Donald Trump rose to worldwide fame when his surprise victory in the 2016 Presidential election granted him the keys to the White House. Billions will recognise him for his outspoken views and viral moments, but here’s what you might not know about him.
- The famous red Make America Great Again caps were making the campaign $80k a day during Trump’s first run for President, according to his son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Trump Store currently sells them at $50, with the Washington Post estimating that each item costs about $2-$3 to produce.
- Trump is a history maker. When he was elected in 2016, he was the first President never to have held elected office before becoming commander in chief. If he is elected again tonight, he will be the first sitting President to have been convicted of a criminal offence. He was found guilty of 34 felonies over the handling of “hush money” payments during the 2016 race.
- The former President is a teetotaller. He has never drunk a glass of alcohol, after seeing the effects of drinking on his older brother, Freddy, who was an alcoholic and died at the age of 43.
- President Trump’s father, Fred, is the child of German immigrants and his mother, Mary, is a Scottish immigrant. Last December, Trump said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and has consistently campaigned for tighter restrictions on the US border.
- He has his own board game, Trump: The Game, in which players compete to buy property and sell them to the highest bidder. Trump entered the real estate business with a “small” $1 million loan from his father, after gaining a degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
- In 2005, Trump University was set up. It offered a real estate training programme and lessons on wealth creation. Despite its name, it never earned an educational accreditation and became defunct in 2011, mired in lawsuits for illegal business practices.
- Home Alone 2 isn’t his only on-screen appearance. He’s also starred in an acting role in Zoolander, Ghosts Can’t Do It and The Little Rascals.
- Trump won 2.9 million fewer votes than Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election, but he was elected under the Electoral College system. He overturned the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan and beat Clinton by 304 electoral votes to 227.
- In a scathing 2020 memoir by Mary Trump, Donald’s niece, she wrote that he had all the symptoms of narcissism. She wrote that Fred Trump (his father) had “‘destroyed him” by disrupting his “ability to develop and experience the entire spectrum of human emotion”. President Trump rejected the claims in the book and unsuccessfully attempted to block its publication while he was in office.
- Despite calling Kim Jong-un a “little rocket man” shortly after taking office, the pair grew closer during Trump’s time in office – culminating in him offering the North Korean leader a ride on Air Force One. In a series of 27 letters exchanged between the two leaders, Kim describes a “deep and special friendship” that will work as a “‘magical force”. Trump wrote that seeing Kim again would be “reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.”
Main image courtesy of Gage Skidmore