Donald Trump (1946–) has served as 45th and 47th President of the United States, was the first to be impeached twice and the second president to serve non-consecutive terms. His openly incendiary rhetoric on race, immigration, and border security—as well as his flirtations with white supremacist groups—helped bring far-right extremism into the political mainstream.
Trump first came to national attention in 1973, when the Department of Justice, under the Nixon administration, sued the Trump Management Corporation for systematic discrimination against Black renters. In 1989, he gained notoriety by taking out full-page newspaper ads demanding “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” in response to the case of the Central Park Five—five teenagers of color wrongfully accused of rape and later fully exonerated by DNA evidence.
Shifting his family’s operations from outer-borough rentals to high-profile Manhattan developments, Trump launched Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in 1983, followed by a string of branded properties including Trump Place, Trump World Tower, and international towers in Mumbai, Istanbul, and Manila. His ventures into hospitality and gaming were less successful, culminating in four major bankruptcies.
Trump became a household name less through real estate than through entertainment. In 1996, he acquired the Miss Universe Organization, which oversaw the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA pageants. His public profile expanded further in 2004 with the debut of The Apprentice, a reality television show in which contestants competed for a position within Trump’s business empire. He hosted the series for 14 seasons and remained closely associated with the pageants until stepping away from both during his 2016 presidential campaign. According to financial disclosures, NBC paid him a total of $213 million over the course of the show’s run.
Trump expressed interest in running for president as early as 1987 and briefly entered the 2000 race as a Reform Party candidate. Following Barack Obama’s election, he became one of the most prominent voices in the racist “birther” movement, which falsely claimed Obama had not been born in the United States. Trump officially launched his 2015 campaign with a speech declaring that Mexican immigrants were “rapists” who were “bringing crime” and “bringing drugs” into the country. His campaign centered on building a wall along the southern border to stop immigration. At a 2016 Republican debate, when asked whether he believed all 1.6 billion Muslims hated the United States, he replied: “I mean a lot of them. I mean a lot of them.”
The first Trump administration was marked by draconian immigration policies, including a 2017 executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries—a version of which was later upheld by the Supreme Court despite widespread outcry. Trump cultivated close relationships with far-right nationalist leaders, including India’s Narendra Modi, with whom he vowed to “destroy radical Islamic terrorism,” and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who called him “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.” Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, proposed a heavily one-sided “peace plan” that permitted the annexation of 30% of the West Bank, and became the first sitting U.S. president to pray at the Western Wall.
Trump was impeached in 2019 for attempting to pressure Ukrainian officials into investigating his political rival, Joe Biden, but was acquitted by the Senate. After losing the 2020 election, he refused to concede, promoting baseless claims of widespread fraud. These conspiracy theories helped incite the violent January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol—an attempted coup that led to his second impeachment. Once again, he was acquitted. His false claims were amplified by far-right media networks, including The Epoch Times, operated by the Falun Gong movement, which embraced Trump for his hardline anti-Chinese Communist Party stance.
Despite attempting a coup, Trump retained hero status in right-wing circles, particularly at gatherings like CPAC. In 2024, he was re-elected president without winning an outright majority. Many leaders within the Charismatic Christian movement, including Lance Wallnau, framed Trump’s political struggles in terms of biblical prophecy, casting him as a divinely anointed figure in a cosmic struggle between good and evil.
