Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, reality television personality, and politician who is President-elect of the United States as well as chairman and president of The Trump Organization, the principal holding company for his real estate ventures and other business interests. During his career, Trump has built office towers, hotels, casinos, golf courses, and other branded facilities worldwide. He was elected as the 45th U.S. president in the 2016 election, defeating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and will take office on January 20, 2017. At 70 years old, Trump will be the oldest person to assume the presidency.

Trump was born and raised in New York City and received a bachelor's degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. In 1971 he was given control of his father Fred Trump's real estate and construction firm and later renamed it The Trump Organization, rising to public prominence shortly thereafter. Trump has appeared at the Miss USA pageants, which he owned from 1996 to 2015, and has made cameo appearances in films and television series. He sought the Reform Party presidential nomination in 2000, but withdrew before voting began. He hosted and co-produced The Apprentice, a reality television series on NBC, from 2004 to 2015. As of 2016, he was listed by Forbes as the 324th wealthiest person in the world, and 156th in the United States, with a net worth of $3.7 billion in October 2016.^[3]

In June 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for president as a Republican and quickly emerged as the front-runner for his party's nomination. In May 2016, his remaining Republican rivals suspended their campaigns, and in July he was formally nominated for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Trump's campaign received unprecedented media coverage and international attention. Many of his statements in interviews, on Twitter, and at campaign rallies have been controversial or false. Several rallies during the primaries were accompanied by protests or riots. On October 7, a 2005 audio recording surfaced in which Trump bragged about forcibly kissing and groping women or being able to do so; multiple women accused him of similar conduct shortly thereafter. He apologized for the 2005 comments and denied the allegations, describing them as part of a wider smear campaign.

Trump's platform included renegotiation of U.S.–China trade deals, opposition to particular trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, stronger enforcement of immigration laws together with building a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border, reform of veterans' care, repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, and tax cuts. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, Trump called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, later stating that the ban would focus instead on countries with a proven history of terrorism, until the screening for potential terrorists is improved.

HIS EARLY LIFE

Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Jamaica, Queens, a neighborhood in New York City.^[4] He was the second youngest child of five children. Of his four siblings, three are living: Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert. Trump's older brother Fred Jr. died in 1981 from alcoholism, which Trump says led him to avoid trying alcohol or cigarettes.^[5]

Trump is of German ancestry on his father's side and Scottish ancestry on his mother's side; all four of his grandparents were born in Europe. His father Fred Trump (1905–1999) was born in Queens to parents from Kallstadt, Germany and became one of the biggest real estate developers in New York City.^[6][7] His mother, Mary Trump (née MacLeod, 1912–2000), was born in Tong, Lewis, Scotland.^[8] Fred and Mary met in New York and married in 1936, settling together in Queens.^[8][9] His uncle John G. Trump, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1936 to 1973, was involved in radar research for the Allies in the Second World War, helped design X-ray machines that provided additional years of life to cancer patients, and in 1943, the Federal Bureau of Investigation requested him to examine Nikola Tesla's papers and equipment when Tesla died in his room at the New Yorker Hotel.^[10] Trumps' grandfather was Frederick Trump who amassed a fortune operating operating boom-town restaurants and boarding houses in the region of Seattle and Klondike, Canada. ^[11]

Drumpf, the family's ancestral name, evolved to Trump during the Thirty Years' War in the 17th century.^[12] Trump has said that he is proud of his German heritage; he served as grand marshal of the 1999 German-American Steuben Parade in New York City

The family had a two-story Tudor Revival home on Midland Parkway in Jamaica Estates, where Trump lived while attending The Kew-Forest School.^[16] Due to behavior problems, Trump left the school at age 13 and was enrolled in the New York Military Academy (NYMA),^[17] where he finished eighth grade and high school. In 1983, Fred Trump told an interviewer that Donald "was a pretty rough fellow when he was small."^[18] Trump participated in marching drills, wore a uniform, and during his senior year attained the rank of captain. He was transferred from a student command position after the alleged hazing of a new freshman in his barracks by one of Trump's subordinates; Trump describes the transfer as "a promotion".^[19] In 2015, he told a biographer that NYMA gave him "more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military"

Trump attended Fordham University in the Bronx for two years, beginning in August 1964. He then transferred to the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania, which offered one of the few real estate studies departments in United States academia.^[21][22] While there, he worked at the family's company, Elizabeth Trump & Son, named for his paternal grandmother.^[23] Trump graduated from Wharton in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in Economics.^[22][24][25]

Trump was not drafted during the Vietnam War.^[26] While in college from 1964 to 1968, he obtained four student deferments.^[27] In 1966, he was deemed fit for service based upon a military medical examination, and in 1968 was briefly classified as fit by a local draft board, but was given a 1-Y medical deferment in October 1968.^[28] In an interview for a 2015 biography, Trump attributed his medical deferment to heel spurs.^[20] In December 1969 Trump received a high number in the draft lottery, which would also have exempted him from service.