title: Donald Trump

texts:
<mask> (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Born and raised in Queens, New York City, <mask> graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in 1968. He became president of his father <mask>'s real estate business in 1971 and renamed it The Trump Organization. <mask> expanded the company's operations to building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He later started various side ventures, mostly by licensing his name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice. <mask> and his businesses have been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six bankruptcies.<mask>'s political positions have been described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. He entered the 2016 presidential race as a Republican and was elected in an upset victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote, becoming the first U.S. president with no prior military or government service. The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit the <mask> campaign, but not that members of the <mask> campaign conspired or coordinated with Russian election interference activities. <mask>'s election and policies sparked numerous protests. <mask> made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics, and promoted conspiracy theories. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist, and many as misogynistic. <mask> ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted funding towards building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a policy of family separations for apprehended migrants.He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes for individuals and businesses and rescinded the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed more than 200 federal judges, including three to the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, <mask> pursued an America First agenda. He withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. He initiated a trade war with China that negatively impacted the U.S. economy. <mask> met three times with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but made no progress on denuclearization. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials in his messaging, and promoted misinformation about unproven treatments and the availability of testing.<mask> lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden but refused to concede. He falsely claimed that there was widespread electoral fraud and attempted to overturn the results by pressuring government officials, mounting scores of unsuccessful legal challenges, and obstructing the presidential transition. On January 6, 2021, <mask> urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, which they then attacked, resulting in multiple deaths and interrupting the electoral vote count. <mask> is the only federal officeholder in American history to have been impeached twice. After he pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden in 2019, the House of Representatives impeached him for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December. The Senate acquitted him of both charges in February 2020. On January 13, 2021, the House of Representatives impeached <mask> a second time, for incitement of insurrection.The Senate acquitted him on February 13, after he had already left office. Scholars and historians rank <mask> as one of the worst presidents in American history. Personal life

Early life

<mask> <mask> was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in the borough of Queens in New York City, the fourth child of <mask>, a Bronx-born real estate developer whose parents were German immigrants, and Mary Anne MacLeod <mask>, an immigrant from Scotland. <mask> grew up with older siblings Maryanne, Fred Jr., and Elizabeth, and younger brother Robert in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens and attended the private Kew-Forest School from kindergarten through seventh grade. At age 13, he was enrolled at the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, and in 1964, he enrolled at Fordham University. Two years later, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in May 1968 with a B.S. in economics.In 2015, <mask>'s lawyer Michael Cohen threatened <mask>'s colleges, high school, and the College Board with legal action if they released <mask>'s academic records. While in college, <mask> obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War era. In 1966, he was deemed fit for military service based upon a medical examination, and in July 1968 a local draft board classified him as eligible to serve. In October 1968, he was classified , a conditional medical deferment, and in 1972, he was reclassified  due to bone spurs, permanently disqualifying him from service. Family

In 1977, <mask> married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková. They have three children, <mask>. (born 1977), Ivanka (born 1981), and Eric (born 1984). Ivana became a naturalized United States citizen in 1988.The couple divorced in 1992, following <mask>'s affair with actress Marla Maples. He and Maples have one daughter, Tiffany (born 1993). They married in 1993, separated in 1997, and divorced in 1999. Tiffany was raised by Marla in California. In 2005, <mask> married Slovenian model Melania Knauss. They have one son, Barron (born 2006). Melania gained U.S. citizenship in 2006.Religion
<mask> went to Sunday school and was confirmed in 1959 at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens. In the 1970s, his parents joined the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, which belongs to the Reformed Church. The pastor at Marble, Norman Vincent Peale, ministered to the family until his death in 1993. <mask> has described him as a mentor. In 2015, the church stated <mask> "is not an active member". In 2019, he appointed his personal pastor, televangelist Paula White, to the White House Office of Public Liaison. In 2020, he said he identified as a non-denominational Christian.Health

<mask> says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs and that 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 exercise depletes the body's energy "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy." In 2015, <mask>'s campaign released a letter from his longtime personal physician, Harold Bornstein, stating that <mask> would "be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." In 2018, Bornstein said <mask> had dictated the contents of the letter, and that three <mask> agents had seized his medical records in a February 2017 raid on the doctor's office. <mask> was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with COVID-19 on October 2, 2020, reportedly due to labored breathing and a fever. In 2021, it was revealed that his condition had been far more serious; he had dangerously low blood oxygen levels, a high fever, and lung infiltrates, indicating a severe case of the disease.He was treated with antiviral and experimental antibody drugs and a steroid. <mask> returned to the White House on October 5, still struggling with the disease. Wealth

In 1982, <mask> made the initial Forbes list of wealthy people for holding a share of his family's estimated $200 million net worth. His losses in the 1980s dropped him from the list between 1990 and 1995. After filing mandatory financial disclosure forms with the FEC in July 2015, he announced a net worth of about $10 billion. Records released by the FEC showed at least $1.4 billion in assets and $265 million in liabilities. Forbes estimated his net worth at $4.5 billion in 2015 and $3.1 billion in 2018.In its 2021 billionaires ranking, it was $2.4 billion (1,299th in the world), making him one of the wealthiest officeholders in American history. Journalist Jonathan Greenberg reported in 2018 that <mask>, using the pseudonym "John Barron" and claiming to be a Trump Organization official, called him in 1984 to falsely assert that he owned "in excess of ninety percent" of the <mask> family's business, to secure a higher ranking on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans. Greenberg also wrote that Forbes had vastly overestimated <mask>'s wealth and wrongly included him on the Forbes 400 rankings of 1982, 1983, and 1984. <mask> has often said he began his career with "a small loan of one million dollars" from his father, and that he had to pay it back with interest. He was a millionaire by age eight, borrowed at least $60 million from his father, largely failed to repay those loans, and received another $413 million (adjusted for inflation) from his father's company. In 2018, he and his family were reported to have committed tax fraud, and the New York tax department began investigating. His investments underperformed the stock and New York property markets.Forbes estimated in October 2018 that his net worth declined from $4.5 billion in 2015 to $3.1 billion in 2017 and his product licensing income from $23 million to $3 million. Contrary to his claims of financial health and business acumen, <mask>'s tax returns from 1985 to 1994 show net losses totaling $1.17 billion. The losses were higher than those of almost every other American taxpayer. The losses in 1990 and 1991, more than $250 million each year, were more than double those of the nearest losers. In 1995, his reported losses were $915.7 million. Over twenty years, <mask> lost hundreds of millions of dollars and deferred declaring $287 million in forgiven debt as taxable income. His income mainly came from his share in The Apprentice and businesses in which he was a minority partner, and his losses mainly from majority-owned businesses.Much income was in tax credits for his losses, which let him avoid annual income tax payments or lowered them to $750. In the last decade, he balanced his businesses' losses by selling and borrowing against assets, including a $100 million mortgage on Trump Tower (due in 2022) and the liquidation of over $200 million in stocks and bonds. He personally guaranteed $421 million in debt, most of which is due by 2024. As of October 2020, <mask> has over $1 billion in debts, secured by his assets. He owed $640 million to banks and trust organizations, including Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Bank of China, and approximately $450 million to unknown creditors. The value of his assets exceeds his debt. Business career

Real estate

Starting in 1968, <mask> was employed at his father Fred's real estate company, Trump Management, which owned middle-class rental housing in New York City's outer boroughs.In 1971, he became president of the company and began using The Trump Organization as an umbrella brand. Manhattan developments
<mask> 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 by <mask>, who also joined Hyatt in guaranteeing $70 million in bank construction financing. The hotel reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and that same year, <mask> obtained rights to develop Trump Tower, a mixed-use skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. The building houses the headquarters of the Trump Corporation and <mask>'s PAC and was <mask>'s primary residence until 2019. In 1988, <mask> acquired the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan with a loan of $425 million from a consortium of banks. Two years later, the hotel filed for bankruptcy protection, and a reorganization plan was approved in 1992.In 1995, <mask> lost the hotel to Citibank and investors from Singapore and Saudi Arabia, who assumed $300 million of the debt. In 1996, <mask> acquired the mostly vacant 71-story skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, later also known as the Trump Building, and renovated it. In the early 1990s, <mask> won the right to develop a  tract in the Lincoln Square neighborhood near the Hudson River. Struggling with debt from other ventures in 1994, <mask> sold most of his interest in the project to Asian investors, who were able to finance completion of the project, Riverside South. Mar-a-Lago

In 1985, <mask> 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.In 2019, <mask> declared Mar-a-Lago his primary residence. Atlantic City casinos

In 1984, <mask> opened Harrah's at Trump Plaza, a hotel and casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with financing and management help from the Holiday Corporation. It was unprofitable, and <mask> paid Holiday $70 million in May 1986 to take sole control. <mask> had earlier bought a hotel and casino in Atlantic City from the Hilton Corporation for $320 million. On completion in 1985, it became Trump Castle. His wife Ivana managed it until 1988. <mask> bought a third Atlantic City venue in 1988, the Trump Taj Mahal.It was financed with $675 million in junk bonds and completed for $1.1 billion, opening in April 1990. It went bankrupt in 1989. Reorganizing left him with half his initial stake and required him to personally guarantee future performance. To reduce his $900 million of personal debt, he sold his failing Trump Shuttle airline, his megayacht, the Trump Princess, which had been leased to his casinos and kept docked, and other businesses. In 1995, <mask> founded Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts (THCR), which assumed ownership of Trump Plaza, Trump Castle, and the Trump Casino in Gary, Indiana. THCR purchased the Taj Mahal in 1996 and went bankrupt in 2004, 2009, and 2014, leaving <mask> with 10 percent ownership. He remained chairman until 2009.Golf courses

The Trump Organization began building and buying golf courses in 1999. It owns fourteen and manages another three Trump-branded courses worldwide . <mask> visited a Trump Organization property on 428 (nearly one in three) of the 1461 days of his presidency and is estimated to have played 261 rounds of golf, one every 5.6 days. Branding and licensing

The <mask> name has been licensed for various consumer products and services, including foodstuffs, apparel, adult learning courses, and home furnishings. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, there are more than fifty licensing or management deals involving <mask>'s name, which have generated at least $59 million in revenue for his companies. By 2018, only two consumer goods companies continued to license his name. Side ventures

In September 1983, <mask> purchased the New Jersey Generals, a team in the United States Football League.After the 1985 season, the league folded, largely due to <mask>'s strategy of moving games to a fall schedule (where they competed with the NFL for audience) and trying to force a merger with the NFL by bringing an antitrust suit against the organization. <mask>'s businesses have hosted several boxing matches at the Atlantic City Convention Hall adjacent to and promoted as taking place at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. In 1989 and 1990, <mask> lent his name to the Tour de Trump cycling stage race, which was an attempt to create an American equivalent of European races such as the Tour de France or the Giro d'Italia. In the late 1980s, <mask> mimicked the actions of Wall Street's so-called corporate raiders. <mask> began to purchase significant blocks of shares in various public companies, leading some observers to think he was engaged in greenmail. The New York Times found that <mask> initially made millions of dollars in such stock transactions, but later "lost most, if not all, of those gains after investors stopped taking his takeover talk seriously". In 1988, <mask> purchased the defunct Eastern Air Lines shuttle, with 21 planes and landing rights in New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C.He financed the purchase with $380 million from 22 banks, rebranded the operation the Trump Shuttle, and operated it until 1992. <mask> failed to earn a profit with the airline and sold it to USAir. In 1992, <mask>, his siblings Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert, and his cousin John W. Walter, each with a 20 percent share, formed All County Building Supply & Maintenance Corp. The company had no offices and is alleged to have been a shell company for paying the vendors providing services and supplies for <mask>'s rental units and 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 as justification to get state approval for increasing the rents of <mask>'s rent-stabilized units. From 1996 to 2015, <mask> owned all or part of 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, <mask> received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work as producer of Miss Universe. NBC and Univision dropped the pageants from their broadcasting lineups in June 2015,

Trump University

In 2004, <mask> co-founded Trump University, a company that sold real estate training courses priced from $1,500 to $35,000. After New York State authorities notified the company that its use of the word "university" violated state law, its name was changed to 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. In addition, two class actions were filed in federal court against <mask> 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

masks:
Donald John Trump
Trump
Fred Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Donald John
Trump
Fred Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Donald Jr
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Fred Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump


title: Donald Trump

type: original

texts:
 after he won the 2016 presidential election, <mask> agreed to pay a total of $25 million to settle the three cases. Foundation

The Donald J. Trump Foundation was a private foundation established in 1988. In the foundation's final years its funds mostly came from donors other than <mask>, who did not donate any personal funds to the charity from 2009 until 2014. The foundation gave to health care and sports-related charities, as well as conservative groups. In 2016, The Washington Post reported that the charity had committed several potential legal and ethical violations, including alleged self-dealing and possible tax evasion. Also in 2016, the New York State attorney general's office said the foundation appeared to be in violation of New York laws regarding charities and ordered it to immediately cease its fundraising activities in New York. <mask>'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, <mask>, and his adult children, seeking $2.8 million in restitution and additional penalties. In December 2018, the foundation ceased operation and disbursed all its assets to other charities. In November 2019, a New York state judge ordered <mask> 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

Fixer Roy Cohn served as <mask>'s lawyer and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s. According to <mask>, Cohn sometimes waived fees due to their friendship. In 1973, Cohn helped <mask> countersue the United States government for $100 million over its charges that <mask>'s properties had racial discriminatory practices. <mask> and Cohn lost that case when the countersuit was dismissed and the government's case went forward.In 1975, an agreement was struck requiring <mask>'s properties to furnish the New York Urban League with a list of all apartment vacancies, every week for two years, among other things. Cohn introduced political consultant Roger Stone to <mask>, who enlisted Stone's services to deal with the federal government. , <mask> and his businesses had been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, according to a running tally by USA Today. While <mask> 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 <mask>'s shares in the properties. During the 1980s, more than 70 banks had lent <mask> $4 billion, but in the aftermath of his corporate bankruptcies of the early 1990s, most major banks declined to lend to him, with only Deutsche Bank still willing to lend money. After the 2021 United States Capitol attack, the bank decided not to do business with <mask> or his company in the future.In April 2019, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas seeking financial details from <mask>'s banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, and his accounting firm, Mazars USA. In response, <mask> sued the banks, Mazars, and committee chairman 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. <mask>'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". Media career

Books

Using ghostwriters, <mask> has produced up to 19 books on business, financial, or political topics under his name. His first book, The Art of the Deal (1987), was a New York Times Best Seller. While <mask> was credited as co-author, the entire book was written by Tony Schwartz.According to The New Yorker, "The book expanded <mask>'s renown far beyond New York City, making him an emblem of the successful tycoon." <mask> has called the volume his second favorite book, after the Bible. Film and television

<mask> made cameo appearances in many films and television shows from 1985 to 2001. <mask> had a sporadic relationship with the professional wrestling promotion WWE since the late 1980s. He appeared at WrestleMania 23 in 2007 and was inducted into the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013. Starting in the 1990s, <mask> was a guest about 24 times on the nationally syndicated Howard Stern Show. He also had his own short-form talk radio program called Trumped!(one to two minutes on weekdays) from 2004 to 2008. From 2011 until 2015, he was a weekly unpaid guest commentator on Fox & Friends. From 2004 to 2015, <mask> was co-producer and host of reality shows The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice. On The Apprentice, <mask> played the role of a chief executive, and contestants competed for a year of employment at the Trump Organization. On The Celebrity Apprentice, celebrities competed to win money for charities. On both shows, <mask> eliminated contestants with the catchphrase "You're fired." <mask>, who had been a member since 1989, resigned from the Screen Actors Guild in February 2021 rather than face a disciplinary committee hearing for inciting the January 6, 2021, mob attack on the U.S. Capitol and for his "reckless campaign of misinformation aimed at discrediting and ultimately threatening the safety of journalists."Two days later, the union permanently barred him from readmission. Pre-presidential political career

<mask>'s political party affiliation changed numerous times. He 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, <mask> placed full-page advertisements in three major newspapers, advocating peace in Central America, accelerated nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviet Union, and reduction of the federal budget deficit by making American allies pay "their fair share" for military defense. He ruled out running for local office but not for the presidency. 2000 presidential campaign and 2011 hints at presidential run

In 2000, <mask> ran in the California and Michigan primaries for nomination as the Reform Party candidate for the 2000 United States presidential election but withdrew from the race in February 2000. A July 1999 poll matching him against likely Republican nominee George W. Bush and likely Democratic nominee Al Gore showed <mask> with seven percent support.In 2011, <mask> speculated about running against President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, making his first speaking appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February 2011 and giving speeches in early primary states. In May 2011, he announced he would not run, and he endorsed Mitt Romney in February 2012. <mask>'s presidential ambitions were generally not taken seriously at the time. 2016 presidential campaign

<mask>'s fame and provocative statements earned him an unprecedented amount of free media coverage, elevating his standing in the Republican primaries. He adopted the phrase "truthful hyperbole", coined by his ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, to describe his public speaking style. His campaign statements were often opaque and suggestive, and a record number of them were false. The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Never in modern presidential politics has a major candidate made false statements as routinely as <mask> has."<mask> said he disdained political correctness and frequently made claims of media bias. Republican primaries

<mask> announced his candidacy in June 2015. His campaign was initially not taken seriously by political analysts, but he quickly rose to the top of opinion polls. He became the front-runner in March 2016. After a landslide win in Indiana in May, <mask> was declared the presumptive Republican nominee. General election campaign

Hillary Clinton led <mask> in national polling averages throughout the campaign but in early July her lead narrowed. In mid-July <mask> selected Indiana governor Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate, and the two were officially nominated at the Republican National Convention.<mask> and Clinton faced off in three presidential debates in September and October 2016. <mask> twice refused to say whether he would accept the result of the election. Campaign rhetoric and political positions

<mask>'s political positions and rhetoric were right-wing populist. Politico described them as "eclectic, improvisational and often contradictory", quoting a health care policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute as saying that his political positions were "a total random assortment of whatever plays publicly." while NBC News counted "141 distinct shifts on 23 major issues" during his campaign. <mask> helped bring far-right fringe ideas, beliefs, and organizations into the mainstream, pandered to white supremacists, retweeted racist Twitter accounts, and repeatedly refused to condemn David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or white supremacists. After a public uproar, he disavowed Duke and the KKK.In August 2016, he appointed Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News—described by Bannon as "the platform for the alt-right"—as his campaign CEO. <mask>'s campaign platform emphasized renegotiating U.S.–China relations and free trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, strongly enforcing immigration laws, and building a new wall along the U.S.–Mexico border. Other campaign positions included pursuing energy independence while opposing climate change regulations such as the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Agreement, modernizing and expediting 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 for all economic classes, and imposing tariffs on imports by companies that offshore jobs. He advocated a largely non-interventionist approach to foreign policy while increasing military spending, extreme vetting or banning immigrants from Muslim-majority countries to pre-empt domestic Islamic terrorism, and aggressive military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. He described NATO as "obsolete". Support from the far-right

The alt-right movement coalesced around and supported <mask>'s candidacy, due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and immigration. Duke enthusiastically supported <mask> and said he and like-minded people voted for <mask> because of his promises to "take our country back".In an interview after the election, <mask> said that he did not want to "energize the group" and that he disavowed them. Financial disclosures
<mask>'s FEC-required reports listed assets above $1.4 billion and outstanding debts of at least $315 million. <mask> 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 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 <mask> to the United States 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 <mask>'s state filings for 1995 were leaked to a reporter from The New York Times. They show that <mask> had declared a loss of $916 million that year, which could have let him avoid taxes for up to 18 years.Election to the presidency

On November 8, 2016, <mask> received 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Clinton. The official counts were 304 and 227 respectively, after defections on both sides. <mask> received nearly 2.9 million fewer popular votes than Clinton, which made him the fifth person to be elected president while losing the popular vote. <mask>'s victory was a political upset. Polls had consistently shown Clinton with a nationwide—though diminishing—lead, as well as an advantage in most of the competitive states. <mask>'s support had been modestly underestimated, while Clinton's had been overestimated. <mask> won 30 states; included were Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which had been part of what was considered a blue wall of Democratic strongholds since the 1990s.Clinton won 20 states and the District of Columbia. <mask>'s victory marked the return of an undivided Republican government—a Republican White House combined with Republican control of both chambers of Congress. <mask> was the oldest person to take office as president at the time of his inauguration. He is also the first president who did not serve in the military or hold any government office prior to becoming president. <mask>'s election victory sparked numerous protests. On the day after <mask>'s inauguration, an estimated 2.6 million people worldwide, including an estimated half million in Washington, D.C., protested against <mask> in the Women's Marches. Marches against his travel ban began across the country on January 29, 2017, just nine days after his inauguration.Presidency (2017–2021)

Early actions

<mask> was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2017. During his first week in office, he signed six executive orders: interim procedures in anticipation of repealing the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, reinstatement of the Mexico City policy, authorizing the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline construction projects, reinforcing border security, and beginning the planning and design process to construct a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. <mask>'s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner became his assistant and senior advisor, respectively. Conflicts of interest

Before being inaugurated, <mask> moved his businesses into a revocable trust run by his sons, Eric and <mask>, and a business associate. However <mask> continued to profit from his businesses and continued to have knowledge of how his administration's policies affected his businesses. Though <mask> said he would eschew "new foreign deals", the Trump Organization pursued expansions of its operations in Dubai, Scotland, and the Dominican Republic. <mask> was sued for violating the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution, marking the first time that the clauses had been substantively litigated.The plaintiffs said that <mask>'s business interests could allow foreign governments to influence him. <mask> called the clause "phony". After <mask>'s term had ended, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the cases as moot. Domestic policy

Economy

<mask> took office at the height of the longest economic expansion in American history, which began in June 2009 and continued until February 2020, when the COVID-19 recession began. In December 2017, <mask> signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The bill had been passed by both Republican-controlled chambers of Congress without any Democratic votes. It reduced tax rates for businesses and individuals, with business tax cuts to be permanent and individual tax cuts set to expire after 2025, and eliminated the Affordable Care Act's individual requirement to obtain health insurance.The <mask> administration claimed that the act would either increase tax revenues or pay for itself by prompting economic growth. Instead, revenues in 2018 were 7.6% lower than projected. Despite a campaign promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years, <mask> approved large increases in government spending and the 2017 tax cut. As a result, the federal budget deficit increased by almost 50 percent, to nearly $1trillion in 2019. Under <mask>, the U.S. national debt increased by 39 percent, reaching $27.75trillion by the end of his term; the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio also hit a post-World War II high. <mask> also failed to deliver the $1 billion infrastructure spending plan he had campaigned on. <mask> was the only modern U.S. president to leave office with a smaller workforce, by 3 million, than when he took office.Energy and climate

<mask> rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. He reduced the budget for renewable energy research by 40% and reversed Obama-era policies directed at curbing climate change. In June 2017, <mask> announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, making the U.S. the only nation in the world to not ratify the agreement. <mask> 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. <mask> aimed to boost the production and exports of fossil fuels; under <mask>, natural gas expanded, but coal continued to decline. Deregulation

On January 30, 2017, <mask> signed Executive Order 13771, which directed that for every new regulation administrative agencies issue "at least two prior regulations be identified for elimination".Agency defenders expressed opposition to <mask>'s criticisms, saying the bureaucracy exists to protect people against well-organized, well-funded interest groups. <mask> dismantled many federal regulations on health, labor, and the environment, among other topics. <mask> signed 14 Congressional Review Act resolutions repealing federal regulations, among them 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 "made after requests by the regulated industries." Health care
During his campaign, <mask> vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In May 2017, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill to repeal the ACA in a party-line vote but repeal

masks:
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Donald Jr
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump
Trump


title: Donald Trump

texts:
 proposals were narrowly voted down in the Senate after three Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing it. <mask> scaled back the implementation of the ACA through Executive Orders 13765 and 13813.<mask> expressed a desire to "let Obamacare fail"; his administration cut the ACA enrollment period in half and drastically reduced funding for advertising and other ways to encourage enrollment. The 2017 tax bill signed by <mask> effectively repealed the ACA's individual health insurance mandate in 2019, and a budget bill <mask> signed in 2019 repealed the Cadillac plan tax. <mask> falsely claimed he saved the coverage of pre-existing conditions provided by the ACA; in fact, the <mask> administration joined a lawsuit seeking to strike down the entire ACA, including protections for those with pre-existing conditions. If the lawsuit had succeeded, it would have eliminated health insurance coverage for up to 23 million Americans. During the 2016 campaign, <mask> promised to protect funding for Medicare and other social safety-net programs, but in January 2020 he suggested he was willing to consider cuts to such programs. <mask>'s policies in response to the opioid epidemic were widely criticized as ineffectual and harmful. U.S. opioid overdose deaths declined slightly in 2018, but surged to a new record of 50,052 deaths in 2019.Social issues

<mask> said in 2016 that he was committed to appointing "pro-life" justices, pledging to appoint justices who would "automatically" overturn Roe v. Wade. He also said he supported "traditional marriage" but considered the nationwide legality of same-sex marriage a "settled" issue; in March 2017, his administration rolled back key components of the Obama administration's workplace protections against discrimination of LGBT people. <mask> said he is opposed to gun control in general, although his views have shifted over time. After several mass shootings during his term, he said he would propose legislation to curtail gun violence, but this was abandoned in November 2019. His administration took an anti-marijuana position, revoking Obama-era policies that provided protections for states that legalized marijuana. Under <mask>, the federal government executed 13 prisoners, more than in the previous 56 years combined and after a 17-year moratorium. In 2016, <mask> said he supported the use of interrogation torture methods such as waterboarding but later appeared to recant this due to the opposition of Defense Secretary James Mattis.Pardons and commutations

Most of <mask>'s pardons and commutations were granted to people with personal or political connections to him. In his term, <mask> sidestepped regular Department of Justice procedures for considering pardons; instead he often entertained pardon requests from his associates or from celebrities. From 2017 to 2019, the pardons included former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio; former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, who was convicted of taking classified photographs of classified areas inside a submarine; and conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza. Following a request by celebrity Kim Kardashian, <mask> commuted the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who had been convicted of drug trafficking. <mask> pardoned or reversed the sentences of three American servicemen convicted or accused of committing war crimes in Afghanistan or Iraq. In November and December 2020, <mask> pardoned four Blackwater private security contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians in the 2007 Nisour Square massacre; white-collar criminals Michael Milken and Bernard Kerik; and daughter Ivanka's father-in-law Charles Kushner. He also pardoned five people convicted as a result of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections: Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Alex van der Zwaan, Roger Stone, whose 40-month sentence for lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction he had already commuted in July, and Paul Manafort.In his last full day in office, <mask> granted 143 pardons and commutations; those receiving pardons include Steve Bannon, <mask> fundraiser Elliott Broidy and three former Republican congressmen. Amongst those to receive sentence commutation were former Detroit mayor and Democrat Kwame Kilpatrick and sports gambler Billy Walters; the latter had paid tens of thousands of dollars to former <mask> attorney John M. Dowd to plead his case with <mask>. Lafayette Square protester removal and photo op

On June 1, 2020, federal law enforcement officials used batons, rubber bullets, pepper spray projectiles, stun grenades, and smoke to remove a largely peaceful crowd of protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House. <mask> then walked to St. John's Episcopal Church, where protesters had set a small fire the night before; he posed for photographs holding a Bible, with senior administration officials later joining him in photos. <mask> said on June 3 that the protesters were cleared because "they tried to burn down the church [on May 31] and almost succeeded", describing the church as "badly hurt". Religious leaders condemned the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself. Many retired military leaders and defense officials condemned <mask>'s proposal to use the U.S. military against anti-police brutality protesters.The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A. Milley, later apologized for accompanying <mask> on the walk and thereby "creat[ing] the perception of the military involved in domestic politics". Immigration

<mask>'s proposed immigration policies were a topic of bitter and contentious debate during the campaign. He promised to build a wall on the Mexico–United States border to restrict illegal movement and vowed Mexico would pay for it. He pledged to deport millions of illegal immigrants residing in the United States, and criticized birthright citizenship for incentivizing "anchor babies". As president, he frequently described illegal immigration as an "invasion" and conflated immigrants with the criminal gang MS-13, though research shows undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than native-born Americans. <mask> attempted to drastically escalate immigration enforcement, including implementing harsher immigration enforcement policies against asylum seekers from Central America than any modern U.S. president. From 2018 onwards, <mask> deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the U.S.–Mexico border, to stop most Central American migrants from seeking U.S. asylum, and from 2020 used the public charge rule to restrict immigrants using government benefits from getting permanent residency via green cards.<mask> has reduced the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. to record lows. When <mask> took office, the annual limit was 110,000; <mask> set a limit of 18,000 in the 2020 fiscal year and 15,000 in the 2021 fiscal year. Additional restrictions implemented by the <mask> administration caused significant bottlenecks in processing refugee applications, resulting in fewer refugees accepted compared to the allowed limits. Travel ban

Following the 2015 San Bernardino attack, <mask> proposed to ban Muslim foreigners from entering the United States until stronger vetting systems could be implemented. He later reframed the proposed ban to apply to countries with a "proven history of terrorism". On January 27, 2017, <mask> signed Executive Order 13769, which suspended admission of refugees for 120 days and denied entry to citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days, citing security concerns. The order took effect immediately and without warning.Confusion and protests caused chaos at airports. Multiple legal challenges were filed against the order, and a federal judge blocked its implementation nationwide. On March 6, <mask> issued a revised order, which excluded Iraq and gave other exemptions, but was again blocked by federal judges in three states. In a decision in June 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban could be enforced on visitors who lack a "credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States". The temporary order was replaced by Presidential Proclamation 9645 on September 24, 2017, which permanently restricts travel from the originally targeted countries except Iraq and Sudan, and further bans travelers from North Korea and Chad, along with certain Venezuelan officials. After lower courts partially blocked the new restrictions, the Supreme Court allowed the September version to go into full effect on December 4, 2017, and ultimately upheld the travel ban in a June 2019 ruling. Family separation at border

The <mask> administration separated more than 5,400 children of migrant families from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border while attempting to enter the U.S, a sharp increase in the number of family separations at the border starting from the summer of 2017.In April 2018, the <mask> administration announced a "zero tolerance" policy whereby every adult suspected of illegal entry would be criminally prosecuted. This resulted in family separations, as the migrant adults were put in criminal detention for prosecution, while their children were separated as unaccompanied alien minors. Administration officials described the policy as a way to deter illegal immigration. The policy of family separations was unprecedented in previous administrations and sparked public outrage. <mask> falsely asserted that his administration was merely following the law, blaming Democrats, despite the separations being his administration's policy. Although <mask> originally argued that the separations could not be stopped by an executive order, he proceeded to sign an executive order on June 20, 2018, mandating that migrant families be detained together, unless the administration judged that doing so would harm the child. On June 26, 2018, a federal judge concluded that the <mask> administration had "no system in place to keep track of" the separated children, nor any effective measures for family communication and reunification; the judge ordered for the families to be reunited, and family separations stopped, except in the cases where the parent(s) are judged unfit to take care of the child, or if there is parental approval.Despite the federal court order, the <mask> administration continued to practice family separations, with more than a thousand migrant children separated. <mask> wall and government shutdown

One of <mask>'s central campaign promises was to build a 1,000-mile border wall to Mexico and have Mexico pay for it. By the end of his term, the U.S. had built "40 miles of new primary wall and 33 miles of secondary wall" in locations where there had been no barriers and 365 miles of primary or secondary border fencing replacing dilapidated or outdated barriers. In 2018, <mask> refused to extend government funding unless Congress allocated $5.6 billion in funds for the border wall, resulting in  the federal government partially shutting down for 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019, the longest U.S. government shutdown in history. Around 800,000 government employees were furloughed or worked without pay. <mask> and Congress ended the shutdown by approving temporary funding that provided delayed payments to government workers but no funds for the wall. The shutdown resulted in an estimated permanent loss of $3 billion to the economy, according to the Congressional Budget Office.About half of those polled blamed <mask> for the shutdown, and <mask>'s approval ratings dropped. To prevent another imminent shutdown in February 2019, Congress passed and <mask> signed a funding bill that included $1.375 billion for 55 miles of bollard border fencing. <mask> also declared a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States, intending to divert $6.1 billion of funds Congress had allocated to other purposes. The House and the Senate attempted to block <mask>'s national emergency declaration, but there were not enough votes for a veto override. Legal challenges of the fund diversions resulted in $2.5 billion of wall funding originally meant for anti-drug programs being approved and $3.6 billion originally meant for military construction being blocked. Foreign policy

<mask> described himself as a "nationalist" and his foreign policy as "America First". He espoused isolationist, non-interventionist, and protectionist views.His foreign policy was marked by praise and support of populist, neo-nationalist and authoritarian governments. Hallmarks of foreign relations during <mask>'s tenure included unpredictability and uncertainty, a lack of a consistent foreign policy, and strained and sometimes antagonistic relationships with the U.S.'s European allies. <mask> questioned the need for NATO, criticized the U.S.'s NATO allies, and privately suggested on multiple occasions that the United States should withdraw from the alliance. Trade

<mask> is a skeptic of trade liberalization, adopting these views in the 1980s, and sharply criticized NAFTA during the Republican primary campaign in 2015. He withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and launched a trade war with China by sharply increasing tariffs on 818 categories (worth $50 billion) of Chinese goods imported into the U.S. On several occasions, <mask> said incorrectly that these import tariffs are paid by China into the U.S. Treasury. Although he pledged during the campaign to significantly reduce the U.S.'s large trade deficits, the deficit reached its highest level in 12 years under his administration. Following a 2017–2018 renegotiation, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) became effective in July 2020 as the successor to NAFTA.China

Before and during his presidency, <mask> repeatedly accused China of taking unfair advantage of the U.S. As president, <mask> launched a trade war against China that was widely characterized as a failure; sanctioned Huawei for its alleged ties to Iran; significantly increased visa restrictions on Chinese students and scholars; and classified China as a currency manipulator. <mask> also juxtaposed verbal attacks on China with praise of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, which was attributed to trade war negotiations with the leader. After initially praising China for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, he began a campaign of criticism over its response starting in March. <mask> said he resisted punishing China for its human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the northwestern Xinjiang region for fear of jeopardizing trade negotiations. In July 2020, the <mask> administration imposed sanctions and visa restrictions against senior Chinese officials, in response to expanded mass detention camps holding more than a million of the country's Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority. Saudi Arabia

<mask> actively supported the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Houthis and in 2017 signed a $110 billion agreement to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, In 2018, the USA provided limited intelligence and logistical support for the intervention. Following the 2019 attack on Saudi oil facilities, which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia blamed on Iran, <mask> approved the deployment of 3,000 additional U.S. troops, including fighter squadrons, two Patriot batteries, and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD), to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.Israel
<mask> supported many of the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Under <mask>, the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, leading to international condemnation including from the United Nations General Assembly, the European Union and the Arab League. Afghanistan

U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan increased from 8,500 in January 2017 to 14,000 a year later, reversing <mask>'s pre-election position critical of further involvement in Afghanistan. In February 2020, the <mask> administration signed a conditional peace agreement with the Taliban, which called for the withdrawal of foreign troops in 14 months "contingent on a guarantee from the Taliban that Afghan soil will not be used by terrorists with aims to attack the United States or its allies" and for the U.S. to seek the release of 5,000 Taliban imprisoned by the Afghan government. By the end of <mask>'s term, 5,000 Taliban had been released, and, despite the Taliban continuing attacks on Afghan forces and integrating Al-Qaeda members into its leadership, U.S. troops had been reduced to 2,500. Syria
<mask> ordered missile strikes in April 2017 and in April 2018 against the Assad regime in Syria, in retaliation for the Khan Shaykhun and Douma chemical attacks, respectively. In December 2018, <mask> declared "we have won against ISIS," contradicting Department of Defense assessments, and ordered the withdrawal of all troops from Syria.The next day, Mattis resigned in protest, calling his decision an abandonment of the U.S.'s Kurdish allies who played a key role in fighting ISIS. One week after his announcement, <mask> said he would not approve any extension of the American deployment in Syria. In October 2019, after <mask> spoke to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, U.S. troops in northern Syria were withdrawn from the area, and Turkey invaded northern Syria, attacking and displacing American-allied Kurds in the area. Later that month, the U.S. House of Representatives, in a rare bipartisan vote of 354 to 60, condemned <mask>'s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, for "abandoning U.S. allies, undermining the struggle against ISIS, and spurring a humanitarian catastrophe". Iran
After an Iranian missile test on January 29, 2017, and Houthi attacks on Saudi warships, the <mask> administration sanctioned 12 companies and 13 individuals suspected of being involved in Iran's missile program. In May 2018, <mask> withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 agreement between Iran, the U.S., and five other countries that lifted most economic sanctions against Iran in return for Iran agreeing to restrictions on its nuclear program. Analysts determined Iran moved closer to developing a nuclear weapon since the withdrawal.In January 2020, <mask> ordered a U.S. airstrike

masks: Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump


title: Donald Trump

texts:
 that killed Iranian general and Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and eight other people. <mask> publicly threatened to attack Iranian cultural sites, or react "in a disproportionate manner" if Iran retaliated. Several days later, Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile strike against two U.S. airbases in Iraq and accidentally shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 after takeoff from Tehran airport. <mask> downplayed the severity of the missile strike and the brain injuries sustained by service members, denying them Purple Heart awards. In August 2020, the <mask> administration unsuccessfully attempted to trigger a mechanism that was part of the agreement and would have led to the return of U.N. sanctions against Iran. North Korea

In 2017, when North Korea's nuclear weapons were increasingly seen as a serious threat, <mask> escalated his rhetoric, warning that North Korean aggression would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen". In 2017, <mask> declared that he wanted North Korea's "complete denuclearization", and engaged in name-calling with leader Kim Jong-un.After this period of tension, <mask> and Kim exchanged at least 27 letters in which the two men described a warm personal friendship. <mask> met Kim three times: in Singapore in 2018, in Hanoi in 2019, and in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in 2019. <mask> became the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korean leader or to set foot on North Korean soil. <mask> also lifted some U.S. sanctions against North Korea. However, no denuclearization agreement was reached, and talks in October 2019 broke down after one day. While conducting no nuclear tests since 2017, North Korea continued to build up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Russia

<mask> repeatedly praised and rarely criticized Russian president Vladimir Putin, but opposed some actions of the Russian government.The <mask> administration "water[ed] down the toughest penalties the U.S. had imposed on Russian entities" after its 2014 annexation of Crimea. <mask> also supported a potential return of Russia to the G7 and never brought up Russia's alleged bounties against American soldiers in Afghanistan with Putin. <mask> withdrew the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing alleged Russian non-compliance. After he met Putin at the Helsinki Summit in July 2018, <mask> drew bipartisan criticism for accepting Putin's denial of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, rather than accepting the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies. Personnel

The <mask> administration had a high turnover of personnel, particularly among White House staff. By the end of <mask>'s first year in office, 34 percent of his original staff had resigned, been fired, or been reassigned. , 61 percent of <mask>'s senior aides had left and 141 staffers had left in the previous year.Both figures set a record for recent presidents—more change in the first 13 months than his four immediate predecessors saw in their first two years. Notable early departures included National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (after just 25 days in office), and Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Close personal aides to <mask> including Steve Bannon, Hope Hicks, John McEntee, and Keith Schiller quit or were forced out. Some, including Hicks and McEntee, later returned to the White House in different posts. <mask> publicly disparaged several of his former top officials, calling them incompetent, stupid, or crazy. <mask> had four White House chiefs of staff, marginalizing or pushing out several. Reince Priebus was replaced after seven months by retired Marine general John F. Kelly.Kelly resigned in December 2018 after a tumultuous tenure in which his influence waned, and <mask> subsequently disparaged him. Kelly was succeeded by Mick Mulvaney as acting chief of staff; he was replaced in March 2020 by Mark Meadows. On May 9, 2017, <mask> dismissed FBI director James Comey. While initially attributing this action to Comey's conduct in the investigation about Hillary Clinton's emails, <mask> said a few days later that he was concerned with Comey's roles in the ongoing Trump-Russia investigations, and that he had intended to fire Comey earlier. At a private conversation in February, <mask> said he hoped Comey would drop the investigation into National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. In March and April, <mask> asked Comey to "lift the cloud impairing his ability to act" by saying publicly that the FBI was not investigating him. Two of <mask>'s 15 original Cabinet members were gone within 15 months: Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was forced to resign in September 2017 due to excessive use of private charter jets and military aircraft, and <mask> replaced Tillerson as Secretary of State with Mike Pompeo in March 2018 over disagreements on foreign policy.In 2018, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke resigned amid multiple investigations into their conduct. <mask> was slow to appoint second-tier officials in the executive branch, saying many of the positions are unnecessary. In October 2017, there were still hundreds of sub-cabinet positions without a nominee. By January 8, 2019, of 706 key positions, 433 had been filled (61 percent) and <mask> had no nominee for 264 (37 percent). Judiciary

After Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate in 2014, only 28.6 percent of judicial nominees were confirmed, "the lowest percentage of confirmations from 1977 to 2018". At the end of the Obama presidency, 105 judgeships were vacant. <mask> appointed 226 Article III federal judges, including 54 federal appellate judges.Senate Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, rapidly confirmed <mask>'s judicial appointees, shifting the federal judiciary to the right. The appointees were overwhelmingly white men and younger on average than the appointees of <mask>'s predecessors. Many were affiliated with the Federalist Society. <mask> appointed three justices to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. In 2016, Senate Republicans had taken the unprecedented step of refusing to consider Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016, arguing that the seat should not be filled in an election year. Gorsuch was confirmed to the seat in 2017 in a mostly party-line vote of 54–45, after Republicans invoked the "nuclear option" (a historic change to Senate rules removing the 60-vote threshold for advancing Supreme Court nominations) to defeat a Democratic filibuster. <mask> nominated Kavanaugh in 2018 to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy; the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh in a mostly party-line vote of 50–48, after a bitter confirmation battle centered on Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh had attempted to rape her when they were teenagers, which Kavanaugh denied.Five weeks before the November 2020 election, <mask> nominated Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Eight days before the election, after 60 million Americans had already voted, Senate Republicans confirmed Barrett to the Supreme Court without any Democratic votes. Many observers strongly criticized the confirmation, arguing that it was a gross violation of the precedent Republicans set in 2016. As president, <mask> disparaged courts and judges whom he disagreed with, often in personal terms, and questioned the judiciary's constitutional authority. <mask>'s attacks on the courts have drawn rebukes from observers, including sitting federal judges, who are concerned about the effect of <mask>'s statements on the judicial independence and public confidence in the judiciary. COVID-19 pandemic

In December 2019, COVID-19 erupted in Wuhan, China; the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread worldwide within weeks. The first confirmed case in the U.S. was reported on January 20, 2020.The outbreak was officially declared a public health emergency by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on January 31, 2020. <mask>'s public statements on COVID-19 were at odds with his private statements. In February 2020 <mask> publicly asserted that the outbreak in the U.S. was less deadly than influenza, was "very much under control", and would soon be over. At the same time he acknowledged the opposite in a private conversation with Bob Woodward. In March 2020, <mask> privately told Woodward that he was deliberately "playing it down" in public so as not to create panic. Initial response

<mask> was slow to address the spread of the disease, initially dismissing the imminent threat and ignoring persistent public health warnings and calls for action from health officials within his administration and Secretary Azar. Instead, throughout January and February he focused on economic and political considerations of the outbreak.By mid-March, most global financial markets had severely contracted in response to the emerging pandemic. <mask> continued to claim that a vaccine was months away, although HHS and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials had repeatedly told him that vaccine development would take 12–18 months. <mask> also falsely claimed that "anybody that wants a test can get a test," despite the availability of tests being severely limited. On March 6, <mask> signed the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act into law, which provided $8.3 billion in emergency funding for federal agencies. On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized the spread of COVID-19 as a pandemic, and <mask> announced partial travel restrictions for most of Europe, effective March 13. That same day, he gave his first serious assessment of the virus in a nationwide Oval Office address, calling the outbreak "horrible" but "a temporary moment" and saying there was no financial crisis. On March 13, he declared a national emergency, freeing up federal resources.In September 2019, the <mask> administration terminated United States Agency for International Development's PREDICT program, a $200 million epidemiological research program initiated in 2009 to provide early warning of pandemics abroad. The program trained scientists in sixty foreign laboratories to detect and respond to viruses that have the potential to cause pandemics. One such laboratory was the Wuhan lab that first identified the virus that causes COVID-19. After revival in April 2020, the program was given two 6-month extensions to help fight COVID-19 in the U.S. and other countries. On April 22, <mask> signed an executive order restricting some forms of immigration to the United States. In late spring and early summer, with infections and death counts continuing to rise, he adopted a strategy of blaming the states for the growing pandemic, rather than accepting that his initial assessments of the course of the pandemic were overly-optimistic or his failure to provide presidential leadership. White House Coronavirus Task Force

<mask> established the White House Coronavirus Task Force on January 29, 2020.Beginning in mid-March, <mask> held a daily task force press conference, joined by medical experts and other administration officials, sometimes disagreeing with them by promoting unproven treatments. <mask> was the main speaker at the briefings, where he praised his own response to the pandemic, frequently criticized rival presidential candidate Joe Biden, and denounced the press. On March 16, he acknowledged for the first time that the pandemic was not under control and that months of disruption to daily lives and a recession might occur. His repeated use of the terms "Chinese virus" and "China virus" to describe COVID-19 drew criticism from health experts. By early April, as the pandemic worsened and amid criticism of his administration's response, <mask> refused to admit any mistakes in his handling of the outbreak, instead blaming the media, Democratic state governors, the previous administration, China, and the WHO. By mid-April 2020, some national news agencies began limiting live coverage of his daily press briefings, with The Washington Post reporting that "propagandistic and false statements from <mask> alternate with newsworthy pronouncements from members of his White House Coronavirus Task Force, particularly coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony S. Fauci". The daily coronavirus task force briefings ended in late April, after a briefing at which <mask> suggested the dangerous idea of injecting a disinfectant to treat COVID-19; the comment was widely condemned by medical professionals.In early May, <mask> proposed the phase-out of the coronavirus task force and its replacement with another group centered on reopening the economy. Amid a backlash, <mask> said the task force would "indefinitely" continue. By the end of May, the coronavirus task force's meetings were sharply reduced. World Health Organization
Prior to the pandemic, <mask> criticized the WHO and other international bodies, which he asserted were taking advantage of U.S. aid. His administration's proposed 2021 federal budget, released in February, proposed reducing WHO funding by more than half. In May and April, <mask> accused the WHO of "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus" and alleged without evidence that the organization was under Chinese control and had enabled the Chinese government's concealment of the origins of the pandemic. He then announced that he was withdrawing funding for the organization.<mask>'s criticisms and actions regarding the WHO were seen as attempts to distract attention from his own mishandling of the pandemic. In July 2020, <mask> announced the formal withdrawal of the United States from the WHO effective July 2021. The decision was widely condemned by health and government officials as "short-sighted", "senseless", and "dangerous". Testing
In June and July, <mask> said several times that the U.S. would have fewer cases of coronavirus if it did less testing, that having a large number of reported cases "makes us look bad". The CDC guideline at the time was that any person exposed to the virus should be "quickly identified and tested" even if they are not showing symptoms, because asymptomatic people can still spread the virus. In August 2020 the CDC quietly lowered its recommendation for testing, advising that people who have been exposed to the virus, but are not showing symptoms, "do not necessarily need a test". The change in guidelines was made by HHS political appointees under <mask> administration pressure, against the wishes of CDC scientists.The day after this political interference was reported, the testing guideline was changed back to its original recommendation, stressing that anyone who has been in contact with an infected person should be tested. Pressure to abandon pandemic mitigation measures
In April 2020, Republican-connected groups organized anti-lockdown protests against the measures state governments were taking to combat the pandemic; <mask> encouraged the protests on Twitter, even though the targeted states did not meet the <mask> administration's own guidelines for reopening. In April 2020, he first supported, then later criticized, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's plan to reopen some nonessential businesses. Throughout the spring he increasingly pushed for ending the restrictions as a way to reverse the damage to the country's economy. <mask> often refused to wear a face mask at public events, contrary to his own administration's April 2020 guidance that Americans should wear masks in public and despite nearly unanimous medical consensus that masks are important to preventing the spread of the virus. By June, <mask> had said masks were a "double-edged sword"; ridiculed Biden for wearing masks; continually emphasized that mask-wearing was optional; and suggested that wearing a mask was a political statement against him personally. <mask>'s contradiction of medical recommendations weakened national efforts to mitigate the pandemic.Despite record numbers of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. from mid-June onward and an increasing percentage of positive test results, <mask> largely continued to downplay the pandemic, including his false claim in early July 2020 that 99 percent of COVID-19 cases are "totally harmless". He also began insisting that all states should open schools to in-person education in the fall despite a July spike in reported cases. Political pressure on health agencies

<mask> repeatedly pressured federal health agencies to take actions he favored, such as approving unproven treatments or speeding up the approval of vaccines. <mask> administration political appointees at HHS sought to control CDC communications to the public that undermined <mask>'s claims that the pandemic was under control. CDC resisted many of the changes, but increasingly allowed HHS personnel to review articles and suggest changes before publication. <mask> alleged without evidence that FDA scientists were part of a "deep state" opposing him, and delaying approval of vaccines and treatments to hurt him politically. Outbreak at the White House

On October 2, 2020, <mask> announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19.He was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a severe case of the disease while continuing to downplay the virus. His wife, their son Barron, and numerous staff members and visitors also became infected. Effects on the 2020 presidential campaign
By July 2020, <mask>'s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic had become a major issue for the 2020 presidential election. Democratic challenger Joe Biden sought to make the pandemic the central issue of the election. Polls suggested voters blamed <mask> for his pandemic response and disbelieved his rhetoric concerning the virus, with an Ipsos/ABC News poll indicating 65 percent of respondents disapproved of his pandemic response. In the final months of the campaign, <mask> repeatedly claimed that the U.S. was "rounding the turn" in managing the pandemic, despite increasing numbers of reported cases and deaths. A few days before the November 3 election, the United States

masks: Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump


title: Donald Trump

texts:
 reported more than 100,000 cases in a single day for the first time.Investigations

After he assumed the presidency, <mask> was the subject of increasing Justice Department and congressional scrutiny, with investigations covering his election campaign, transition, and inauguration, actions taken during his presidency, along with his private businesses, personal taxes, and charitable foundation. There were 30 investigations of <mask>, including ten federal criminal investigations, eight state and local investigations, and twelve Congressional investigations. Hush money payments

During the 2016 presidential election campaign, American Media, Inc. (AMI), the parent company of the National Enquirer, and a company set up by <mask>'s attorney Michael Cohen paid Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film actress Stormy Daniels for keeping silent about their alleged affairs with <mask> between 2006 and 2007. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to breaking campaign finance laws, saying he had arranged both payments at the direction of <mask> to influence the presidential election. <mask> denied the affairs and claimed he was not aware of Cohen's payment to Daniels, but he reimbursed him in 2017. Federal prosecutors asserted that <mask> had been involved in discussions regarding non-disclosure payments as early as 2014. Court documents showed that the FBI believed <mask> was directly involved in the payment to Daniels, based on calls he had with Cohen in October 2016.Federal prosecutors closed the investigation in 2019, but the Manhattan District Attorney subpoenaed the Trump Organization and AMI for records related to the payments and <mask> and the Trump Organization for eight years of tax returns. Investigations of Russian election interference

In January 2017, American intelligence agencies—the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA, represented by the Director of National Intelligence—jointly stated with "high confidence" that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election to favor the election of <mask>. In March 2017, FBI Director James Comey told Congress "the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. That includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the <mask> campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts." The links between <mask> associates and Russian officials were widely reported by the press. One of <mask>'s campaign managers, Paul Manafort, worked from December 2004 to February 2010 to help pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovych win the Ukrainian presidency. Other <mask> associates, including former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and political consultant Roger Stone, were connected to Russian officials.Russian agents were overheard during the campaign saying they could use Manafort and Flynn to influence <mask>. Members of <mask>'s campaign and later his White House staff, particularly Flynn, were in contact with Russian officials both before and after the November election. On December 29, 2016, Flynn talked with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions that were imposed that same day; Flynn later resigned in the midst of controversy over whether he misled Pence. <mask> told Kislyak and Sergei Lavrov in May 2017 he was unconcerned about Russian interference in U.S. elections. <mask> and his allies promoted a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, rather than Russia, interfered in the 2016 election—which was also promoted by Russia to frame Ukraine. After the Democratic National Committee was hacked, <mask> first claimed it withheld "its server" from the FBI (in actuality there were more than 140 servers, of which digital copies were given to the FBI); second, that CrowdStrike, the company that investigated the servers, was Ukraine-based and Ukrainian-owned (in actuality, CrowdStrike is U.S.-based, with the largest owners being American companies); and third that "the server" was hidden in Ukraine. Members of the <mask> administration spoke out against the conspiracy theories.FBI Crossfire Hurricane and 2017 counterintelligence investigations

The Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation into possible links between Russia and the <mask> campaign was launched in July 2016 during the campaign season. After <mask> fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017, the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into <mask>'s personal and business dealings with Russia. Crossfire Hurricane was folded into the Mueller investigation, but deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein ended the other investigation while giving the bureau the false impression that Mueller would pursue it. Special counsel investigation

In May 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller, a former director of the FBI, special counsel for the Department of Justice (DOJ) ordering him to "examine 'any links and/or coordination between the Russian government' and the <mask> campaign." He privately told Mueller to restrict the investigation to criminal matters "in connection with Russia’s 2016 election interference". The special counsel also investigated whether <mask>'s dismissal of James Comey as FBI director constituted obstruction of justice and the <mask> campaign's possible ties to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Qatar, Israel, and China. <mask> denied collusion between his campaign and the Russian government.He sought to fire Mueller and shut down the investigation multiple times but backed down after his staff objected or after changing his mind. He bemoaned the recusal of Attorney General Sessions on Russia matters, stating that Sessions should have stopped the investigation. In March 2019, Mueller concluded his investigation and gave his report to Attorney General William Barr. Two days later, Barr sent a letter to Congress purporting to summarize the report's main conclusions. A federal court, as well as Mueller himself, said Barr had mischaracterized the investigation's conclusions, confusing the public. <mask> repeatedly and falsely claimed that the investigation exonerated him; the Mueller report expressly stated that it did not exonerate him. A redacted version of the report was publicly released in April 2019.It found that Russia interfered in 2016 to favor <mask>'s candidacy and hinder Clinton's. Despite "numerous links between the Russian government and the <mask> campaign", the prevailing evidence "did not establish" that <mask> campaign members conspired or coordinated with Russian interference. The report revealed sweeping Russian interference and detailed how <mask> and his campaign welcomed and encouraged it, believing they would politically benefit. The report also detailed multiple acts of potential obstruction of justice by <mask>, but opted not to make any "traditional prosecutorial judgment" on whether <mask> broke the law, suggesting that Congress should make such a determination. Investigators decided they could not "apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes" as an Office of Legal Counsel opinion stated that a sitting president could not be indicted, and investigators would not accuse him of a crime when he cannot clear his name in court. The report concluded that Congress, having the authority to take action against a president for wrongdoing, "may apply the obstruction laws". The House of Representatives subsequently launched an impeachment inquiry following the <mask>–Ukraine scandal, but did not pursue an article of impeachment related to the Mueller investigation.Several <mask> associates pleaded guilty or were convicted in connection with Mueller's investigation and related cases. Manafort, convicted on eight felony counts, deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, and Michael Flynn. <mask>'s former attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about <mask>'s 2016 attempts to reach a deal with Russia to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen said he had made the false statements on behalf of <mask>, who was identified as "Individual-1" in the court documents. In February 2020, <mask> campaign adviser Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison for lying to Congress and witness tampering regarding his attempts to learn more about hacked Democratic emails during the 2016 election. The sentencing judge said Stone "was prosecuted for covering up for the president". First impeachment

In August 2019, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community about a July 25 phone call between <mask> and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which <mask> had pressured Zelenskyy to investigate CrowdStrike and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, adding that the White House had attempted to cover-up the incident.The whistleblower stated that the call was part of a wider campaign by the <mask> administration and Giuliani that may have included withholding financial aid from Ukraine in July 2019 and canceling Pence's May 2019 Ukraine trip. <mask> later confirmed that he withheld military aid from Ukraine, offering contradictory reasons for the decision. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initiated a formal impeachment inquiry in September. The <mask> administration subsequently released a memorandum of the July 25 phone call, confirming that after Zelenskyy mentioned purchasing American anti-tank missiles, <mask> asked Zelenskyy to investigate and to discuss these matters with Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr. The testimony of multiple administration officials and former officials confirmed that this was part of a broader effort to further <mask>'s personal interests by giving him an advantage in the upcoming presidential election. In October, William B. Taylor Jr., the chargé d'affaires for Ukraine, testified before congressional committees that soon after arriving in Ukraine in June 2019, he found that Zelenskyy was being subjected to pressure directed by <mask> and led by Giuliani. According to Taylor and others, the goal was to coerce Zelenskyy into making a public commitment investigating the company that employed Hunter Biden, as well as rumors about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.He said it was made clear that until Zelenskyy made such an announcement, the administration would not release scheduled military aid for Ukraine and not invite Zelenskyy to the White House. On December 13, the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to pass two articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress. After debate, the House of Representatives impeached <mask> on both articles on December 18. Impeachment trial in the Senate

The Senate impeachment trial began on January 16, 2020. On January 22, the Republican Senate majority rejected amendments proposed by the Democratic minority to call witnesses and subpoena documents; evidence collected during the House impeachment proceedings was entered into the Senate record. For three days, January 22–24, the House impeachment managers presented their case to the Senate. They cited evidence to support charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and asserted that <mask>'s actions were exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when they created the Constitution's impeachment process.Responding over the next three days, <mask>'s lawyers did not deny the facts as presented in the charges but said <mask> had not broken any laws or obstructed Congress. They argued that the impeachment was "constitutionally and legally invalid" because <mask> was not charged with a crime and that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. On January 31, the Senate voted against allowing subpoenas for witnesses or documents; 51 Republicans formed the majority for this vote. The impeachment trial was the first in U.S. history without witness testimony. <mask> was acquitted of both charges by the Republican Senate majority, 52–48 on abuse of power and 53–47 on obstruction of Congress. Senator Mitt Romney was the only Republican who voted to convict <mask> on one of the charges, the abuse of power. Following his acquittal, <mask> fired impeachment witnesses and other political appointees and career officials he deemed insufficiently loyal.2020 presidential election

Breaking with precedent, <mask> filed to run for a second term with the FEC within a few hours of assuming the presidency. He held his first re-election rally less than a month after taking office and officially became the Republican nominee in August 2020. In his first two years in office, <mask>'s reelection committee reported raising $67.5 million and began 2019 with $19.3 million in cash. By July 2020, the <mask> campaign and the Republican Party had raised $1.1 billion and spent $800 million, losing their cash advantage over Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The cash shortage forced the campaign to scale back advertising spending. Starting in spring 2020, <mask> began to sow doubts about the election, claiming without evidence that the election would be rigged and that the expected widespread use of mail balloting would produce massive election fraud. In July <mask> raised the idea of delaying the election.When in August the House of Representatives voted for a $25 billion grant to the U.S. Postal Service for the expected surge in mail voting, <mask> blocked funding, saying he wanted to prevent any increase in voting by mail. He repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the results of the election and commit to a peaceful transition of power if he lost. <mask> campaign advertisements focused on crime, claiming that cities would descend into lawlessness if Biden won the presidency. <mask> repeatedly misrepresented Biden's positions and shifted to appeals to racism. Biden won the election on November 3, receiving 81.3 million votes (51.3 percent) to <mask>'s 74.2 million (46.8 percent) and 306 Electoral College votes to <mask>'s 232. Election aftermath

At 2 a.m. the morning after the election, with the results still unclear, <mask> declared victory.After Biden was projected the winner days later, <mask> said, "this election is far from over" and baselessly alleged election fraud. <mask> and his allies filed many legal challenges to the results, which were rejected by at least 86 judges in both the state and federal courts, including by federal judges appointed by <mask> himself, finding no factual or legal basis. <mask>'s unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voting fraud were also refuted by state election officials. After Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) director Chris Krebs contradicted <mask>'s fraud allegations, <mask> dismissed him on November 17. On December 11, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case from the Texas attorney general that asked the court to overturn the election results in four states won by Biden. <mask> withdrew from public activities in the weeks following the election. 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. <mask> still did not formally concede while claiming he recommended the GSA begin transition protocols. The Electoral College formalized Biden's victory on December 14. From November to January, <mask> repeatedly sought help to overturn the results of the election, personally pressuring various Republican local and state office-holders, Republican state and federal legislators, the Justice Department, and Vice President Pence, urging various actions such as replacing presidential electors, or a request for Georgia officials to "find" votes and announce a "recalculated" result. On February 10, 2021, Georgia prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into <mask>'s efforts to subvert the election in Georgia. <mask> did not attend Biden's inauguration, leaving Washington for Florida hours before. Concern about a possible coup attempt or military action
In December 2020, Newsweek reported the Pentagon was on red alert, and ranking officers had discussed what they would do if <mask> decided to declare martial law.The Pentagon responded with quotes from defense leaders that the military has no role to play in the outcome of the election. When <mask> moved supporters into positions of power at the Pentagon after the November 2020 election, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and CIA director Gina Haspel became concerned about the threat of a possible coup attempt or military action against China or Iran. Milley insisted that he should be consulted about any military orders from <mask>, including the use of nuclear weapons, and he instructed Haspel and NSA director Paul Nakasone to monitor developments closely. 2021 Capitol attack

On January 6, 2021, while congressional certification of the presidential election results was taking place in the United States Capitol, <mask> held a rally at the Ellipse, where he called for the election result to be overturned and urged his supporters to "take back our country" by marching to the Capitol to "show strength" and "fight like hell". <mask>'s speech started at noon. By 12:30p.m., rally attendees had gathered outside the Capitol, and at 1p.m., his supporters pushed past police barriers onto Capitol grounds. <mask>'s speech ended at 1:10p.m., and many supporters marched to the Capitol as he had urged, joining the crowd there.Around 2:15p.m. the mob broke into the building, disrupting certification and causing the evacuation of Congress. During the violence, <mask> posted mixed messages on Twitter and Facebook, eventually tweeting to the rioters at 6p.m., "go home with love & in peace", but describing them as "great patriots" and "very special", while still complaining that the election was stolen. After the mob was removed from the Capitol, Congress reconvened and confirmed the Biden election win in the early hours of the following morning. There were many injuries, and five people, including a Capitol Police officer, died.

masks: Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump