Donald J Trump Obituary

 

 

Donald John Trump, who has died from XXXXXXXXX at the age of XX was a political bulldozer, holding the title of being the oldest President to ever be inaugurated in the United States of America and only the second President to have non-consecutive terms, having lost the 2020 election to Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. before being reelected in the 2024 election after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt. His term slashed at conventions, traditions, and precedents of his predecessors, leading a wave of populist nationalism politics that swept across the entire world, inspiring many aspiring and incumbent politicians. His rejection of nonpartisan politics and strong insistence on loyalty to the Republican party made him a divisive President with both strong opposition and fanatical fervor resulting in The Cold Civil War (2016-2028).

Donald J. Trump was born to Fred Trump, a successful real estate developer born in New York, and Mary Anne Macleod Trump, born in Tong, Scotland, who had immigrated to the US and worked as a maid in New York before marrying Fred Trump.

Prior to his political career, Donald J. Trump was a businessman in Real Estate with a side hustle in entertainment. After getting a Bachelor of Science in economics, he had the great fortune of being exempted from the draft during the Vietnam War for bone spurs in his heels, allowing him to be employed at his father’s real estate company, Trump Management, in 1968. In only 3 years, he became the President and renamed the company as the Trump Organization. Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan was completed in 1983 after taking over the Bonwit Teller flagship store and became his primary penthouse residence for Donald Trump until 2019, and the Trump Organization. It was also the setting for The Apprentice and was a popular tourist attraction. His most recent construction project was the Trump International Hotel and Tower in 2008.

Trump’s venture into the entertainment industry started from humble beginnings with a costly investment into a Broadway Comedy in 1970, but in 1996 was the owner of the Miss Universe pageants, such as Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, even earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Trump has done several cameos from 1985 to 2001 and published 19 books. In the 1990s, he was a guest on the Howard Stern Show and had a talk radio program, Trumped!, from 2004 to 2008. However, Trump’s foray into entertainment is best known for the hosting of The Apprentice from 2004 to 2015, introducing the world to his catchphrase “You’re Fired!” in one of the most-watched programs on NBC.

Trump began his political career in 1988, when he asked to be considered to be George H. W. Bush’s running mate and had been a candidate in the 2000 Reform Party presidential primaries. He briefly considered running against President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, but announced he would not run in May 2011. Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 election was based on his persona as a successful businessman and a wild card that would shake up traditional politics. Trump’s platform was largely based on nationalistic values, with priorities on energy independence, renegotiating or eliminating agreements he believed were unfair to the United States, and famously enforcing immigration laws via building a wall on the US-Mexico border. Breaking tradition, he refused to release his tax returns, which had been done by every major candidate since 1976, and won the presidency against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as the fifth President to be elected despite losing the popular vote and the only president without experience in the military or having held government office prior. After losing against Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. and a disappointing attempt to overthrow the election, Trump won his reelection against Kamala Harris, this time with the popular vote.

Trump is a self-proclaimed nationalist, famously saying, “I am a nationalist,” while supporting Ted Cruz for a midterm election. Trump ran on the tagline, “America First,” emphasizing his belief that policies should solely be based on US interests and development, with particular concern for US independence in production in an ever more internationally connected world. The United States imported 17% of its energy supply in 2024, having been declining since its peak in 2006 at 34%. Trump highly prioritized energy independence in the United States, attempting to increase coal mining and oil drilling and roll back environmental regulations in both states and internationally, most famously declaring the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, making the US the only country in the world to not be part of the agreement until Iran, Libya, and Yemen also left.

Trump has also wanted to encourage increasing production in the US, which has shifted towards a service economy since the 1970s. Manufacturing output in the US peaked in 2024, but jobs did not follow due to the preference for automation and the use of cheap overseas labor compared to the more highly paid, often unionized workers. Trump has attempted to bolster these numbers by increasing tax incentives, deregulating industrial sectors, and applying retaliatory tariffs to virtually all other countries in the world to encourage factories to be built on US soil and retaliate against countries wary of cheap imports crushing their own manufacturing economies. Unfortunately, Trump did not survive to see if his efforts had succeeded due to the constant loopholes and insecure future of his tariffs, causing many industry leaders to take a wait-and-see approach and the multi-year durations it takes to establish the facilities he encouraged, but time will tell in the coming years.

Trump has made no secret of his distrust of immigrants and has made the punishment of illegal immigration and the strict leash on legal immigrants a high priority during his administration. Trump’s first presidency was largely built on the idea of creating a wall between the US and Mexico and insisting that Mexico would pay for its construction. By the end of his first term, a new primary barrier of steel slats was built spanning 438 miles of the 1,954 mile wall, with approximately 50 miles being brand new areas rather than replacements and during his second presidency, $46.5 billion have been allocated for the completion of the wall compared to Biden’s construction of only 20 miles of additional wall during his presidency. Unauthorized immigration has been declining since 2007 and reached a minimum in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Immigration sharply rose afterwards, with many Trump supporters claiming it was due to Biden’s policies, and detractors arguing it was due to the buildup from the COVID pandemic and the decline of several Latin American countries. Trump’s 2nd presidency began with 181 executive actions to reduce immigration and deport non-citizens, with the first decline in immigration population since 1960 measured in June 2025. Controversially, Trump’s second presidency led to a surge of aggressive arrests and deportation of illegal immigrations regardless of cooperation and several attempts to bypass due process in order to achieve his goal of 1 million deportations a year, stating that it would, “take, without exaggeration, 200 years.” After struggling with the limits of due process, Trump turned to encourage self-deportation via app and monetary rewards and the construction of immigrant detention centers, most notably Alligator Alcatraz, though it was quickly shut down months after announcement by a Judge for National Environmental Policy Act violations costing Florida millions of dollars to close and millions more if it is reopened.

Legal immigration was also discouraged during Trump’s presidency due to his concerns about whether immigrants reflect American values. Visa lengths have been restricted, and travelers to the US are required to pay $250 integrity fees. Since August, Trump’s administration has begun reviewing people with valid US visas for violations that can lead to deportation, though took a step back on immigrant farm workers after some pushback from the industry. Trump challenged the past interpretation of the 14th Amendment that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the Jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” despite 127 years of precedent, and brought it up to the Supreme Court for possible reversal. Trump’s Justice Department is also working on the denaturalization of citizens and the revocation of Visas of those who took part in pro-Palestinian protests or displayed hostility towards the US or its people on social media.

Outside of the United States’ borders, Trump wanted to reduce US involvement in the politics and conflicts of foreign nations. During Trump’s first presidency, he followed Obama’s footsteps, withdrawing troops in Iraq with his own withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Syria, breaking the alliance with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS, and substituting it with a threat to destroy the Turkish economy. Trump had also begun the removal of US involvement from other conflicts, such as between Israel and Gaza and Ukraine and Russia, taking little action beyond setting up meetings and posting opinions on social media. But don’t mistake Trump’s disinterest in other countries’ conflicts for an aversion to war. Trump renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War because of his strong belief that the US should take advantage of its military superiority in negotiations. This was most prominently displayed from his preemptive missile strikes on Iran to pressure peace between Israel and Iran, recalling back to his origins as a proposed running mate to President Bush and the successor to President Bush, and his encouragement for Ukraine to do the same to Russia.

The United States government has long been based on traditions and conventions alongside the written law, from the first presidency of George Washington, who chose to create the precedent of 2 terms for Presidents by his refusal to run for a 3rd term. However, Trump led a declaration of Law and Order during his presidency and emphasized the following of the letter of the law over the spirit of the law. Trump’s political actions have primarily revolved around the use of executive actions and emergency powers that grant the President the ability to make temporary policies that Congress could not enact urgently under the condition that Congress must approve their continuance. This has largely tempered President Trump’s ability to use tariffs, particularly as bargaining chips with other countries, and conflicts with Congress’s power of the purse when he attempted to unilaterally withhold money towards foreign aid using a word-of-the-law loophole to hold it until it expires. Learning from his mistakes during the January 6 insurrection in which the deployment of the National Guard was delayed for 3 hours before being called by Vice President Mike Pence, Trump began the practice of the deployment of the National Guard from several states to Washington DC to discourage crime and taking over Washington DC’s law enforcement resulting in both large numbers of arrest and protests, overwhelming the court system with suspects. Trump proudly declared that his takeover led to “no murders in 11 days” on August 25th, 2025, before a man was fatally shot in Washington on August 26th, 2025.

Opposition to Trump’s presidency was not light in both terms. Both of his elections were marred by mass protests across the country, and 78% of his proposals were blocked by courts in his first presidency. Trump’s Presidency coincided with the George Floyd protests, notably in which tear gas and crowd control were used to remove protesters from Lafayette Square in June 2020, while Trump simultaneously posed with a Bible at the St. John’s Episcopal Church nearby. Trump’s involvement in the United States Army's 250th anniversary to shift its celebration to a military parade was purposefully coincident with a nationwide No Kings protests, resulting in a disappointing event, and led to a follow-up Navy parade.

Trump’s legacy will influence the political world internationally as a wave of nationalism and its opposition. His effect on US policy is uncertain, as most of his political activities were in the form of temporary executive orders rather than congressional acts. His first presidency had signs that his impact may not be long lasting such as the immediate rise in immigration shortly after his first term, but he was able to appoint the supreme court judges that ended the right to abortion in the United States and secured legal immunity for future Presidents thus the question of what his full legacy will be can only be seen in time. His successor, JD Vance, has declared that his experience as Trump’s Vice President leaves him confident he can step up as his replacement through this tragedy. Trump is survived by five children: Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Melania Trump, and 11 grandchildren.