Donald Trump

Donald Trump's first term made him the 45th president, from January 2017 to January 2021. He was a Republican whose home state was listed as New York (he later made Florida his home). Before politics he was a real-estate businessman and the TV host of The Apprentice. He was the first president who had never served in the military and had never held elected office. Washington through Obama had been generals, governors, members of Congress, or Cabinet officers; Trump skipped that ladder. His slogan for the first-term program was America First — trade, immigration, and alliances were supposed to serve U.S. interests first. His vice president was Mike Pence, the former governor of Indiana.

In 2017 he signed a big tax cut that lowered the corporate rate and changed many individual taxes. He appointed three Supreme Court justices: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The Abraham Accords were peace deals that normalized ties between Israel and several Arab states. The United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in 2018. He used tariffs — taxes on imported goods — heavily against China. He wanted a wall, or barrier, along the southern border. The First Step Act reformed federal prison and sentencing rules in a bipartisan bill. Operation Warp Speed was a government push that helped COVID-19 vaccines arrive in months, not years.

The House impeached him twice in the first term; the Senate acquitted him both times, so he was not removed. Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Trump disputed the result; courts did not overturn it. On January 6, 2021, a crowd broke in at the U.S. Capitol while Congress was counting electoral votes. The count paused, then finished that night. That is one civic fact of the first term — not the whole term. After losing in 2020, Trump ran again and won the presidency in 2024. He is the second person, after Grover Cleveland, to win a non-consecutive second term.