion in settlements in a "cultural crackdown" against a variety of institutions that largely chose to settle rather than fight back.
He engaged in an unprecedented targeting of law firms and lawyers that previously represented positions adverse to himself. He targeted higher education by demanding it give federal oversight of curriculum and targeted activists, legal immigrants, tourists, and students with visas who expressed criticism of his policies or engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy. He detained and deported United States citizens.
Trump's actions against civil society have been described by legal experts and political scientists as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding, and negatively impacting free speech and the rule of law.
Background:
Trump frequently promised to exact retribution against perceived political enemies through his 2024 campaign, and has said he has "every right" to go after political opponents. A central campaign theme for Trump's second presidential bid was "retribution". Trump framed the 2024 election as "the final battle", and openly promised to leverage the power of the presidency for political reprisals.
Trump repeatedly suggested that he supports outlawing political dissent that he regards as misleading or that questions the legitimacy of his presidency, for example saying that criticism of judges who did not rule in favor of him "should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that."
He also repeatedly called for press companies who have produced unfavorable coverage of him to have their licenses revoked, and said that he would jail reporters who refuse to name the sources of leaks. The New York Times described Trump as using "grievance as a political tool, portraying himself as the victim of what he claims is a powerful and amorphous 'deep state.'"
Actions taken:
Mass firings and expansion of presidential power
- Main article: 2025 United States federal mass layoffs
- See also: 2025 dismissals of inspectors general
Trump undertook mass firings of federal employees, inspectors general, and Democratic members of independent agencies and oversight boards who could attempt to block or constrain his moves in express defiance of existing laws prohibiting such actions.
His actions were described by legal experts as unprecedented or in violation of federal law, and with the intent of replacing them with workers more aligned with his agenda.
In a peer-reviewed journal article, Donald Moynihan described the exercise as an anti-statist restructuring of American government centered around political loyalty. Legal analysts described such firings as setting up Supreme Court cases that could expand his power over independent executive branch agencies that Congress set up to be insulated from presidential control based on a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory.
His actions removed checks and balances within the executive branch by ignoring agencies such as the Office of Legal Counsel.
In an executive order on February 18, Trump declared the executive branch an extension of his own person, and that only he and the United States Attorney General had final say on the interpretation of all executive branch law. He sent teams to administer loyalty tests to some federal employees, intelligence, and law enforcement candidates.
His actions politicized the civil service, especially among law enforcement. His actions against civil society were described by legal experts and hundreds of political scientists as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding, and as negatively impacting the rule of law.
Targeting the judicial system and judges:
Following legal setbacks to his executive orders, Trump increased his criticism of the judiciary and called for impeachment of federal judges who ruled against him.
By mid-July, a Washington Post analysis found he defied judges and the courts in roughly one third of all cases against him, actions which were described by legal experts as unprecedented for any presidential administration and threatened to undermine the judiciary's role in checking executive power.
It described the Trump administration as:
- providing false information,
- stonewalling judges,
- flouting court orders,
- presenting legal cases with no basis in the law
- and misrepresenting facts.
His defiance of court orders and a claimed right to disobey the courts raised fears among legal experts of a constitutional crisis.
He engaged in an unprecedented targeting of law firms and lawyers that previously represented positions adverse to himself.
His verbal attacks against the judiciary saw an increase in threats and harassment against judges and their families who ruled against him. On April 25, 2025, the FBI arrested Milwaukee County Circuit judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly blocking immigration enforcement. The move was widely characterized as an authoritarian act by legal experts.
His actions were described by scholars as potentially creating a "two-track legal system" or "dual state".
On June 24, 2025, Trump sued all 15 federal judges in Maryland in a dispute over his deportation orders in an escalation of his conflict with the judiciary.
On July 28, Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a misconduct complaint against Chief Judge James Boasberg for allegedly violating the presumption of regularity in what Politico described as part of a political effort "to cast as rogue partisans federal judges who have blocked President Donald Trump's priorities".
During his second presidency, Trump bypassed the Senate and the Courts to install loyalist prosecutors through the use of loopholes in federal law. Trump appointed prosecutors on an "interim" 120 day basis, voided the court-ordered replacement or preempted them, then re-installed them as an "acting" attorney for an additional 210 days.
Notably on July 29, Trump fired Acting Attorney for New Jersey Desiree Leigh Grace in favor of his personal attorney, Alina Habba, despite the expiration of Habba's 120-day appointment.
Trump and his administration targeted and condemned judges globally who were involved in trials against his political allies such as in Brazil, France, Israel and Britain, arguing that they were biased and suppressing free speech rights.
According to scholars in constitutional law and democracy, the rebukes "violate long-standing diplomatic norms, challenge a key tenet of national sovereignty, and signify a potential retreat from the United States' long-standing approach of promoting the independent rule of law in other democracies".
Using government agencies for reprisals:
Upon taking office, Trump weaponized a variety of government agencies to target and harass his political rivals. An NPR analysis found that in his first 100 days, to retaliate and harass his opponents he utilized the departments of:
- Justice,
- Defense,
- Homeland Security,
- Education,
- Health and Human Services,
- the IRS,
- the General Services Administration,
- the Federal Communications Commission,
- the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,
- the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- and the Federal Housing Finance Agency
He notably took aim to control the IRS, firing thousands of career staff and installing political allies in their place in an attempt to end its independence, and shared its tax data with ICE to deport migrants that led to several departures at the agency and privacy concerns.
-
Historians described Trump's efforts to politicize the IRS as more brazen than prior actions taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, noting his public announcement of his intention for the IRS to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status due to his disputes with the university.
His efforts bypassed rules established by Congress to prevent presidential meddling at the agency. As a result of Trump's targeting of liberal activists, law firms, and news organizations, some liberal donors slowed their charitable giving to organizations out of fear of investigations and organizations being stripped of their tax-exempt status by the IRS.
Compiling data on Americans:
Trump tasked Palantir Technologies and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to compile and merge data across federal agencies into a master list containing information on every American.
The New York Times estimated such collection would entail roughly 314 areas, including Americans':
- Social Security numbers,
- disability status,
- bank accounts,
- student debt,
- medical claims,
- credit history,
- alimony paid,
- charitable contributions,
- child support,
- gambling income,
- IP addresses,
- educational attainment,
- marital status,
- criminal history,
- voting records,
- and more.
Trump's efforts to gather this data were described as having "elbowed past the objections of career staff, data security protocols, national security experts and legal privacy protections".
The move received criticism from privacy experts and civil society groups, who noted the siloed nature of government data made it hard to hack and leak in a single data breach. It was also criticized for potentially allowing Trump to target and harass his political opponents and grant the president "untold surveillance power".
Trump made requests to all 50 states to give his administration access to all personally sensitive data held by them on American citizens, saying it needed the data to verify election integrity, to identify waste and fraud and to keep ineligible immigrants off benefit rolls.
Critics described such efforts as an attempt to monitor immigrants and ideological opponents, surveil Americans, and spread false claims of fraud. The moves broke longstanding norms and legal protections.
Launching Justice Department investigations
See also:
Trump ended the post-Watergate norm of independence for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and weaponized it to investigate his political opponents, calling them "scum".
His administration publicized actions against local leaders, judges, and federal officials who opposed his agenda along with what The New York Times described as "people who have simply gotten on the president's bad side" in an attempt to stigmatize them.
Trump made numerous suggestions, requests and demands to arrest, investigate or prosecute his political opponents, including by explicitly or indirectly ordering investigations into political opponents and celebrities such as:
Trump's interim DC Attorney General Ed Martin and head of the Weaponization Working Group stated the Justice Department would publicly name and shame individuals they did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute.
Legal experts described this approach as violating the department's ethical and procedural rulebook, and that many of his other actions publicizing investigations were "so outside the bounds that it could undermine any criminal case"
Trump used the Justice Department to punish his enemies and reward his allies while making unfounded claims of prior "weaponization" against him. Trump ordered the attorney general to investigate the Biden administration for "weaponization of the federal government" and "government censorship of speech".
The Guardian described the investigations as "politically charged reviews into his personal grievances"
The orders made misleading accusations against the Biden administration and asserted they had committed criminal conduct against him and his supporters and demanded evidence be found to "correct past misconduct".
On June 5, 2025, Trump ordered his administration to investigate former President Joe Biden for his executive actions arguing he was too mentally impaired to do the job and casting doubts as to the legitimacy of his pardons, although he admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims. Legal experts described the investigation as unlikely to do anything except fire up his core supporters.
On January 27, the DOJ fired more than a dozen officials who worked on criminal cases against Trump alleging a lack of trust in faithfully executing his agenda. It also announced a "special project" to investigate prosecutors who had previously brought charges against January 6 rioters, and launched a "weaponization working group" to review and investigate officials at both the state and federal levels who previously investigated Trump and provide the White House quarterly reports on its findings.
Several FBI agents and the FBI Agents Association sued the Trump administration to prevent the publication of the names of 5,000 FBI agents for their involvement in investigating the January 6 attack, and Trump later said he would fire some agents involved in investigating the attack.
On March 14, 2025, Trump gave a norm-breaking political speech at the Justice Department's Great Hall promising it would "expose" his enemies in what The Associated Press described as "the latest manifestation of Trump's unparalleled takeover of the department".
The Economist described Trump as "paying a price for erasing any expectation the department would operate independently" in reducing its credibility in its response to the Epstein files.
Foreign diplomats described the Justice Department's seeming politicization, the apparent decline of the rule of law, and integrity of the US legal system as potentially complicating transnational criminal investigations.
By August 4, The New York Times reported that judges had increasingly doubted "the fundamental honesty and credibility of Justice Department lawyers in ways that would have been unthinkable only months ago" following instances of the Justice Department having "repeatedly misled the courts, violated their orders and demonized judges who have ruled against them".
On the evening of September 21, 2025, Trump posted multiple messages on his Truth Social account encouraging and directing Pam Bondi to prosecute his political opponents, specifically calling out Sen. Adam Schiff, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Trump stated the lack of prosecutions was "killing our reputation and credibility". The majority of the posts involved criticizing Erik Siebert, a Justice Department official who reportedly stated there was not enough evidence to launch a prosecution against Letitia James, appearing to confirm reports of such comments.
He also said he would promote Lindsey Halligan, his personal aide reviewing materials at the Smithsonian Institution to match his agenda, with taking on the case. Politico described the response as a "remarkable public message to the nation's top law enforcement officer, linking his personal grievances over his own criminal prosecutions and congressional impeachments to a potential decision by federal prosecutors to level criminal charges against his adversaries."
Investigating Democratic and liberal organizations:
Trump threatened, signed executive actions, and ordered investigations into his political opponents, critics, and organizations aligned with the Democratic Party. On April 24, 2025, Trump directed the Justice Department in a presidential memorandum to investigate the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue in an attempt to cripple the Democratic Party's political infrastructure.
It marked the third time in three weeks Trump ordered the government to target his perceived enemies and domestic opponents, which The New York Times described as "eroding a post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence far more than he ever did in his first term".
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September 2025, the Trump administration announced a widespread crackdown of liberal groups and donors, claiming without evidence that a network of liberal organizations promoted violence and would be dismantled. Trump stated he was looking into labeling some "terrorist organizations", and JD Vance promised to go after non-profits such as the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation that had provided financial support for liberal and progressive causes.
Critics widely condemned the moves, and warned the administration was using the assassination as a pretext to crack down on political opponents.
Eric Adams investigation
It was reported on February 14 that the efforts by Trump to dismiss the case into New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which caused the resignation of seven government prosecutors, came in the same week as the administration was negotiating with the mayor over immigration enforcement initiatives and Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan made reference to an "agreement".
Earlier, Adams had agreed with Homan to give access to the city's Rikers Island jail for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without—via a "loophole ... [Adams] appears to have found"—violating the city’s sanctuary laws and joined Homan in a joint interview conducted by Phil McGraw, among one or more other joint interviews.
The report came after February 10, 2025, when the DOJ under Trump instructed federal prosecutors to drop charges against Adams, citing concerns that the case had been affected by publicity and was interfering with his ability to govern. The memo directing this move, written by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, stated that the prosecution had limited Adams' capacity to focus on issues such as immigration and crime.
The Justice Department's decision did not assess the strength of the evidence or legal arguments in the case. The memo was issued months before the city's Democratic primary, where Adams is seeking reelection. The charges were to be dropped "as soon as is practicable" pending a further review of Adams' case following the general election in November 2025.
Danielle Sassoon, the US attorney in charge of the case, refused to dismiss the charges, telling Attorney General Pam Bondi that "I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations". Sassoon later resigned, accusing Bove and the Trump administration of making an illicit deal with Adams to dismiss the charges, becoming the first of seven prosecutors to resign due to the order to dismiss charges.
Actions against the legal profession
- Main article: Targeting of law firms and lawyers under the second Trump administration
- See also:
In March 2025, Trump said that he would be targeting law firms, a move experts call unprecedented. He first ordered that security clearances be revoked for all of the attorneys at Covington & Burling who are involved in the firm's representation of former special counsel Jack Smith.
Smith led federal investigations and prosecutions of Trump in both an election obstruction case and a classified documents case. Trump then signed executive orders 14230 and 14237, each aimed at another firm
The first ordered that the security clearances of all Perkins Coie employees be suspended, and also prohibited the firm from receiving money from federal contractors and barred its attorneys from entering federal buildings. Perkins Coie had represented Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign, and in that capacity paid for opposition research that led to the Steele dossier.
The second involved similar orders for the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (known as Paul, Weiss), and for Mark Pomerantz, a previous partner at the firm. Pomerantz had worked with the Manhattan district attorney's office, which subsequently prosecuted Trump for falsifying business records. The firm had done pro bono work in January 6 cases.
Trump subsequently rescinded order 14237 after Paul, Weiss agreed to a set of conditions, such as promising to provide $40 million in free legal services to the administration and end its diversity policies. Within days, Trump issued executive order 14246, this time aimed at Jenner & Block, a firm that employed Andrew Weissmann after he worked on the Mueller special counsel investigation.
Two days later, Trump issued another executive order directed at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr (known as WilmerHale), where Robert Mueller had been a partner; the firm also employed Aaron Zebley and James Quarles, who had worked with the Mueller special counsel investigation.
Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the goal of these executive orders was to "intimidate professionals, to intimidate the legal profession from engaging in professional activities that go against Donald Trump and the current administration."
Perkins Coie filed a lawsuit challenging executive order 14230, and on March 12, Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order for parts of Trump's executive order. Howell said that the order likely violated several constitutional amendments and "casts a chilling harm of blizzard proportion across the entire legal profession".
The Department of Justice attempted to have Howell removed from the case, alleging that she is "insufficiently impartial", but the motion was denied. On March 28, Jenner & Block and Wilmer Hale also filed suit in the District of Columbia challenging their respective executive orders.
The same day, Judge John Bates issued a temporary restraining order for the executive order directed at Jenner & Block, and Judge Richard Leon issued a temporary restraining order for the executive order directed at WilmerHale.
Trump also issued a presidential memorandum, "Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court", targeting lawyers and law firms more generally if they filed "frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation" against the administration, as judged by the attorney general.
The menacing memo, again including revocation of security clearances and preventing any company that uses such a firm from getting federal contracts, has been seen as a threatening escalation and broadening of the president's campaign of retaliation against judges and lawyers who don't share his political views.
A variety of people in the legal profession condemned the memorandum as an attempt to intimidate firms so that they wouldn't take on clients who oppose government actions.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) also contacted 20 law firms, telling them that they were being investigated in relation to their DEI practices.
The series of actions against lawyers and law firms quickly started having the desired effect of making it harder for those who oppose Trump administration actions to find lawyers who would agree to represent them.
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Law professor Scott Cummings and a former senior Justice Department official have both called Trump's moves attacking law firms and targeting lawyers "authoritarian".
Senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Ben Wizner said Trump's threats are an attempt to "chill and intimidate" lawyers who challenge him.
In remarks delivered with the governor of Louisiana, President Trump told reporters that he thinks "The law firms have to behave themselves, and we've proven that."
Within the legal community, there have been varied responses to Trump's attacks on the profession. Law firms that haven't been targeted by Trump have largely been silent in response. A few firms have issued public statements, such as Albert Sellars LLP, whose response was a concise "Fuck that fascist nonsense."
The American Bar Association released a statement encouraging everyone in the profession to stand up against Trump's "efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession", following that with another statement joined by over 50 smaller bar associations across the country.
The deans of nearly 80 law schools from across the country also signed a joint letter condemning the administration's actions, stating that "Punishing lawyers for their representation and advocacy violates the First Amendment and undermines the Sixth Amendment."
Democratic state attorneys general sent a joint letter as well, condemning Trump's attempts to undermine the rule of law. Rachel Cohen, an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (also known as Skadden), organized an open letter, inviting other associates to sign on.
The letter, addressed to large law firms, called on them to take a stand, and as of March 27, 2025 over 1500 associates had signed it. Cohen also submitted a conditional resignation letter, calling on Skadden to fight Trump's actions, and they let her go the same day. Skadden later proactively approached the Trump administration before Trump targeted them with an executive order, coming to an agreement with the administration along the same lines as that reached by Paul, Weiss.
Pulling security protection and clearances:
Within 24 hours of being elected, Trump revoked the security clearance of his former national security adviser John Bolton as well as the clearances of 50 officials who signed on to a letter about the Hunter Biden laptop controversy, including ex-DNI director James Clapper and ex-CIA directors John Brennan and Leon Panetta.
Trump also revoked the security protection for his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, his aide Brian Hook, and Bolton, who all had faced assassination threats from Iran.
The revocation of security protection was described as part of Trump's vow to target those he perceives as adversaries. He also revoked protection for Anthony Fauci who had received several death threats, and said to reporters that he would not feel any responsibility if harm befell the former government officials he revoked security details from.
On January 29, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended former chair of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley's security clearance, withdrew the authorization for his security detail, and ordered a review of his actions as Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a view to demote him in rank. Hours after Trump was inaugurated, the official portrait of General Milley was removed from a Pentagon hallway where the portraits of all former chairmen are displayed.
On August 29, 2025, President Trump announced that effective September 1, Vice President Kamala Harris would no longer receive Secret Service protection, which also had included continual monitoring of intelligence information. She had been Trump’s opponent in the 2024 election. Reportedly, a recent threat assessment had found nothing alarming, and this decision was made several weeks before Harris’ book tour for 107 Days, about her campaign. Former vice-presidents typically receive such protection for 6 months. However, President Joe Biden had signed an executive order extending this for an additional year for Harris.
Actions against corporations and business:
Trump sought an unprecedented amount of control over US business: publicly attacked companies and their executives, demanded firings of corporate leaders who criticized or contradicted him, and demanded cuts of business profits by the federal government.
His administration confirmed that it maintained a loyalty scorecard of 553 American companies based on their "support of present and future administration initiatives".
Trump abandoned traditional Republican orthodoxy about protecting and promoting the free market, and sought greater and direct government control over private business which was widely described by academics, economists, commentators, and former corporate CEOs as an embrace of:
His demand and agreement with NVIDIA and AMD to provide the government with 15% of all overseas chip sales to China were described by critics as a "shakedown" and as potentially illegal and unconstitutional.
In an unprecedented move, the Pentagon became the largest shareholder of MP Materials, bypassing US procurement and contracting laws in the process.
As part of an agreement to allow Japan-based Nippon Steel buy US Steel, Trump was granted a personal, not governmental, golden share in US Steel, allowing him to influence board decisions and maintain veto power over certain decisions set to expire at the end of his presidential term, after which the Treasury and Commerce Departments would exercise control under all future presidents.
Intel agreed to grant the government a 10% equity stake in its company with no power to influence board decisions "with limited exceptions" in what NBC News described as "the president's latest extraordinary move to exert federal government control over private business".
Writing for Time magazine in 2024, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld described Trump's moves against capitalism from his first term as sharing "more in common with far-left progressive positions than with traditional GOP views, and are often far more progressive than the Biden Administration" and wrote that he expected such attacks to continue into his second term.
Actions against the media and free speech
- For Donald Trump's conflict with the media broadly, see Donald Trump's conflict with the media.
- For a list of Trump-era material attacks on journalists, see Government attacks on journalists in the United States § 2016–present: Trump era.
Trump's actions against the media and those who expressed certain viewpoints were described as negatively impacting free speech. His actions were described as unprecedented in modern American history, and mirroring tactics used by authoritarian leaders.
He criticized and fired officials who reported facts, statistics, and analysis that went against his opinions, and ordered them removed or redone to suit his preferences.
Scientists expressed fear of expressing viewpoints contrary to administration preferences, and the government undertook widespread online resource removals.
His deportations of activists and political dissidents were described as violating their free speech rights.
Trump's actions were described as part of a revenge tour against the media, which some experts described as a "broad, systematic assault" on free speech. Trump claimed that some media groups should be "illegal", and frequently assaulted the "fake news" and suggested using law enforcement against them.
Sitting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Anna M. Gomez called Trump's lawsuit against 60 Minutes' parent company CBS News part of "a campaign to censor and control" and to harass the media "into covering the news the way they want it to be covered". As a result of Trump's threats, media executives instructed journalists and their staff to self-censor and reduce criticism of Trump.
On July 24, Trump passed an executive order encouraging tech companies to censor their chatbots to prevent "woke AI". This action marked the first time the federal government explicitly attempted to shape the ideological behavior of AI.
The order stated that companies selling their AI to the federal government must ensure their programs did not promote "destructive" diversity, equity and inclusion, and "concepts like:
The order drew comparisons by scholars to the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to censor and control AI to reflect the core values of the Communist Party, although they described Trump's efforts as taking a softer and coercive route by instead encouraging self-censorship.
Trump ordered cultural institutions, museums, and the Smithsonian to a comprehensive ideological review of its content. The review resulted in the widespread removal of information by the National Park Service at museums and parks across the country after the agency interpreted the order to include removing any mentions of:
- racism,
- sexism,
- slavery,
- gay rights
- or persecution of Indigenous people.
In July 2025, Trump sued The Wall Street Journal for publishing a story relating to his past friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, marking the first time a sitting president sued a media organization for alleged defamation. In September, he also sued The New York Times for defamation.
Following comments by Attorney General Pam Bondi that the administration would go after "hate speech" in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's death, Jonathan Karl of ABC News asked the president for his opinion on comments made by some of his allies who considered hate speech to be free speech. In response, Trump said that his administration would "probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly, it's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart."
FCC investigations:
On January 22, Trump's FCC chair Brendan Carr revived three investigations into claims of bias from CBS, ABC, and NBC, but not Fox News, and Carr previously promised to punish news broadcasters he saw as unfair to Trump or Republicans in general.
On January 29, Carr ordered an investigation into underwriting announcements on NPR and PBS stations, and recommended that Congress stop funding these organizations (which aligns with the section of Project 2025 that Carr had authored).
In his first-term budgets, Trump had previously proposed eliminating funding for public broadcasting, art, libraries, and museums. Carr sent a letter to the heads of NPR and PBS with his complaints, but ignored requests for a copy from a Democratic FCC commissioner.
On May 1, NPR and PBS were targeted by an executive order instructing the cessation of their funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the investigation of all other federal funds they received.
On February 12, Carr launched investigations into Comcast, the parent company of NBC News and Universal Studios, over having diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Carr revived a 1960's-era policy prohibiting "news distortion" to target media outlets, and his actions were condemned by former Republican and Democratic FCC chairs and independent watchdog groups.
Legal experts told Ars Technica that the investigations could be used to "harass licensees and hold up applications related to business deals", and Carr stated that a news distortion complaint against 60 Minutes' Kamala Harris interview would factor into an FCC review of a CBS transfer of TV broadcast station licenses to Skydance.
On July 2, CBS agreed to pay Trump's presidential library $16 million to settle the lawsuit while admitting no guilt, which led to allegations of bribing a public official owing to its payment ahead of a merger between Paramount and Skydance Media that required FCC approval.
CBS later canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for financial reasons, although its timing ahead of the merger and after recent criticism Colbert made against the settlement payment which Colbert had criticized on the air three days earlier as "a big fat bribe" led to further allegations of political interference and potential bribery.
As part of the agreement, CBS agreed to create an Ombudsman to monitor its news channels to root out "bias" at CBS News, and on the same day, Trump also claimed the company had agreed to give it $26 million dollars worth of free airtime.
By July 25, 2025, liberal nonprofit group Media Matters reduced criticism of Trump and Republicans and contemplated shutting down entirely after numerous lawsuits launched against it by the FCC, Republican state attorneys general, and Elon Musk strained its cash reserves. The action was described by The New York Times as "offering a glimpse of what might be in store for even well-funded targets of his retribution campaigns".
Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan issued an injunction against the FCC investigation, writing that "It should alarm all Americans when the government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate"
On September 12, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, on his ABC late-night talk show, blamed Trump for not uniting the country after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and instead attacking Democrats.
On the September 15 episode, Kimmel said the "MAGA gang" was "desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" and was trying to "score political points" from the crime rather than sincerely grieving.
FCC chief Brendan Carr said Kimmel appeared to "directly mislead the American public" and threatened possible actions against ABC, including the revocation of the broadcast licenses of its owned-and-operated stations.
On September 17, Nexstar Media Group announced that they would pre-empt Kimmel on their 32 ABC affiliated stations "for the foreseeable future".
Nexstar had been seeking FCC approval for $6.2 billion merger at the time. ABC then announced that it would suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely
Variety described the suspension coming after "several prominent conservatives have called for any critic of [Kirk's] work to be silenced, no matter how nuanced the argument may be".
Following the suspension, Trump stated that any network that gave him bad press or allowed a host to criticize him should have their broadcast licenses revoked.
The following day, Trump restated that negative coverage of him should be illegal, stating that "When 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, it's no longer free speech".
He later reiterated his message, saying that "They'll take a great story and they'll make it bad. See, I think that's really illegal".
Restricting media access to the White House
Following his reelection, Trump launched lawsuits and created blacklists against certain media outlets, and took over the process run by the White House Correspondents' Association to choose what outlets could gain access to him.
He kicked out and prohibited certain outlets from access to events, and allowed right-wing outlets such as Real America's Voice, Blaze Media, and Newsmax into the press pool.
In February 2025, Associated Press journalists were barred from entry to press briefings in the White House after the Trump administration objected to the Associated Press using the name "Gulf of Mexico" instead of "Gulf of America" as chosen by Trump.
The Associated Press had recommended both names were to be used, as "Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change", and "the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years."
The Associated Press protested the Trump administration's action as violating the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later commented: "If we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable", as she described the name of 'Gulf of America' as a "fact".
The administration followed up by banning Associated Press journalists indefinitely from the Oval Office and Air Force One, citing the gulf naming issue. Trump said that month that the Associated Press would continue to be banned "until such time as they agree that it's the Gulf of America".
Associated Press filed a lawsuit on February 21, in which it states "The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government, ... The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American's freedom."
On April 8, 2025, federal district judge Trevor McFadden granted the preliminary injunction sought by AP and ruled that the White House must lift the access restrictions they have imposed on the Associated Press while the AP v. Budowich lawsuit moves forward.
On April 13, even though a court order was placed, the Trump administration blocked the AP from covering a meeting between Trump and Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office.
*
On July 21 2025, Trump banned The Wall Street Journal from access to him after it published a story about Trump's relationship with convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Actions against higher education
- Main article: Education policy of the second Donald Trump administration § Actions against universities
- See also: Palestine exception
Trump's actions targeting higher education were described as part of an intimidation campaign against institutions viewed as hostile to his political views.
He targeted higher education by demanding it give federal oversight of curriculum and targeted activists, legal immigrants, tourists, and students with visas who expressed criticism of his policies or engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Trump froze billions of dollars in federal funding for multiple universities in express defiance of existing laws prohibiting such actions without following proper legal processes that did not happen.
Emboldened by Columbia University's decision to pay a $221 million fine to the Trump administration to resolve its claims and install an outside monitor to ensure compliance, Trump expanded his university targets to include additional universities.
The deals and demands made by Trump were criticized as coercive, a shakedown, and legalized extortion in what Axios described as pursuit of a "cultural crackdown".
In April 2025, the American Association of Colleges and Universities published a statement signed by more than 150 university and college presidents that condemned "unprecedented government overreach and political interference" in education from the Trump administration.
Also in April, faculties at several universities in the collegiate Big Ten Conference voted to approve a "mutual-defense compact" against Trump administration actions.
Historian of academic freedom in the United States Ellen Schrecker has compared the Trump administration's actions unfavorably to McCarthyism, saying that Trump's actions against universities are more severe and far-reaching than the persecution of communists in academia during the Second Red Scare.
On September 3rd, Judge Allison D. Burroughs found Trump's efforts to freeze billions of dollars of funding for Harvard illegal, writing that the government had infringed upon Harvard's free speech rights and that it was "difficult to conclude anything other than that defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country's premier universities".
See also
Links between Trump associates and Russian officials
- YouTube Video: Trump is 'acting like' a Russian asset | Former CIA official Susan Miller
- YouTube Video: Sources: UK intel uncovered Trump, Russia contacts
- YouTube Video: Trump Team's Ties to Russia: Who's Who
Since Donald Trump was a 2016 candidate for the office of President of the United States, multiple suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials were discovered by the FBI, a special counsel investigation, and several United States congressional committees, as part of their investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Following intelligence reports about the Russian interference, Trump and some of his campaign members, business partners, administration nominees, and family members were subjected to intense scrutiny to determine whether they had improper dealings during their contacts with Russian officials.
Several people connected to the Trump campaign made false statements about those links and obstructed investigations. These investigations resulted in many criminal charges and indictments.
Starting in 2015, several allied foreign intelligence agencies began reporting secret contacts between Trump campaigners and known or suspected Russian agents in multiple European cities.
In November 2016, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov contradicted Trump's denials by confirming the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russia, stating in a 2016 Interfax news agency interview: "Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage," adding "I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives."
The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Russia report described how "secretive meetings and communications with Russian representatives... signaled that there was little intention by the incoming administration to punish Russia for the assistance it had just provided in its unprecedented attack on American democracy."
Ultimately, Mueller's investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities".
Overview:
1977–1987: alleged cultivation and recruitment of Trump by KGB
For many years, there has been intensive public scrutiny of Trump's ties to Russia. In a book excerpt published in Politico, former Guardian Russia correspondent Luke Harding stated that files declassified in 2016 indicated that Czech spies closely followed Trump and then-wife Ivana Trump in Manhattan and during trips to Czechoslovakia in the time after their marriage in 1977. Claims made by ex-KGB official Yuri Shvets were a basis of these allegations.
Natalia and Irina Dubinin, daughters of then-Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin, are cited as indicating that a seemingly chance meeting of their father with Trump in the autumn of 1986 was part of Dubinin's assignment to establish contact with America's business elite and a determined effort by the Soviet government to cultivate Trump in particular.
This effort extended through a series of subsequent events, also documented in Donald Trump's ghost-written book The Art of the Deal, including a meeting in 1986 between the Ambassador and Trump at Trump Tower and Dubinin's subsequent invitation to Trump to visit Moscow (which was handled via KGB-affiliated Intourist and the future Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin).
Harding also asserts that the "top level of the Soviet diplomatic service arranged his 1987 Moscow visit. With assistance from the KGB... The spy chief [Vladimir Kryuchkov] wanted KGB staff abroad to recruit more Americans."
Harding cited Trump as writing in The Art that the trip included a tour of "a half dozen potential sites for a hotel, including several near Red Square" and that he "was impressed with the ambition of Soviet officials to make a deal".
In February 2025, The Hill reported on three cases where claims were made by ex-KGB officials that Trump had been cultivated, recruited (with the codename "Krasnov" in 1987, and/or compromised.
The aforementioned claims by Shvets, which were also a significant basis for Craig Unger's best-selling book, American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery, were also backed by Alnur Mussayev, former head of Kazakhstan's intelligence service, and Sergei Zhyrnov, an ex-KGB officer living in France.
Mussayev also asserted that Trump is compromised: "I have no doubt that Russia has kompromat on the US President, that over the course of many years the Kremlin has been promoting Trump to the post of President of the main world power."
Number of contacts by Trump associates with Russians:
By April 19, 2019, The New York Times had documented that "Donald J. Trump and 18 of his associates had at least 140 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition."
The Moscow Project – an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund – had, by June 3, 2019, documented "272 contacts between Trump's team and Russia-linked operatives ... including at least 38 meetings.... None of these contacts were ever reported to the proper authorities. Instead, the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them."
2015–2016: foreign surveillance of Russian targets
In late 2015, the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ, during the course of routine surveillance of "known Kremlin operatives already on the grid", used "electronic intelligence" to collect information from these Russian targets. They found that "Russians were talking to people associated with Trump...According to sources in the US and the UK, [the conversations] formed a suspicious pattern."
The British passed this information about "suspicious 'interactions'" between "members of Donald Trump's campaign team" and "known or suspected Russian agents" to US intelligence agencies.
Over the next six months, European and Australian allies began to "pass along information about people close to Mr. Trump meeting with Russians in the Netherlands, Britain and other countries." Reports of these "contacts between Trump's inner circle and Russians" were shared by seven allied foreign intelligence agencies (reportedly those of the United Kingdom, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Australia, France, and the Netherlands).
The New York Times also reported that British and Dutch agencies had evidence of meetings between "Russian officials – and others close to Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin – and associates of President-elect Trump".
James Clapper confirmed that the following information was "accurate" and "also quite sensitive": "Over the spring of 2016, multiple European allies passed on additional information to the United States about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians."
Later, U.S. intelligence overheard Russians, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates, with some Russian officials arguing about how much to interfere in the election.
Then cyber attacks on state electoral systems led the Obama administration to directly accuse the Russians of interfering.
Because they are not allowed to surveil the private communications of American citizens without a warrant, the "FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of these contacts between Trump's team and Moscow."
2016 campaign:
During the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly praised Russian president Vladimir Putin as a strong leader. Peter Conradi, in GQ magazine, described this relationship as a "bromance".
Between 2013 and 2015, Trump stated "I do have a relationship with" Putin, "I met him once", and "I spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin, who could not have been nicer."
From 2016, during his election campaign, his stance changed. During a press conference in July 2016, he claimed, "I never met Putin, I don't know who Putin is ... Never spoken to him", and in a July interview said, "I have no relationship with him."
In November 2016, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency, "Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage", and "I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives."
2017:
Several Trump advisers, including former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign manager Paul Manafort, have been connected to Russian officials, or to Viktor Yanukovich and other pro-Russian Ukrainian officials.
The New York Times wrote on May 24, 2017, citing intelligence sources, that Russian agents were overheard during the campaign saying they could use Manafort and Flynn to influence Trump.
Members of Trump's campaign, and later his White House staff, particularly Flynn and Jared Kushner, were in contact with Russian government officials both before and after the November election, including some contacts which they initially did not disclose.
Newspaper reports:
The Wall Street Journal reported that United States intelligence agencies monitoring Russian espionage found Kremlin officials discussing Trump's associates in the spring of 2015. At the time, U.S. intelligence analysts were reportedly confused, but not alarmed, by these intercepted conversations.
In July 2017, the conversations were re-examined in light of a recently disclosed Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
The New York Times reported that multiple Trump associates, including Manafort and other members of his campaign, had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials during 2016, although officials said that, so far, they did not have evidence that Trump's campaign had cooperated with the Russians to influence the election. Manafort said he did not knowingly meet any Russian intelligence officials.
Meetings with Kislyak
Pictured below: Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak met with a number of U.S. officials.
Following intelligence reports about the Russian interference, Trump and some of his campaign members, business partners, administration nominees, and family members were subjected to intense scrutiny to determine whether they had improper dealings during their contacts with Russian officials.
Several people connected to the Trump campaign made false statements about those links and obstructed investigations. These investigations resulted in many criminal charges and indictments.
Starting in 2015, several allied foreign intelligence agencies began reporting secret contacts between Trump campaigners and known or suspected Russian agents in multiple European cities.
In November 2016, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov contradicted Trump's denials by confirming the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russia, stating in a 2016 Interfax news agency interview: "Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage," adding "I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives."
The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Russia report described how "secretive meetings and communications with Russian representatives... signaled that there was little intention by the incoming administration to punish Russia for the assistance it had just provided in its unprecedented attack on American democracy."
Ultimately, Mueller's investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities".
Overview:
1977–1987: alleged cultivation and recruitment of Trump by KGB
For many years, there has been intensive public scrutiny of Trump's ties to Russia. In a book excerpt published in Politico, former Guardian Russia correspondent Luke Harding stated that files declassified in 2016 indicated that Czech spies closely followed Trump and then-wife Ivana Trump in Manhattan and during trips to Czechoslovakia in the time after their marriage in 1977. Claims made by ex-KGB official Yuri Shvets were a basis of these allegations.
Natalia and Irina Dubinin, daughters of then-Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin, are cited as indicating that a seemingly chance meeting of their father with Trump in the autumn of 1986 was part of Dubinin's assignment to establish contact with America's business elite and a determined effort by the Soviet government to cultivate Trump in particular.
This effort extended through a series of subsequent events, also documented in Donald Trump's ghost-written book The Art of the Deal, including a meeting in 1986 between the Ambassador and Trump at Trump Tower and Dubinin's subsequent invitation to Trump to visit Moscow (which was handled via KGB-affiliated Intourist and the future Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin).
Harding also asserts that the "top level of the Soviet diplomatic service arranged his 1987 Moscow visit. With assistance from the KGB... The spy chief [Vladimir Kryuchkov] wanted KGB staff abroad to recruit more Americans."
Harding cited Trump as writing in The Art that the trip included a tour of "a half dozen potential sites for a hotel, including several near Red Square" and that he "was impressed with the ambition of Soviet officials to make a deal".
In February 2025, The Hill reported on three cases where claims were made by ex-KGB officials that Trump had been cultivated, recruited (with the codename "Krasnov" in 1987, and/or compromised.
The aforementioned claims by Shvets, which were also a significant basis for Craig Unger's best-selling book, American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery, were also backed by Alnur Mussayev, former head of Kazakhstan's intelligence service, and Sergei Zhyrnov, an ex-KGB officer living in France.
Mussayev also asserted that Trump is compromised: "I have no doubt that Russia has kompromat on the US President, that over the course of many years the Kremlin has been promoting Trump to the post of President of the main world power."
Number of contacts by Trump associates with Russians:
By April 19, 2019, The New York Times had documented that "Donald J. Trump and 18 of his associates had at least 140 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition."
The Moscow Project – an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund – had, by June 3, 2019, documented "272 contacts between Trump's team and Russia-linked operatives ... including at least 38 meetings.... None of these contacts were ever reported to the proper authorities. Instead, the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them."
2015–2016: foreign surveillance of Russian targets
In late 2015, the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ, during the course of routine surveillance of "known Kremlin operatives already on the grid", used "electronic intelligence" to collect information from these Russian targets. They found that "Russians were talking to people associated with Trump...According to sources in the US and the UK, [the conversations] formed a suspicious pattern."
The British passed this information about "suspicious 'interactions'" between "members of Donald Trump's campaign team" and "known or suspected Russian agents" to US intelligence agencies.
Over the next six months, European and Australian allies began to "pass along information about people close to Mr. Trump meeting with Russians in the Netherlands, Britain and other countries." Reports of these "contacts between Trump's inner circle and Russians" were shared by seven allied foreign intelligence agencies (reportedly those of the United Kingdom, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Australia, France, and the Netherlands).
The New York Times also reported that British and Dutch agencies had evidence of meetings between "Russian officials – and others close to Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin – and associates of President-elect Trump".
James Clapper confirmed that the following information was "accurate" and "also quite sensitive": "Over the spring of 2016, multiple European allies passed on additional information to the United States about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians."
Later, U.S. intelligence overheard Russians, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates, with some Russian officials arguing about how much to interfere in the election.
Then cyber attacks on state electoral systems led the Obama administration to directly accuse the Russians of interfering.
Because they are not allowed to surveil the private communications of American citizens without a warrant, the "FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of these contacts between Trump's team and Moscow."
2016 campaign:
During the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly praised Russian president Vladimir Putin as a strong leader. Peter Conradi, in GQ magazine, described this relationship as a "bromance".
Between 2013 and 2015, Trump stated "I do have a relationship with" Putin, "I met him once", and "I spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin, who could not have been nicer."
From 2016, during his election campaign, his stance changed. During a press conference in July 2016, he claimed, "I never met Putin, I don't know who Putin is ... Never spoken to him", and in a July interview said, "I have no relationship with him."
In November 2016, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency, "Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage", and "I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives."
2017:
Several Trump advisers, including former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign manager Paul Manafort, have been connected to Russian officials, or to Viktor Yanukovich and other pro-Russian Ukrainian officials.
The New York Times wrote on May 24, 2017, citing intelligence sources, that Russian agents were overheard during the campaign saying they could use Manafort and Flynn to influence Trump.
Members of Trump's campaign, and later his White House staff, particularly Flynn and Jared Kushner, were in contact with Russian government officials both before and after the November election, including some contacts which they initially did not disclose.
Newspaper reports:
The Wall Street Journal reported that United States intelligence agencies monitoring Russian espionage found Kremlin officials discussing Trump's associates in the spring of 2015. At the time, U.S. intelligence analysts were reportedly confused, but not alarmed, by these intercepted conversations.
In July 2017, the conversations were re-examined in light of a recently disclosed Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
The New York Times reported that multiple Trump associates, including Manafort and other members of his campaign, had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials during 2016, although officials said that, so far, they did not have evidence that Trump's campaign had cooperated with the Russians to influence the election. Manafort said he did not knowingly meet any Russian intelligence officials.
Meetings with Kislyak
Pictured below: Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak met with a number of U.S. officials.
After Senator Jeff Sessions, who was part of the Trump campaign, first denied he had any contact with Russians during the campaign, even though he had met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and Michael Flynn, also a member of the campaign, lied twice about meetings with Kislyak, the media focused negative attention on Kislyak.
National security experts "generally agree that Sessions and other Trump campaign officials have handled the Russia issue poorly. Sessions, they say, should have told Congress about his meeting with Kislyak. And they say Flynn was reckless and wrong to speak with Russian diplomats about sanctions during the transition period when Obama was still president."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN that the "electoral process" was not discussed during these meetings, and that Kislyak had also met with "people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary" during the campaign.
In particular, Kislyak met with several Trump campaign members, transition team members, and administration nominees. Involved people dismissed those meetings as routine conversations in preparation for assuming the presidency.
Trump's team has issued at least twenty denials concerning communications between his campaign and Russian officials; several of which later turned out to be false.
The Trump administration reportedly asked the FBI for help in countering the news reports about alleged contacts with Russia.
Former ambassadors Michael McFaul and John Beyrle said they were "extremely troubled" by the evidence of Russian interference in the U.S. election. Both supported an independent investigation into the matter, but dismissed as "preposterous" the allegations that Kislyak participated in it, particularly through his meetings with the Trump campaign: "Kislyak's job is to meet with government officials and campaign people," McFaul stated. "People should meet with the Russian Ambassador and it's wrong to criminalize that or discourage it."
December 2016 Trump Tower meeting:
In March 2017, Trump's White House disclosed that Kushner, Kislyak, and Flynn had met at Trump Tower in December 2016. At that meeting, the Washington Post reported that Kushner requested that a direct, Russian-encrypted, communications back-channel be set up to allow secret communication with Russia and to circumvent safeguards in place by the United States intelligence community.
Some sources told the Post that the purpose of such a link would have been to allow Flynn to speak directly to Russian military officials about Syria and other issues, while others pointed out that there would be no reason for such discussions to be concealed from appropriate US government officials.
According to the sources, no such communications channel was actually set up.
After the meeting, Kislyak sent a report of the meeting to the Kremlin using what he thought were secure channels, but the report was intercepted by American intelligence. Kislyak was reportedly taken aback by the request and expressed concern about the security implications at stake in having an American use a secret communications back-channel between the Kremlin and diplomatic outposts.
March 2017
In March 2017 former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell stated that he had seen no evidence of conspiracy between Trump and the Kremlin: "On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all."
In a March 2017 interview with Chuck Todd, James Clapper, who had been the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama until January 20, 2017, revealed the state of his knowledge at that time:
CHUCK TODD: Were there improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?
JAMES CLAPPER: We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, "our," that's N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that...
CHUCK TODD: I understand that. But does it exist?
JAMES CLAPPER: Not to my knowledge.
Todd pressed him to elaborate:
CHUCK TODD: If [evidence of collusion] existed, it would have been in this report?
JAMES CLAPPER: This could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government.
Clapper had stopped receiving briefings on January 20 and was "not aware of the counterintelligence investigation Director Comey first referred to during his testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence on the 20th of March".
CNN stated that Clapper had "taken a major defense away from the White House."
2017–2018: Trump DOJ investigations of opposition politicians*
The New York Times reported in June 2021 that in 2017 and 2018 Trump's Justice Department subpoenaed metadata from the iCloud accounts of at least a dozen people associated with the House Intelligence Committee, including that of Democratic ranking member Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, and family members, to investigate leaks to the press about contacts between Trump associates and Russia.
Records of the inquiry did not implicate anyone associated with the committee, but upon becoming attorney general William Barr revived the effort, including by appointing a federal prosecutor and about six others in February 2020. The Times reported that, apart from corruption investigations, subpoenaing communications information of members of Congress is nearly unheard-of, and that some in the Justice Department saw Barr's approach as politically motivated.[54][55] Justice Department inspector general Michael
Horowitz announced an inquiry into the matter the day after the Times report.
2019:
After 22 months of investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his report to the Justice Department on March 22, 2019. The investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities".
Attorney General William Barr ordered the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General under Michael E. Horowitz to investigate the FBI investigation of the 2016 Donald Trump campaign. The investigation was largely based on a May 2016 conversation between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and Australian diplomat Alexander Downer in London.
Papadopolous reportedly said he heard that Russia had thousands of emails from Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The Inspector General released his report on December 9, 2019, concluding that the investigation was justified and done correctly, although some mistakes were made. Barr rejected key findings from the report, although he could not order Horowitz to alter his report because the inspector general operates independently from the department.
President Trump called the report "a disgrace" and said he was waiting for the Durham special counsel investigation to produce a report. The investigation is being headed up by John Durham, the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
2020
On August 17, 2020, Roger Stone dropped his appeal of seven felony convictions related to the House of Representatives investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. This came after Trump commuted Stone's 40-month prison term and $20,000 fine.
The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its final report on August 18, 2020. The report concluded that there were significant ties between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia.
In particular, they noted that Paul Manafort had hired Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a "Russian intelligence officer," and that Kilimnik was possibly connected to the 2016 hack and leak operation. The investigation was led by Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) until Burr stepped aside for an unrelated investigation into allegedly illegal stock trades: Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) then led the committee.
2022:
On November 17, 2022, Republican political operative Jesse Benton was convicted by a federal jury for a 2016 scheme to funnel Russian money to the Donald Trump campaign. According to court documents, Benton caused a Russian foreign national to wire $100,000 to his consulting firm, of which $25,000 of the money from the Russian national was contributed to the Trump campaign.
Benton was pardoned by President Trump on December 23, 2020.
2023:
In March 2023, The Guardian reported that since October 2022, prosecutors in the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York were investigating alleged Russian financial ties to Trump Media & Technology Group. In December 2021, two loans totaling $8 million were paid to Trump Media from obscure Putin-connected entities as the company was "on the brink of collapse".
$2 million was paid by Paxum Bank, part-owned by Anton Postolnikov, a relation of Aleksandr Smirnov, a former Russian government official who now runs the Russian shipping company Rosmorport.
$6 million was paid by an ostensibly separate entity, ES Family Trust, whose director was the director of Paxum Bank at the same time.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Links between Trump associates and Russian officials:
National security experts "generally agree that Sessions and other Trump campaign officials have handled the Russia issue poorly. Sessions, they say, should have told Congress about his meeting with Kislyak. And they say Flynn was reckless and wrong to speak with Russian diplomats about sanctions during the transition period when Obama was still president."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN that the "electoral process" was not discussed during these meetings, and that Kislyak had also met with "people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary" during the campaign.
In particular, Kislyak met with several Trump campaign members, transition team members, and administration nominees. Involved people dismissed those meetings as routine conversations in preparation for assuming the presidency.
Trump's team has issued at least twenty denials concerning communications between his campaign and Russian officials; several of which later turned out to be false.
The Trump administration reportedly asked the FBI for help in countering the news reports about alleged contacts with Russia.
Former ambassadors Michael McFaul and John Beyrle said they were "extremely troubled" by the evidence of Russian interference in the U.S. election. Both supported an independent investigation into the matter, but dismissed as "preposterous" the allegations that Kislyak participated in it, particularly through his meetings with the Trump campaign: "Kislyak's job is to meet with government officials and campaign people," McFaul stated. "People should meet with the Russian Ambassador and it's wrong to criminalize that or discourage it."
December 2016 Trump Tower meeting:
In March 2017, Trump's White House disclosed that Kushner, Kislyak, and Flynn had met at Trump Tower in December 2016. At that meeting, the Washington Post reported that Kushner requested that a direct, Russian-encrypted, communications back-channel be set up to allow secret communication with Russia and to circumvent safeguards in place by the United States intelligence community.
Some sources told the Post that the purpose of such a link would have been to allow Flynn to speak directly to Russian military officials about Syria and other issues, while others pointed out that there would be no reason for such discussions to be concealed from appropriate US government officials.
According to the sources, no such communications channel was actually set up.
After the meeting, Kislyak sent a report of the meeting to the Kremlin using what he thought were secure channels, but the report was intercepted by American intelligence. Kislyak was reportedly taken aback by the request and expressed concern about the security implications at stake in having an American use a secret communications back-channel between the Kremlin and diplomatic outposts.
March 2017
In March 2017 former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell stated that he had seen no evidence of conspiracy between Trump and the Kremlin: "On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all."
In a March 2017 interview with Chuck Todd, James Clapper, who had been the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama until January 20, 2017, revealed the state of his knowledge at that time:
CHUCK TODD: Were there improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?
JAMES CLAPPER: We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, "our," that's N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that...
CHUCK TODD: I understand that. But does it exist?
JAMES CLAPPER: Not to my knowledge.
Todd pressed him to elaborate:
CHUCK TODD: If [evidence of collusion] existed, it would have been in this report?
JAMES CLAPPER: This could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government.
Clapper had stopped receiving briefings on January 20 and was "not aware of the counterintelligence investigation Director Comey first referred to during his testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence on the 20th of March".
CNN stated that Clapper had "taken a major defense away from the White House."
2017–2018: Trump DOJ investigations of opposition politicians*
The New York Times reported in June 2021 that in 2017 and 2018 Trump's Justice Department subpoenaed metadata from the iCloud accounts of at least a dozen people associated with the House Intelligence Committee, including that of Democratic ranking member Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, and family members, to investigate leaks to the press about contacts between Trump associates and Russia.
Records of the inquiry did not implicate anyone associated with the committee, but upon becoming attorney general William Barr revived the effort, including by appointing a federal prosecutor and about six others in February 2020. The Times reported that, apart from corruption investigations, subpoenaing communications information of members of Congress is nearly unheard-of, and that some in the Justice Department saw Barr's approach as politically motivated.[54][55] Justice Department inspector general Michael
Horowitz announced an inquiry into the matter the day after the Times report.
2019:
After 22 months of investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his report to the Justice Department on March 22, 2019. The investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities".
Attorney General William Barr ordered the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General under Michael E. Horowitz to investigate the FBI investigation of the 2016 Donald Trump campaign. The investigation was largely based on a May 2016 conversation between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and Australian diplomat Alexander Downer in London.
Papadopolous reportedly said he heard that Russia had thousands of emails from Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The Inspector General released his report on December 9, 2019, concluding that the investigation was justified and done correctly, although some mistakes were made. Barr rejected key findings from the report, although he could not order Horowitz to alter his report because the inspector general operates independently from the department.
President Trump called the report "a disgrace" and said he was waiting for the Durham special counsel investigation to produce a report. The investigation is being headed up by John Durham, the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
2020
On August 17, 2020, Roger Stone dropped his appeal of seven felony convictions related to the House of Representatives investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. This came after Trump commuted Stone's 40-month prison term and $20,000 fine.
The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its final report on August 18, 2020. The report concluded that there were significant ties between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia.
In particular, they noted that Paul Manafort had hired Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a "Russian intelligence officer," and that Kilimnik was possibly connected to the 2016 hack and leak operation. The investigation was led by Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) until Burr stepped aside for an unrelated investigation into allegedly illegal stock trades: Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) then led the committee.
2022:
On November 17, 2022, Republican political operative Jesse Benton was convicted by a federal jury for a 2016 scheme to funnel Russian money to the Donald Trump campaign. According to court documents, Benton caused a Russian foreign national to wire $100,000 to his consulting firm, of which $25,000 of the money from the Russian national was contributed to the Trump campaign.
Benton was pardoned by President Trump on December 23, 2020.
2023:
In March 2023, The Guardian reported that since October 2022, prosecutors in the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York were investigating alleged Russian financial ties to Trump Media & Technology Group. In December 2021, two loans totaling $8 million were paid to Trump Media from obscure Putin-connected entities as the company was "on the brink of collapse".
$2 million was paid by Paxum Bank, part-owned by Anton Postolnikov, a relation of Aleksandr Smirnov, a former Russian government official who now runs the Russian shipping company Rosmorport.
$6 million was paid by an ostensibly separate entity, ES Family Trust, whose director was the director of Paxum Bank at the same time.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Links between Trump associates and Russian officials:
- Trump supporters
- FBI and congressional Intelligence Committee investigations
- Media reports
- Steele dossier
- See also
- Foreign electoral intervention
- IP3 International
- Nunes memo
- Russian espionage in the United States
- Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
- Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections (July 2016–election day)
- Timeline of post-election transition following Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
- Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (January–June 2017)
- Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2017)
- Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (January–June 2018)
- Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2018)
- Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (2019–2020)
- Trump campaign–Russian meeting on June 9, 2016
- "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security". dhs.gov. October 7, 2016.
- Bredemeier, Ken (May 31, 2017). "Trump Assails Congressional Probes of His Campaign's Links to Russia". VOA News.
- Berkowitz, Bonnie; Lu, Denise; Vitkovskaya, Julie (February 23, 2018). "Here's what we learned about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
- Crowley, Michael (March 3, 2017). "All of Trump's Ties to Russia, in 7 Charts". Politico. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
"No Kings" Protests (October, 2025)
Kings protests (also called No Kings 2.0 and No Kings Day 2.0) took place on October 18, 2025, as part of a series of demonstrations taking place largely in the United States against Donald Trump's policies and actions during his second presidency. The demonstrations, which followed the June 2025 No Kings protests, took place in some 2,700 locations across the country, including the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York City.
Organizers of the protests estimated that the protests drew nearly 7 million attendees, while a partnership between data journalist G. Elliott Morris and The Xylom, an independent Atlanta-based science newsroom, estimated 5 million to 6.5 million participants. Either estimate would make this one of the largest single-day protests in American history.
Background and organizers
The October 18, 2025, protests followed the No Kings protests in June, the Free America Weekend on July 4, and the Good Trouble Lives On protest on July 17. About 200 organizations worked together to organize the October protests, including 50501 and Indivisible groups, as well as:
Other organizers included:
Outside the United States, protests were organized by Democrats Abroad. Various groups organized protests in the UK, including the Stop Trump Coalition.
Organizers were "adamant that the rallies remain peaceful", according to USA Today, and held virtual safety trainings ahead of the protests with help from the ACLU. According to The New York Times, "Many had attended a similar event in June, but the months since had seen President Trump make a dizzying array of changes in quick succession."
Pre-emptive responses
In the days leading up to the protests, several administration officials said that protesters were members of Antifa, which Trump had labeled a "domestic terrorist organization" in a September executive order, on par with ISIS.
On October 13, United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said protestors are "part of Antifa". Attorney General Pam Bondi attributed "people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought, pre-put together" to Antifa's high degree of organization, and pledged to "get to the root of Antifa" and "find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos".
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also linked the protests to Antifa, saying "It's all the pro-Hamas wing and the Antifa people, they're all coming out," and that the group organizing the protest in Washington, D.C., is anti-American, while House majority whip Tom Emmer said that the "terrorist wing" of the Democratic party was set to hold them.
They and House majority leader Steve Scalise called the protests a "Hate America" rally. Johnson also attacked the participants with: "Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see Antifa types. I bet you see the Marxists in full display, the people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic."
The Trump administration said it would take anti-terrorist measures during the protests such as mobilizing the FBI, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said to Fox News that participants and the Democratic Party's main constituents were "made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals".
Duffy and Senators Roger Marshall and Ted Cruz accused No Kings of using paid protesters.
According to The Independent, Marshall baselessly laid the blame on George Soros, saying, "We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it." Cruz also blamed Soros and urged to "cut off the money" behind "these rallies that may well turn into riots". He spoke of legislation he had introduced that would allow use of the RICO Act to prosecute the money he alleged was behind No Kings for "supporting rioting and violence", and said he had urged Attorney General Bondi and FBI director Kashi Patel to prosecute.
Locations and activities
While most activities took place in the United States, some events were planned in Western Europe and Canada. Large groups of people gathered in Barcelona, Madrid, London,[Berlin, Dublin, Paris, and other cities. Organizers asked participants to wear yellow attire.
Pre-emptive responses
In the days leading up to the protests, several administration officials said that protesters were members of Antifa, which Trump had labeled a "domestic terrorist organization" in a September executive order, on par with ISIS.
On October 13, United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said protestors are "part of Antifa". Attorney General Pam Bondi attributed "people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought, pre-put together" to Antifa's high degree of organization, and pledged to "get to the root of Antifa" and "find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos".
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also linked the protests to Antifa, saying "It's all the pro-Hamas wing and the Antifa people, they're all coming out," and that the group organizing the protest in Washington, D.C., is anti-American, while House majority whip Tom Emmer said that the "terrorist wing" of the Democratic party was set to hold them. They and House majority leader Steve Scalise called the protests a "Hate America" rally. Johnson also attacked the participants with: "Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see Antifa types. I bet you see the Marxists in full display, the people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic."
The Trump administration said it would take anti-terrorist measures during the protests such as mobilizing the FBI, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said to Fox News that participants and the Democratic Party's main constituents were "made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals".
Duffy and Senators Roger Marshall and Ted Cruz accused No Kings of using paid protesters. According to The Independent, Marshall baselessly laid the blame on George Soros, saying, "We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."
Cruz also blamed Soros and urged to "cut off the money" behind "these rallies that may well turn into riots". He spoke of legislation he had introduced that would allow use of the RICO Act to prosecute the money he alleged was behind No Kings for "supporting rioting and violence", and said he had urged Attorney General Bondi and FBI director Kashi Patel to prosecute.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the October 2025 No Kings Protests:
Locations and activities
Responses
Donald Trump
On October 15, Trump predicted that few people would show up for the protests. On October 17, Trump told Fox News, "They say they're referring to me as a king. I'm not a king." That same day, a Trump campaign social media account posted an AI video showing Trump dressed as a monarch, wearing a crown and waving from a balcony.
On the night of the protests, Trump released a video generated with artificial intelligence showing himself wearing a crown in a fighter jet marked "King Trump", dropping brown liquid resembling feces on the protesters. The video included the Kenny Loggins song "Danger Zone" from the 1986 movie Top Gun; Loggins asked Trump to remove his song from the video and told a reporter, "I can't imagine why anybody would want their music used or associated with something created with the sole purpose of dividing us."
Aftermath
In the weeks following the No Kings protests, mainstream U.S. media generally described the demonstrations as the largest coordinated opposition to Donald Trump during his second term.
The White House initially described the protests as "politically orchestrated", but press briefings held between June 17 and 20, 2025, acknowledged the large scale and generally peaceful nature of the events.
Several state governments, including those of California, New York, and Colorado, issued public statements affirming citizens' rights to peaceful assembly and condemning the use of force against demonstrators in a few local incidents.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) highlighted the No Kings protests as a significant demonstration of civic participation and the exercise of First Amendment rights in the United States. The ACLU stated that these protests demonstrate that many Americans are actively asserting their rights and will not remain silent when freedoms such as speech, assembly, and the press are perceived to be under threat.
See also
Organizers of the protests estimated that the protests drew nearly 7 million attendees, while a partnership between data journalist G. Elliott Morris and The Xylom, an independent Atlanta-based science newsroom, estimated 5 million to 6.5 million participants. Either estimate would make this one of the largest single-day protests in American history.
Background and organizers
The October 18, 2025, protests followed the No Kings protests in June, the Free America Weekend on July 4, and the Good Trouble Lives On protest on July 17. About 200 organizations worked together to organize the October protests, including 50501 and Indivisible groups, as well as:
- the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
- the Democratic Socialists of America,
- the American Federation of Teachers,
- Common Defense,
- the Human Rights Campaign,
- Planned Parenthood Federation of America,
- Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN),
- the League of Conservation Voters,
- MoveOn,
- Public Citizen,
- United We Dream,
- and Working Families Power.
Other organizers included:
- Third Act Movement,
- Party for Socialism and Liberation,
- Social Security Works,
- Communications Workers of America,
- Freedom From Religion Foundation,
- New York Civil Liberties Union,
- League of Women Voters
- and American Federation of Government Employees.
Outside the United States, protests were organized by Democrats Abroad. Various groups organized protests in the UK, including the Stop Trump Coalition.
Organizers were "adamant that the rallies remain peaceful", according to USA Today, and held virtual safety trainings ahead of the protests with help from the ACLU. According to The New York Times, "Many had attended a similar event in June, but the months since had seen President Trump make a dizzying array of changes in quick succession."
Pre-emptive responses
In the days leading up to the protests, several administration officials said that protesters were members of Antifa, which Trump had labeled a "domestic terrorist organization" in a September executive order, on par with ISIS.
On October 13, United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said protestors are "part of Antifa". Attorney General Pam Bondi attributed "people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought, pre-put together" to Antifa's high degree of organization, and pledged to "get to the root of Antifa" and "find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos".
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also linked the protests to Antifa, saying "It's all the pro-Hamas wing and the Antifa people, they're all coming out," and that the group organizing the protest in Washington, D.C., is anti-American, while House majority whip Tom Emmer said that the "terrorist wing" of the Democratic party was set to hold them.
They and House majority leader Steve Scalise called the protests a "Hate America" rally. Johnson also attacked the participants with: "Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see Antifa types. I bet you see the Marxists in full display, the people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic."
The Trump administration said it would take anti-terrorist measures during the protests such as mobilizing the FBI, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said to Fox News that participants and the Democratic Party's main constituents were "made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals".
Duffy and Senators Roger Marshall and Ted Cruz accused No Kings of using paid protesters.
According to The Independent, Marshall baselessly laid the blame on George Soros, saying, "We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it." Cruz also blamed Soros and urged to "cut off the money" behind "these rallies that may well turn into riots". He spoke of legislation he had introduced that would allow use of the RICO Act to prosecute the money he alleged was behind No Kings for "supporting rioting and violence", and said he had urged Attorney General Bondi and FBI director Kashi Patel to prosecute.
Locations and activities
While most activities took place in the United States, some events were planned in Western Europe and Canada. Large groups of people gathered in Barcelona, Madrid, London,[Berlin, Dublin, Paris, and other cities. Organizers asked participants to wear yellow attire.
Pre-emptive responses
In the days leading up to the protests, several administration officials said that protesters were members of Antifa, which Trump had labeled a "domestic terrorist organization" in a September executive order, on par with ISIS.
On October 13, United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said protestors are "part of Antifa". Attorney General Pam Bondi attributed "people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought, pre-put together" to Antifa's high degree of organization, and pledged to "get to the root of Antifa" and "find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos".
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also linked the protests to Antifa, saying "It's all the pro-Hamas wing and the Antifa people, they're all coming out," and that the group organizing the protest in Washington, D.C., is anti-American, while House majority whip Tom Emmer said that the "terrorist wing" of the Democratic party was set to hold them. They and House majority leader Steve Scalise called the protests a "Hate America" rally. Johnson also attacked the participants with: "Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see Antifa types. I bet you see the Marxists in full display, the people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic."
The Trump administration said it would take anti-terrorist measures during the protests such as mobilizing the FBI, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said to Fox News that participants and the Democratic Party's main constituents were "made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals".
Duffy and Senators Roger Marshall and Ted Cruz accused No Kings of using paid protesters. According to The Independent, Marshall baselessly laid the blame on George Soros, saying, "We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."
Cruz also blamed Soros and urged to "cut off the money" behind "these rallies that may well turn into riots". He spoke of legislation he had introduced that would allow use of the RICO Act to prosecute the money he alleged was behind No Kings for "supporting rioting and violence", and said he had urged Attorney General Bondi and FBI director Kashi Patel to prosecute.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the October 2025 No Kings Protests:
Locations and activities
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- Washington, D.C.
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
- U.S. territories
Responses
Donald Trump
On October 15, Trump predicted that few people would show up for the protests. On October 17, Trump told Fox News, "They say they're referring to me as a king. I'm not a king." That same day, a Trump campaign social media account posted an AI video showing Trump dressed as a monarch, wearing a crown and waving from a balcony.
On the night of the protests, Trump released a video generated with artificial intelligence showing himself wearing a crown in a fighter jet marked "King Trump", dropping brown liquid resembling feces on the protesters. The video included the Kenny Loggins song "Danger Zone" from the 1986 movie Top Gun; Loggins asked Trump to remove his song from the video and told a reporter, "I can't imagine why anybody would want their music used or associated with something created with the sole purpose of dividing us."
Aftermath
In the weeks following the No Kings protests, mainstream U.S. media generally described the demonstrations as the largest coordinated opposition to Donald Trump during his second term.
The White House initially described the protests as "politically orchestrated", but press briefings held between June 17 and 20, 2025, acknowledged the large scale and generally peaceful nature of the events.
Several state governments, including those of California, New York, and Colorado, issued public statements affirming citizens' rights to peaceful assembly and condemning the use of force against demonstrators in a few local incidents.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) highlighted the No Kings protests as a significant demonstration of civic participation and the exercise of First Amendment rights in the United States. The ACLU stated that these protests demonstrate that many Americans are actively asserting their rights and will not remain silent when freedoms such as speech, assembly, and the press are perceived to be under threat.
See also
- 50501 protests – 2025 protests against Donald Trump
- Gen Z protests – Worldwide protests led by Generation Z in the 2020s
"Make America Great Again" (MAGA)
- YouTube Video: What is "Make America Great Again"?
- YouTube Video: History of Make America Great Again
- YouTube Video: Ronald Reagan for President "Let's Make America Great Again" 1980
"MAGA" (Wikipedia:)
[Your WebHost: Trump has taken much credit for the term MAGA: but the reality is that it was originated by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s!]
"Make America Great Again" (MAGA) is an American political slogan most recently popularized by Donald Trump during his presidential campaigns in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
"MAGA" is also used to refer to Trump's ideology, political base, or to an individual or group of individuals from within that base. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants in the arts, entertainment and politics, being used by both supporters and opponents of Trump's presidency and as the name of the super PAC Make America Great Again Inc.
Originally used by Ronald Reagan as a campaign slogan in his 1980 presidential campaign ("Let's Make America Great Again"), it has since been described as a loaded phrase. It has been described as a slogan representing American exceptionalism and promoting an idealistic or romanticized American past that excludes certain groups.
Multiple scholars, journalists, and commentators have called the slogan racist, regarding it as dog-whistle politics and coded language.
History
Ronald Reagan:
See also: Ronald Reagan 1980 presidential campaign
Pictured below: Ronald Reagan 1980 campaign button
[Your WebHost: Trump has taken much credit for the term MAGA: but the reality is that it was originated by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s!]
"Make America Great Again" (MAGA) is an American political slogan most recently popularized by Donald Trump during his presidential campaigns in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
"MAGA" is also used to refer to Trump's ideology, political base, or to an individual or group of individuals from within that base. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants in the arts, entertainment and politics, being used by both supporters and opponents of Trump's presidency and as the name of the super PAC Make America Great Again Inc.
Originally used by Ronald Reagan as a campaign slogan in his 1980 presidential campaign ("Let's Make America Great Again"), it has since been described as a loaded phrase. It has been described as a slogan representing American exceptionalism and promoting an idealistic or romanticized American past that excludes certain groups.
Multiple scholars, journalists, and commentators have called the slogan racist, regarding it as dog-whistle politics and coded language.
History
Ronald Reagan:
See also: Ronald Reagan 1980 presidential campaign
Pictured below: Ronald Reagan 1980 campaign button
"Let's make America great again" was famously used in Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. At the time, the United States was suffering from a worsening economy at home marked by stagflation.
Using the country's economic distress as a springboard for his campaign, Reagan used the slogan to stir a sense of patriotism among the electorate. During his acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican National Convention, Reagan said, "For those without job opportunities, we'll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live. For those who've abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again.
Using the country's economic distress as a springboard for his campaign, Reagan used the slogan to stir a sense of patriotism among the electorate. During his acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican National Convention, Reagan said, "For those without job opportunities, we'll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live. For those who've abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again.
"MAGA" Use by Donald Trump
Further information:
- Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign,
- Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign,
- Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign,
- and Trumpism
In December 2011, following speculation that he would challenge sitting president Barack Obama in the 2012 United States presidential election, Trump released a statement in which he said he was unwilling to rule out running as a presidential candidate in the future, explaining "I must leave all of my options open because, above all else, we must make America great again."
In December 2011, he also published a book using as a subtitle the similar phrase "Making America #1 Again", which in a 2015 reissue was changed to "Make America Great Again!" On January 1, 2012, a group of Trump supporters filed paperwork with the Texas secretary of state's office to create the "Make America Great Again Party", which would have allowed Trump to be that party's nominee if he had decided to become a third-party candidate in the presidential election.
Trump began using the slogan formally on November 7, 2012, the day after Barack Obama won his re-election against Mitt Romney. Trump used the slogan in an August 2013 interview with Jonathan Karl. By his own account, he first considered "We Will Make America Great", but did not feel like it had the right "ring" to it. "Make America Great" was his next slogan idea, but upon further reflection, he felt that it was a slight to America because it implied that America was n*ever great.
He eventually selected the phrase "Make America Great Again", later claiming that he was unaware of Reagan's use in 1980 until 2015, but noted that "he didn't trademark it." On November 12, he signed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office requesting exclusive rights to use the slogan for political purposes. It was registered as a service mark on July 14, 2015, after Trump formally began his 2016 presidential campaign and demonstrated that he was using the slogan for the purpose stated on the application.
However, Trump did not trademark the phrase in commerce. On August 5, 2015, radio personality Bobby Bones took note of this and successfully filed a trademark for the phrase's use in commerce. Two days later Bones tweeted at Trump, offering the use of his slogan back in exchange for a $100,000 donation to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. On October 29, Bones followed up the tweet with an image of a check from the Trump Organization. The amount on the check was undisclosed and Bones said that Trump could "have [his] slogan back".
Following Trump's first election, the website of his presidential transition was established at greatagain.gov. Trump said in 2017 and 2018 that the slogan of his 2020 reelection campaign would be "Keep America Great" and he sought to trademark it.
However, Trump's 2020 campaign continued to use the "Make America Great Again" slogan. Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, used the phrase "make America great again, again" in his 2020 Republican National Convention speech, garnering ridicule for implying that Trump's first term had failed. In late 2021, this phrase became the name of a pro-Trump Super-PAC, which was also mocked. A 2020 executive order, titled "Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture", was nicknamed "Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again" by proponents and the press.
Less than a week after Trump left office, he spoke to advisors about possibly establishing a third party, which he suggested might be named either the "Patriot Party" or "Make America Great Again Party". In his first few days out of office, he also supported Arizona state party chairwoman Kelli Ward, who likewise called for the creation of a "MAGA Party".
In late January 2021, the former president viewed the proposed MAGA Party as leverage to prevent Republican senators from voting to convict him during the Senate impeachment trial, and to field challengers to Republicans who voted for his impeachment in the House. The phrase was used again as the official slogan of Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. On June 3, 2023, Trump called his supporters Magadonians, prompting mockery on social media.
MAGA hat
"Maga hat" redirects here; not to be confused with Magahat.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump often used the slogan, especially by wearing MAGA hats emblazoned with the phrase in white letters, which soon became popular among his supporters.
The slogan was so important to the campaign that at one point it spent more on making the hats – sold for $25 each on its website – than on polling, consultants, or television commercials. Millions were sold, and Trump estimated that counterfeit versions outnumbered the real hat ten to one. "... but it was a slogan, and every time somebody buys one, that's an advertisement." The hat's white-on-red design saw great success as a symbol of unity among Trump supporters.
Some critics have compared its use to other politically charged symbols, such as the Confederate flag, while supporters view it as an expression of patriotism and political identity. Due to its association with Trump and his policies, the hat has been a source of controversy. Some individuals view it as a divisive or provocative symbol, while others see it as an exercise of their political beliefs.
In January 2019, it gained media attention during a highly publicized standoff between a group of high schoolers wearing the hat and Omaha tribe leader Nathan Phillips. The incident was initially perceived by some as racially charged; however, subsequent video footage led to a reassessment of the situation by multiple media outlets.
On December 29, 2022, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Vancouver, Washington, ruled that wearing a MAGA hat is considered protected speech under the First Amendment. A former teacher had worn a MAGA hat to class to school and described facing verbal harassment and retaliation from school employees.
Use on social media sites
See also: Social media use by Donald Trump
Donald Trump took the campaign slogan to social media (primarily to Twitter), using the hashtags #makeamericagreatagain and its acronym #maga. In response to criticism regarding his frequent and untraditional usage of social media, Trump defended himself by tweeting "My use of social media is not Presidential – it's MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again!" on July 1, 2017.
In the first half of 2017, Trump posted his slogan on Twitter 33 times. In an article for Bloomberg News, Mark Whitehouse noted: "A regression analysis suggests the phrase adds (very roughly) 51,000 to a post's retweet-and-favorite count, which is important given that the average Trump tweet attracts a total of 107,000."
Trump attributed his victory (in part) to social media when he said, "I won the 2016 election with interviews, speeches, and social media."
According to RiteTag, the estimated hourly statistics for #maga on Twitter alone include: 1,304 unique tweets, 5,820,000 hashtag exposure, and 3,424 retweets with 14% of #maga tweets including images, 55% including links, and 51% including mentions.
2025 internal split with Marjorie Taylor Greene:
In late 2025, several media outlets reported a significant public rift between Donald Trump and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most prominent political figures associated with the MAGA movement.
In November 2025, Trump withdrew his endorsement of Greene and publicly described her as “wacky” and a “lunatic.”
According to reporting by The Globe and Mail, tensions escalated due to Greene’s advocacy for the release of Epstein-related documents, as well as broader disagreements about the future direction of the movement.
Commentators described the fallout as a significant internal challenge for the MAGA movement. Some outlets suggested that the rift could complicate Republican candidate alignment, messaging, and endorsements ahead of the 2026 congressional and Senate elections, potentially weakening the movement’s cohesion.
Additional reporting noted that the dispute coincided with the emergence of competing right-wing branding efforts, including the “America First Wave” promoted by activist Nick Fuentes. Some analysts viewed this as a sign of shifting internal dynamics within the broader MAGA base.
Accusations of racism
See also: Racial views of Donald Trump
Further information:
Regarding its use since 2015, the phrase "Make America Great Again" is considered a loaded phrase and "dog whistle". Marissa Melton, a Voice of America journalist, among others, explained how it is a loaded phrase because it "doesn't just appeal to people who hear it as racist coded language, but also to those who have felt a loss of status as other groups have become more empowered."
As Sarah Churchwell explains, the slogan now resonates as "America First" did in the early 1940s, with the idea "that the true version of America is the America that looks like me, the American fantasy I imagine existed before it was diluted with other races and other people."
Writing opinion for the Los Angeles Times, Robin Abcarian wrote that "[w]earing a 'Make America Great Again' hat is not necessarily an overt expression of racism. But if you wear one, it's a pretty good indication that you share, admire or appreciate President Trump's racist views about Mexicans, Muslims and border walls."
The Detroit Free Press and the Los Angeles Times reported how several of their readers rejected this characterization and did not believe the slogan or MAGA hats are evidence of racism, seeing them more in patriotic or American nationalist terms.
Los Angeles Times columnist Nicholas Goldberg described MAGA as both one of the worst campaign slogans ever and "a fabulous campaign slogan", writing: "It was vague enough to appeal to optimists generally, while leaving plenty of room for bitter and resentful voters to conclude that we were finally going back to the days when they ran the world."
Actor Bryan Cranston said of the slogan: "So just ask yourself from, from an African American experience, when was it ever great in America for the African American? When was it great? If you're making it great again, it's not including them."
A 2018 study that used text mining and semantic network analytics of Twitter text and hashtags networks found that the "#MakeAmericaGreatAgain" and "#MAGA" hashtags were commonly used by white supremacist and white nationalist users, and had been used as "an organizing discursive space" for far-right extremists globally.
Derivative slogans
"Make America Great Again" has been the subject of many parodies, jokes, instances of praise, references, and criticisms which base themselves on the four-word slogan.
Derivatives used by Trump
"Keep America Great" has been the most popular derivative of "Make America Great Again", with Trump's 2020 presidential campaign adopting it as the official slogan, though often used alongside "Make America Great Again".
Upon Trump announcing his candidacy for president in the 2024 election, commentators described his use of the tagline "Make America Great and Glorious Again" ("MAGAGA"). The term has come to be a humorous descriptor for Trump's re-election bid, and many outlets have commented on the humor that "MAGAGA" provides, usually on the word "gag" being part of the acronym.
At the 2024 Republican National Convention, some people wore clothing with the slogan "Make American Great Again Again". In October 2024, Trump promised former third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. control of public health using the phrase "Make America Healthy Again".
In November 2024, after Governor Gavin Newsom pledged to convene California lawmakers to secure California's progressive policies against the incoming Trump administration, Trump made "Make California Great Again" go viral on social media.
During a joint press conference with Philippine president Bongbong Marcos at the White House in July 2025, Trump voiced support for the Philippines' independent foreign policy and said, "I think he (Marcos) has to do what's right for his country. I've always said, you know, make the Philippines great again. Do whatever you need to do."
Make Iran Great Again:
The slogan, Make Iran Great Again, was coined by U.S. president Donald Trump which characterizes the Islamic regime as damaging Iran and advocates for its replacement to help Iran become a stronger nation. This slogan was also used by the Iranian opposition group Restart.
Anti-Trump derivatives, parodies, and other derivatives
The phrase has been parodied in political statements, such as "Make America Mexico Again", a critique of Trump's immigration policies regarding the US–Mexico border and a reference to Mexico's loss of 55% of its territory to the US with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Adult film star Stormy Daniels, who allegedly had an affair with President Trump, took part in a "Make America Horny Again" strip club tour. The tour followed Trump's initial 2016 campaign trail and part of the revenue was donated to Planned Parenthood.
John Oliver spoofed the slogan on his show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in a segment dedicated to Trump, urging viewers to "Make Donald Drumpf Again", in reference to the original ancestral name of the Trump family. The segment broke HBO viewership records, garnering 85 million views.
In 2017, after the certification of the election of Trump by Congress, then-Vice-president Joe Biden was heard saying "God Save the Queen", leading to History Today claiming it would get "Make America Great Britain Again".
Later in the year, comedian Jimmy Kimmel repeated the phrase to suggest limiting presidential power. A 2018 essay about the Barack Obama birtherism conspiracy in the Journal of Hate Studies by two professors at Bates College was titled "Make America Hate Again: Donald Trump and the Birther Conspiracy".
The phrase has been adopted by some environmentalists.
In June 2017, French president Emmanuel Macron rebuked Trump over withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. The last sentence of the speech he delivered was "make our planet great again".
Members of the Fridays for Future Movement have also frequently used slogans like "Make Earth Greta Again", referring to environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
In 2019, Grant Armour and Milene Larsson co-directed a documentary film named Make the World Greta Again.
After Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, Biden's wife Jill posted an image of her and her husband on Instagram which featured Joe wearing a blue cap with white text reading "We Just Did", meant as a response to Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan.
In late 2022, the political slogan "MAGA Communism" trended on Twitter after being tweeted out by former San Clemente city council candidate Jackson Hinkle. MAGA Communism adherents call on those who support the American working class to ally with members of the MAGA movement.
During the presidential campaign Javier Milei in Argentina in 2023, the slogan MAGA was adapted as "Make Argentina Great Again". Milei, a personal friend, as well as an admirer of Trump, later won the election in November 2023, with Trump sending a congratulatory message with the slogan "Make Argentina Great Again".
The term "Blue MAGA" is used to criticize a cult-like dedication to Biden as a person, the Democratic Party's use of conspiracy theories to explain opposition to Biden's 2024 presidential candidacy, and dismissals of information or polling that does not reflect well on Biden; the term seeks to suggest an equivalence between some supporters of Biden and Trump.
In early 2025, the Brazilian government's secretary of communication Sidônio Palmeira created the slogan "Brazil belongs to Brazilians" ("O Brasil é dos brasileiros")—printed on blue caps—at the request of then-on-leave secretary of institutional affairs Alexandre Padilha, with the aim of countering the "Make America Great Again" caps.
Brazil's president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also posted a video on social media wearing the cap, in what has sometimes been referred to as the "battle of the caps" or "cap war" Padilha stated he was distressed to see people "saluting another country", in reference to former president Jair Bolsonaro; also following Trump's inauguration, the governor of São Paulo Tarcísio de Freitas appeared wearing a red cap with the phrase "Make America Great Again".
In July of that year, after Trump's tariff hike against Brazil which was described by The Economist as the greatest interference since the Cold War, Lula da Silva adopted a nationalist stance, once again wearing a cap bearing the slogan "Brazil belongs to Brazilians". In August, during the second ministerial meeting of the year, Lula da Silva and his ministers wore the cap in question; the president and all 38 ministers posed for identification-style photographs on the occasion.
Use of the slogan by Trump's political rivals:
After Donald Trump popularized the use of the phrase, the phrase and modifications of it were widely used in reference both to his election campaign and to his politics.
Trump's primary opponents, Ted Cruz and Scott Walker, began using "Make America Great Again" in speeches, inciting Trump to send cease-and-desist letters to them. Cruz later sold hats featuring "Make Trump Debate Again" in response to Trump's boycotting the Iowa January 28, 2016, debate.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said America "was never that great" during a September 2018 bill signing.
Former United States attorney general Eric Holder questioned the slogan in a March 2019 interview on MSNBC, asking: "Exactly when did you think America was great?"
During John McCain's memorial service on September 1, 2018, his daughter Meghan stated: "The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great." Trump subsequently tweeted "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" later that day.
During remarks at the White House on May 4, 2022, President Joe Biden referred to former president Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement, saying, "This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that's existed in American history, in recent American history." On September 1, 2022, he dedicated remarks at the White House "on the continued battle for the soul of the nation", to attacks on "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans", saying that "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic", and that "MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies."
After Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced his run for the 2024 Republican Party presidential primary, several news outlets said he promised to "Make America Florida".
One of the most widespread anti-Trump derivatives of "Make America Great Again" during the Trump presidency and the 2020 election was "Make America Think Again", often combined with 2020 Democratic primary candidate Andrew Yang's preferred version of "Make America Think Harder" ("MATH"). The slogan has been spotted at numerous anti-Trump events from Democratic political rallies to marches to social media, with Live Science noting "Think Again" as one of its top hashtags for 2017.
"Make America White Again"
Since 2016, the phrase "Make America White Again" was used by hate groups and politicians who align themselves with Trump. Australian political commentator and former Liberal Party leader John Hewson also used the slogan in reference to his belief that recent global movements against traditional politics and politicians are based on racism and prejudice. He comments: "There should be little doubt about U.S. president Donald Trump's views on race, despite his occasional 'denials', assertions of 'fake news', and/or his semantic distinctions. His election campaign theme was effectively a promise to 'Make America Great Again; America First and Only' and--nod, nod, wink, wink—to Make America White Again."
Neo-Nazi James Mason expressed that the election of Trump gave him hope, commenting that "in order to Make America Great Again, you have to make it white again".
In popular culture
See also: Works with titles derived from Make America Great Again
"Make America Great Again" has frequently been parodied in advertising, the media, and other outlets of popular culture, with varying levels of comparison to Trump from none at all to a rebuke of the former president and his ideology.
In advertising
The slogan was parodied by Dunk-a-roos as "Make America Dunk Again", and also in the film Sharknado 5: Global Swarming's tagline of "Make America Bait Again."
In artwork
Make Everything Great Again was a street art mural by artist Mindaugas Bonanu in Vilnius, Lithuania. Inspired by the graffiti painting My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, it depicts Donald Trump giving a fraternal kiss to the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In fashion:
Fashion designer Andre Soriano used the "Make America Great Again" official presidential campaign flag to design a MAGA gown for celebrities in Hollywood to wear on red carpet, such as at the 2017 Grammy Awards.
In films and web series:
The tagline for the film The Purge: Election Year (2016) is "Keep America Great" (a phrase Trump would later use as his 2020 campaign slogan); one of the TV spots for the film featured Americans who explain why they support the Purge, with one stating he does so "to keep my country [America] great".
The next film in the franchise, The First Purge, was subsequently advertised with a poster featuring its title stylized on a MAGA hat.
In The Boys Season 4, the political slogan "Make America Super Again" serves as the main rallying cry for Homelander, the primary antagonist, as he successfully executes his own version of January 6 coup attempt in the universe of The Boys franchise.
In literature
Author Octavia E. Butler used "Make America Great Again" as the presidential campaign slogan for the dictator Andrew Steele Jarret in her 1998 dystopian novel Parable of the Talents.
In 2011, Republican former United States Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell published a book about her campaign in the 2010 Delaware special election titled Troublemaker: Let's Do What It Takes to Make America Great Again.
Political advisor Dan Pfeiffer's second book is called Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again.
Political commentator and author Peter Beinart published a 2006 book titled The Good Fight: Why Liberals – and Only Liberals – Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, drawing on the philosophy of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and during the early years of the war on terror.
In music
Snoop Dogg's second EP is called Make America Crip Again with the second single titled "M.A.C.A." Dogg was quoted in Rolling Stone as saying that "Make America Great Again" refers to a time in the past that "always takes me back to separation and segregation so I'd rather Make America Crip Again" and referred to a time "when young black men in impoverished areas organized to help their communities and to take care of their own because society basically left them for dead".
Singer Joy Villa produced a single "Make America Great Again" a few months after appearing at the 2017 Grammy Awards in a 'MAGA' dress.
Australian heavy metal band Thy Art Is Murder recorded a song called "Make America Hate Again" on their album Human Target.
On television:
The Star Trek: Discovery episode "What's Past Is Prologue" has Gabriel Lorca vowing in one scene to "Make the Empire glorious again".
In the South Park episode "Where My Country Gone?" (2015), supporters of Mr. Garrison, who runs a campaign that is a parody of Trump's, are seen holding signs bearing the slogan.
In video games:
Senator Armstrong, the antagonist of the 2013 video game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance uses the phrase "make America great again".
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, a first-person shooter video game with Nazis as the enemy, was given the advertising tagline "Make America Nazi-Free Again", which some people objected to as anti-Trump, though a company executive said the game was not a "social critique on 2017 America. " Peters Hines, the studio's vice president of marketing and public relations, was quoted on GamesIndustry.biz as saying, "Wolfenstein has been a decidedly anti-Nazi series since the first release more than 20 years ago. We aren't going to shy away from what the game is about. We don't feel it's a reach for us to say Nazis are bad and un-American, and we're not worried about being on the right side of history here."
Similar slogans used outside the United States
During his campaign for the 2019 Indonesian presidential election in October 2018, former opposition leader Prabowo Subianto used the phrase "make Indonesia great again", though he denied having copied Trump.
During the Swedish European Parliament election in May 2019, the Christian Democrats party used the slogan "Make EU Lagom Again".
The Spanish far-right party Vox used "Hacer a España grande otra vez" (Make Spain Great Again) as a slogan.
During the 2020 Trinidad and Tobago general election campaign, the Leader of the Opposition and former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who has been accused as attempting to be a "wannabe Trinidad and Tobago Trump," used the phrase "Make T&T (Trinidad and Tobago) great again!" Following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 United States presidential election, she described his win as an effort to "restore conservative American values and ideals, which have been under attack by promoters of extreme far-left ideology."
In Singapore, the slogan "Make Yishun Great Again" was used by content creators as a running joke where the town itself has a stereotype for being dangerous. There were hats sold with the phrase.
Similarly, People's Power Party, a political party in Singapore, used a variant of the slogan, "Make Singapore Home Again" for their party's manifesto and campaign during the 2025 Singaporean general election.
The right-wing populist United Australia Party used the slogans "Make Australia Great" and "Make Australia Great Again" during the 2019 and 2022 Australian federal elections. Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price used the phrase "make Australia great again" during the 2025 federal election campaign. At a later press conference, she said she hadn't "even realize[d]" she said the phrase and accused media outlets of being "obsessed with Donald Trump".
In Israel, the Israeli far-right has used the similar expression "Make Israel Great Again" along with the acronym MIGA.
In Mongolia, Khaltmaagiin Battulga used as his 2017 presidential election campaign slogan "Монгол Ялна" (Mongol Yalna, "Mongolia Will Win"), with its abbreviation "Мояа" (Moya) being a derivative term.
The 2024 Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union used the motto "Make Europe Great Again" (MEGA).
In the Philippines, Isko Moreno used the slogan "Make Manila Great Again" for his mayoral campaign during the 2025 Manila local elections.
In January 2025, during an Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) campaign rally for the 2025 German federal election, Elon Musk spoke at the event through a video call, reiterating his previous endorsement of the party. Following his short speech, Alice Weidel, the leading AfD candidate for the upcoming elections, thanked Musk and used the derived expression "Make Germany great again".
In February 2025, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi used the derivative "Make India Great Again" during a bilateral meeting with Trump, saying: "Borrowing an expression from the US, our vision for a developed India is to 'Make India Great Again', or MIGA. When America and India work together, when it's MAGA plus MIGA, it becomes mega – a mega partnership for prosperity."
An April 2025 article by The Economist which introduced the impact of the second Trump administration tariffs in China was entitled "How America could end up making China great again".
In Syria, a billboard was seen in Damascus during the visit of U.S. Republican congressman Cory Mills, displaying the phrase "Make Syria Great Again." In an interview with the Jewish Journal on 28 May 2025, Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa said he accepted the role to help rebuild Syria, stating, "We have no choice but to succeed", and used the phrase "We must make Syria great again".
See also
- America is Back – Political catchphrase
- American Century – Term for American geopolitical dominance
- American decline – Idea that the United States is diminishing in power
- Declinism – Belief that something is getting worse
- Democratic backsliding in the United States
- Generation gap – Difference of opinions between generations
- List of political slogans
- Pax Americana – Historical concept
- Post-Western era – Conjectured era without Western dominance
- Rosy retrospection – Disproportionate favor towards the past
From Encyclopedia Britannica:
MAGA movement
- United States political movement
Top Questions
What is the origin of the MAGA slogan?
- The MAGA slogan was first popularized by Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign as “Let’s Make America Great Again.”
- Donald Trump coined “Make America Great Again” in November 2012 and later trademarked it for political purposes.
What are the core beliefs of the MAGA movement?
- The MAGA movement believes the U.S. was once great but has declined due to foreign influence. It supports “America first” policies, economic protectionism, reduced immigration, and what it regards as traditional American values, some of which involve discriminatory policies.
How does the MAGA movement view mainstream media?
- The MAGA movement has an antagonistic relationship with mainstream media, viewing it as biased against MAGA and lying on behalf of MAGA’s enemies.
What was the impact of the MAGA movement on Trump’s first presidential term?
- The MAGA movement’s enthusiasm helped Trump win the 2016 election. During his first presidency he pursued policies aligning with MAGA values, including a Muslim travel ban and an attempted repeal of Obamacare.
How did the MAGA movement respond to the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack?
- Initially, the attack caused embarrassment, but most MAGA members later claimed it was instigated by antifa activists.
By 2023, Trump publicly celebrated the attack at rallies, and the movement continued to support him. On the first day of his second presidential term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 persons charged with crimes related to the January 6 attack.
MAGA movement, nativist political movement that emerged in the United States during the 2016 presidential campaign of its putative leader, Donald Trump. Its name is derived from Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” which has been a rallying cry for many Trump supporters ever since.
A variant of “Make America Great Again” was first popularized by Republican Pres. Ronald Reagan, who used “Let’s Make America Great Again” as one of several slogans for his 1980 presidential campaign. Trump reportedly coined the phrase “Make America Great Again” in November 2012, just after Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, lost the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama.
Trump filed an application to trademark the slogan for the purpose of “promoting public awareness of political issues and fundraising in the field of politics.”
Beliefs, values, and character of the MAGA movement
The MAGA movement, often referred to simply as MAGA, or Make America Great Again, was founded on the belief that the United States was once a “great” country but has lost this status owing to foreign influence, both:
- within its borders (via:
- immigration
- and multiculturalism) and
- without (via:
- globalization,
- or the increased integration of multiple national economies).
MAGA members think that this fall from grace can be reversed through “America first” policies that would:
- provide a greater degree of economic protectionism,
- greatly reduce immigration,
- particularly from developing countries,
- and encourage or enforce what MAGA members consider to be traditional American values.
Some MAGA-supported policies, such as Trump’s call in 2015 for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” would have involved egregious racial or religious discrimination. Among the policies eventually adopted or at least pursued during Trump’s first and second terms, some did indeed entail discriminatory treatment of nonwhite or non-Christian immigrants.
In addition to its political stances, the MAGA movement is known for its particularly combative character, which exemplifies the extreme partisanship of contemporary American politics. In keeping with that stance, controversial rhetoric has flourished within the movement, including messages that critics see as homophobic, sexist, or racist or as inciting violence.
The MAGA movement is also known for having an antagonistic relationship with most mainstream and public news media, which are thought by a majority in the movement to be biased against MAGA views, at best, and to be lying on behalf of the movement’s enemies, at worst.
During his first term, Trump and his MAGA supporters repeatedly accused most major news networks and several newspapers of spreading lies about his administration’s goals and activities and effectively concealing or discounting the misdeeds of his political opponents.
In retaliation, Trump revoked the press passes of some reporters and blocked social media critics from his Twitter (now X) account, which was later ruled to be a public forum. During his campaign for a second term and after his inauguration,
Trump maintained his allegations of bias and acted upon them by filing lawsuits against the ABC and CBS networks, banning the Associated Press (AP) from events in the White House and on Air Force One, and, in a highly controversial executive order, defunding PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) and NPR (National Public Radio) on the ground that “neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
Nearly all of Trump’s controversial orders were challenged in federal courts.
January 6 U.S. Capitol attack:
Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. The hostility toward mainstream and public news media has resulted in a vulnerability among MAGA members to false news stories and particularly far-fetched conspiracy theories circulated by MAGA-supporting media outlets and repeated by MAGA leaders.
Examples include:
- charges that Obama is not a native-born U.S. citizen (“birtherism”),
- that Democrats’ immigration policies aim to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants (see replacement theory),
- that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump by Democrats through massive voter fraud,
- and that the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,
- in which a violent mob of Trump supporters attempted to halt Congress’s certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election,
- was actually staged by antifascist (“antifa”) activists.
Pictured below: January 6 U.S. Capitol attack; Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
MAGA’s support for Donald Trump:
Some MAGA-supported policies, such as Trump’s call in 2015 for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” would have involved egregious racial or religious discrimination. Among the policies eventually adopted or at least pursued during Trump’s first and second terms, some did indeed entail discriminatory treatment of nonwhite or non-Christian immigrants.
In addition to its political stances, the MAGA movement is known for its particularly combative character, which exemplifies the extreme partisanship of contemporary American politics. In keeping with that stance, controversial rhetoric has flourished within the movement, including messages that critics see as homophobic, sexist, or racist or as inciting violence.
The MAGA movement is also known for having an antagonistic relationship with most mainstream and public news media, which are thought by a majority in the movement to be biased against MAGA views, at best, and to be lying on behalf of the movement’s enemies, at worst.
During his first term, Trump and his MAGA supporters repeatedly accused most major news networks and several newspapers of spreading lies about his administration’s goals and activities and effectively concealing or discounting the misdeeds of his political opponents.
In retaliation, Trump revoked the press passes of some reporters and blocked social media critics from his Twitter (now X) account, which was later ruled to be a public forum. During his campaign for a second term and after his inauguration,
Trump maintained his allegations of bias and acted upon them by filing lawsuits against the ABC and CBS networks, banning the Associated Press (AP) from events in the White House and on Air Force One, and, in a highly controversial executive order, defunding PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) and NPR (National Public Radio) on the ground that “neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
Nearly all of Trump’s controversial orders were challenged in federal courts.
he role of the MAGA movement in Trump’s campaigns and presidency
During Trump’s first presidential campaign many election experts and political commentators failed to take the MAGA phenomenon seriously.
Trump’s nomination as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in 2016 was seen as a boon to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the 2016 presidential election; even Clinton herself felt comfortable enough during the race to publicly dismiss
Trump’s most ardent supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” But the MAGA movement’s enthusiasm, combined with Clinton’s unpopularity among segments of independent voters in some states, resulted in Trump’s electoral victory, astonishing not only much of the country but much of the world.
In the aftermath of the election, there was a rush to understand and respond to the new political power that the MAGA movement represented. The media ran numerous articles and television reports analyzing the development and makeup of the movement.
Within the Republican Party, Trump became a kingmaker, his endorsement all but necessary to anyone who wished to win a Republican primary election for a major office.
For the next four years, Trump used executive orders to make good on some of his promises to MAGA voters. In January 2017, one week into his first term, the new president signed an order that banned immigration to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries.
After a district court enjoined enforcement of the ban, partly on the grounds that it violated anti-discrimination provisions and other aspects of U.S. immigration law, Trump issued a second order, which was also enjoined.
A third version of the ban, which also applied to immigrants from North Korea and Venezuelan government officials, was eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2018.
Also in January 2017 Trump signed an executive order directing “the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border” with Mexico. And in 2018 Trump began leveling tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, the European Union, and China.
Simultaneously, he increased his popularity among Republicans in general by attempting to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), by supporting a massive tax cut that primarily benefited corporations and the wealthy, and by nominating three ultraconservative Supreme Court justices.
Consequently, Trump’s movement was as strong as ever when he campaigned for reelection in 2020.
However, by the end of his first term, Trump had become deeply unpopular with independent voters, resulting in his loss to his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.
In an unprecedented move among modern presidential candidates, Trump refused to concede the race, claiming that the election had been “rigged” by Democrats. Motivated by this lie, a MAGA-aligned crowd stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Whatever embarrassment the attack caused the movement, however, was short-lived. Quite the contrary, in fact: within a year most members of the MAGA movement were citing antifa’s involvement in the assault, and by 2023
Trump himself was publicly celebrating the attack at rallies of his supporters—in apparent disregard of their antifa conspiracy theory. On the first day of his second presidential term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 persons charged with crimes related to the January 6 attack.
Many of the accusations and promises made by Trump during his second presidential campaign mirrored those in his first and similarly appealed to members of the MAGA movement and other conservatives.
However, some of his promises, as well as the actions he took to fulfill them after his election, were even more ambitious or extreme than before.
Regarding undocumented immigrants, for example, Trump had vowed in his 2016 campaign to begin deporting the 2 million “criminals” among them; in his 2024 campaign he promised to capture and deport all undocumented immigrants, some 11 million people, with the help of the U.S. military if necessary.
He soon ordered the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to greatly increase its immigrant arrests. He also issued an executive order that, if allowed to stand, would eliminate birthright citizenship, established in the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), for persons whose parents at the time of birth were not U.S. citizens or lawfully permanent residents.
In 2016 he promised to reduce the size of the federal government by imposing a hiring freeze on most federal employees; in 2024 he declared his intention to eliminate the deep state by firing “corrupt bureaucrats,” a promise later used to justify huge and debilitating reductions in the size of several federal departments and agencies.
And in 2016 he declared his intention to impose tariffs on products made in foreign countries to prevent U.S. companies from “offshoring” their manufacturing processes; in 2024 he vowed to “tariff the hell out of countries that have taken advantage of us.” He later imposed varying reciprocal or baseline tariffs on more than 180 countries.
Following Trump’s declaration of his presidential candidacy in 2022, other candidates for the Republican nomination were forced to adopt strategies that limited direct or serious criticisms of Trump and emphasized their acceptance of at least some of the extremist views of MAGA members.
With Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, the principles and priorities of the MAGA movement, especially its devotion to Trump, became even more important to Republican candidates and office holders.
Controversy over Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged client list:
Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who was accused of serial sex trafficking of young women and girls. Through his successful financial career, Epstein developed a social circle of extremely wealthy individuals and prominent politicians—including, for a time, Donald Trump.
In 2019, during Trump’s first presidential term (2017–21), Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges and jailed in New York City. He was later found dead in his cell. His lawyers questioned the official autopsy, which found that Epstein had killed himself by hanging, and suggested instead that he had been murdered.
Their speculation prompted a large portion of the MAGA movement to spread conspiracy theories alleging that Epstein’s death had something to do with his wealthy and elite acquaintances and that many of them were named on a secret list of men for whom Epstein had trafficked young women and girls.
Many MAGA members thereafter demanded that investigators publicly release Epstein’s “client list,” which they believed would confirm the criminal behavior of prominent Democrats (such as Obama and Bill Clinton) and members of the deep state, as well as business leaders and celebrities. Regarding the murder accusation, however, no credible evidence was ever produced.
The Epstein Files: A Timeline
In February 2025, during Trump’s second term (2025– ), Attorney General Pam Bondi sparked much anticipation by claiming in an interview that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
Such a list was not included in the documents later released, however, which greatly angered a large portion of the MAGA movement. (Bondi later claimed that in the interview she had been referring to the entire body of Epstein files.)
In July the FBI seemingly contradicted Bondi in a memo stating that its “exhaustive” and “systematic” review of files and documents related to the Epstein case did not find a client list or “uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Soon afterward Trump further angered MAGA members in a post on Truth Social, his social media site, in which he criticized his supporters for demanding the release of “Epstein files” that, he claimed, had been created by his Democratic enemies—including “Obama, Crooked Hillary,…and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.”
The Trump administration’s contradictory claims regarding the existence of a genuine client list threatened to undermine Trump’s support within the MAGA movement.
Some MAGA-supported policies, such as Trump’s call in 2015 for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” would have involved egregious racial or religious discrimination. Among the policies eventually adopted or at least pursued during Trump’s first and second terms, some did indeed entail discriminatory treatment of nonwhite or non-Christian immigrants.
In addition to its political stances, the MAGA movement is known for its particularly combative character, which exemplifies the extreme partisanship of contemporary American politics. In keeping with that stance, controversial rhetoric has flourished within the movement, including messages that critics see as homophobic, sexist, or racist or as inciting violence.
The MAGA movement is also known for having an antagonistic relationship with most mainstream and public news media, which are thought by a majority in the movement to be biased against MAGA views, at best, and to be lying on behalf of the movement’s enemies, at worst.
During his first term, Trump and his MAGA supporters repeatedly accused most major news networks and several newspapers of spreading lies about his administration’s goals and activities and effectively concealing or discounting the misdeeds of his political opponents.
In retaliation, Trump revoked the press passes of some reporters and blocked social media critics from his Twitter (now X) account, which was later ruled to be a public forum. During his campaign for a second term and after his inauguration,
Trump maintained his allegations of bias and acted upon them by filing lawsuits against the ABC and CBS networks, banning the Associated Press (AP) from events in the White House and on Air Force One, and, in a highly controversial executive order, defunding PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) and NPR (National Public Radio) on the ground that “neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
Nearly all of Trump’s controversial orders were challenged in federal courts.
he role of the MAGA movement in Trump’s campaigns and presidency
During Trump’s first presidential campaign many election experts and political commentators failed to take the MAGA phenomenon seriously.
Trump’s nomination as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in 2016 was seen as a boon to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the 2016 presidential election; even Clinton herself felt comfortable enough during the race to publicly dismiss
Trump’s most ardent supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” But the MAGA movement’s enthusiasm, combined with Clinton’s unpopularity among segments of independent voters in some states, resulted in Trump’s electoral victory, astonishing not only much of the country but much of the world.
In the aftermath of the election, there was a rush to understand and respond to the new political power that the MAGA movement represented. The media ran numerous articles and television reports analyzing the development and makeup of the movement.
Within the Republican Party, Trump became a kingmaker, his endorsement all but necessary to anyone who wished to win a Republican primary election for a major office.
For the next four years, Trump used executive orders to make good on some of his promises to MAGA voters. In January 2017, one week into his first term, the new president signed an order that banned immigration to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries.
After a district court enjoined enforcement of the ban, partly on the grounds that it violated anti-discrimination provisions and other aspects of U.S. immigration law, Trump issued a second order, which was also enjoined.
A third version of the ban, which also applied to immigrants from North Korea and Venezuelan government officials, was eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2018.
Also in January 2017 Trump signed an executive order directing “the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border” with Mexico. And in 2018 Trump began leveling tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, the European Union, and China.
Simultaneously, he increased his popularity among Republicans in general by attempting to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), by supporting a massive tax cut that primarily benefited corporations and the wealthy, and by nominating three ultraconservative Supreme Court justices.
Consequently, Trump’s movement was as strong as ever when he campaigned for reelection in 2020.
However, by the end of his first term, Trump had become deeply unpopular with independent voters, resulting in his loss to his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.
In an unprecedented move among modern presidential candidates, Trump refused to concede the race, claiming that the election had been “rigged” by Democrats. Motivated by this lie, a MAGA-aligned crowd stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Whatever embarrassment the attack caused the movement, however, was short-lived. Quite the contrary, in fact: within a year most members of the MAGA movement were citing antifa’s involvement in the assault, and by 2023
Trump himself was publicly celebrating the attack at rallies of his supporters—in apparent disregard of their antifa conspiracy theory. On the first day of his second presidential term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 persons charged with crimes related to the January 6 attack.
Many of the accusations and promises made by Trump during his second presidential campaign mirrored those in his first and similarly appealed to members of the MAGA movement and other conservatives.
However, some of his promises, as well as the actions he took to fulfill them after his election, were even more ambitious or extreme than before.
Regarding undocumented immigrants, for example, Trump had vowed in his 2016 campaign to begin deporting the 2 million “criminals” among them; in his 2024 campaign he promised to capture and deport all undocumented immigrants, some 11 million people, with the help of the U.S. military if necessary.
He soon ordered the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to greatly increase its immigrant arrests. He also issued an executive order that, if allowed to stand, would eliminate birthright citizenship, established in the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), for persons whose parents at the time of birth were not U.S. citizens or lawfully permanent residents.
In 2016 he promised to reduce the size of the federal government by imposing a hiring freeze on most federal employees; in 2024 he declared his intention to eliminate the deep state by firing “corrupt bureaucrats,” a promise later used to justify huge and debilitating reductions in the size of several federal departments and agencies.
And in 2016 he declared his intention to impose tariffs on products made in foreign countries to prevent U.S. companies from “offshoring” their manufacturing processes; in 2024 he vowed to “tariff the hell out of countries that have taken advantage of us.” He later imposed varying reciprocal or baseline tariffs on more than 180 countries.
Following Trump’s declaration of his presidential candidacy in 2022, other candidates for the Republican nomination were forced to adopt strategies that limited direct or serious criticisms of Trump and emphasized their acceptance of at least some of the extremist views of MAGA members.
With Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, the principles and priorities of the MAGA movement, especially its devotion to Trump, became even more important to Republican candidates and office holders.
Controversy over Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged client list:
Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who was accused of serial sex trafficking of young women and girls. Through his successful financial career, Epstein developed a social circle of extremely wealthy individuals and prominent politicians—including, for a time, Donald Trump.
In 2019, during Trump’s first presidential term (2017–21), Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges and jailed in New York City. He was later found dead in his cell. His lawyers questioned the official autopsy, which found that Epstein had killed himself by hanging, and suggested instead that he had been murdered.
Their speculation prompted a large portion of the MAGA movement to spread conspiracy theories alleging that Epstein’s death had something to do with his wealthy and elite acquaintances and that many of them were named on a secret list of men for whom Epstein had trafficked young women and girls.
Many MAGA members thereafter demanded that investigators publicly release Epstein’s “client list,” which they believed would confirm the criminal behavior of prominent Democrats (such as Obama and Bill Clinton) and members of the deep state, as well as business leaders and celebrities. Regarding the murder accusation, however, no credible evidence was ever produced.
The Epstein Files: A Timeline
In February 2025, during Trump’s second term (2025– ), Attorney General Pam Bondi sparked much anticipation by claiming in an interview that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
Such a list was not included in the documents later released, however, which greatly angered a large portion of the MAGA movement. (Bondi later claimed that in the interview she had been referring to the entire body of Epstein files.)
In July the FBI seemingly contradicted Bondi in a memo stating that its “exhaustive” and “systematic” review of files and documents related to the Epstein case did not find a client list or “uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Soon afterward Trump further angered MAGA members in a post on Truth Social, his social media site, in which he criticized his supporters for demanding the release of “Epstein files” that, he claimed, had been created by his Democratic enemies—including “Obama, Crooked Hillary,…and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.”
The Trump administration’s contradictory claims regarding the existence of a genuine client list threatened to undermine Trump’s support within the MAGA movement.