Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an
American businessman, politician, television personality, author, and candidate for the
Republican nomination for
President of the United States in the
2016 election.
Trump is the Chairman and
President of
The Trump Organization, and the founder of the gaming and hotel enterprise,
Trump Entertainment Resorts, now owned by
Carl Icahn.
Trump is from
Queens in
New York City, and is a son of real estate developer,
Fred Trump. While attending college, Trump worked for his father's firm,
Elizabeth Trump & Son. Upon graduating from college in
1968, he joined the company, and in
1971 was given control, renaming the company "The Trump Organization". Since then, Trump has built casinos, golf courses, hotels, and other properties, many of which bear his name.
Trump and his businesses, as well as his three marriages, have received prominent media exposure. He hosted
The Apprentice, a popular
NBC reality show, from 2004 to
2015.
Trump first campaigned for the
U.S. presidency in
2000, winning two
Reform Party primaries. On June 16, 2015, he again announced his candidacy for president, this time as a
Republican. Trump became known for his opposition to illegal immigration and free trade agreements, as well as his frequently non-interventionist views on foreign policy, and quickly emerged as the Republican nomination front-runner.
As of March 23, 2016, he has won 21 contests in the 2016
Republican presidential primaries.
Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, one of New York City's five boroughs.He is the fourth of five children to
Mary Anne (née MacLeod; 1912–2000), a homemaker and philanthropist, and Fred Trump (
1905–
1999), who worked as a real estate developer. His mother was born at
Tong on the
Scottish island of
Lewis and Harris. In
1930, aged 18, she visited the
United States and met Fred Trump. They were married in 1936 and settled in
Jamaica Estates, Queens, as Fred Trump eventually became one of the city's biggest real estate developers. Trump has one living brother,
Robert (born 1948), and two living sisters: Maryanne (born
1937) and
Elizabeth (born
1942). Maryanne is a
United States federal judge on senior status for the
United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit. Another brother,
Fred Jr. (
1938–
1981), died of complications from alcoholism.
Trump's father was born in
Woodhaven, Queens, to Elizabeth (née Christ) and
Frederick Trump, immigrants who moved to the United States from Kallstadt,
Germany in 1885.
Frederick worked as a successful
Klondike Gold Rush restaurateur and brothel keeper. In a
1976 New York Times biographical profile, and again in his
1987 book,
The Art of the Deal, Trump incorrectly stated that Frederick Trump was of
Swedish origin, an assertion that Fred Trump made for many years ostensibly because "he had a lot of
Jewish tenants and it wasn't a good thing to be
German", according to a nephew identified as a family historian by
The New York Times. Donald Trump later acknowledged his
German ancestry and served as grand marshal of the 1999
German-American Steuben Parade in New York City.
The family had a two-story mock
Tudor Revival home on
Wareham Place in
Jamaica Estates, where Trump lived while attending
The Kew-Forest School. At Kew-Forest, Fred Trump served as a member of the
Board of Trustees. Due to behavior problems, Trump left the school at age 13 and was enrolled in the
New York Military Academy (
NYMA). In
1983, Fred told an interviewer that
Donald "was a pretty rough fellow when he was small." Trump finished eighth grade and high school at NYMA.During his senior year, Trump participated in marching drills and wore a uniform, attaining the rank of captain. 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. He entered the
Wharton School of Business at the
University of Pennsylvania, as
Wharton then offered one of the few real estate studies departments in
U.S. academia. While there, he worked at his father's company, Elizabeth Trump & Son.Trump graduated from Wharton in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics.
- published: 12 Apr 2016
- views: 32