78-year-old Donald Trump oldest person to be elected US president

New York:

Donald Trump went from being a businessman, real estate mogul and reality TV star to becoming the country’s first former US president to be declared a convicted felon.

And after surviving two assassination attempts during his 2024 campaign, the 78-year-old remains unstoppable with American voters giving him a second term. In the process, he crushed the dream of the Democratic Party, as well as millions of Kamala Harris supporters, to finally have the first female president in the White House.

He is now the oldest person in American history to be elected president.

From the time he left office following his loss in the 2020 presidential election to his nomination as the Republican nominee in the 2024 race, Trump continued to dominate the American news cycle and the nation’s psyche.

He refused to accept the November 2020 result that brought Joe Biden to the White House, and a stunned nation watched his supporters storm the US capital on January 6. The riots disrupted a joint session of the US Congress, which was in the process of certifying the results of the presidential election.

His third run for the job in 2024 was marked by a series of indictments and criminal cases and a conviction in a New York court – making him the first former US president to be found guilty of a crime.

A grand jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business documents. The Biden-Harris campaign said at the time that no one is above the law, while Trump called the ruling the result of a “rigged” political system.

Yet none of this could deter his ardent supporters who rallied behind him and his policies.

That ferocious support was on full display in Milwaukee in July, when Trump, wearing a bandaged ear after surviving an assassination attempt, arrived at the Republican National Convention to formally accept the party’s nomination for president for a third consecutive term.

Trump was hit by a bullet in the upper part of his right ear when a shooter fired several shots at his campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

He was born in Queens, New York, on June 14, 1946, to Mary and Fred Trump, a successful real estate developer, the fourth of their five children. He earned a degree in finance from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania in 1968.

After taking over his father’s business in 1971, he renamed it the Trump Organization and soon diversified into projects such as hotels, resorts, residential and commercial buildings, casinos and golf courses. Trump also tried Reality TV with ‘The Apprentice’ in 2004, making him a household name in America.

Trump married Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech athlete and model, but divorced her in 1990. The couple has three children – Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric.

He then married actress Marla Maples in 1993 but divorced in 1999. They have one child, Tiffany. Trump’s current wife Melania, whom he married in 2005, is a former Slovenian model. They have one son, Barron William Trump.

In the 2016 presidential election, campaigning as a Republican presidential candidate, Trump won over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The 2024 election took place amid concerns over the economy, illegal immigration and the wars in West Asia and Europe. Trump’s base of support saw him as the only one who could offer solutions to these.

“I will end the illegal immigration crisis by closing our border and completing the wall, most of which I have already built,” Trump told cheering supporters at his party’s national convention, referring to the country’s southern border.

He promised that if he returned to the White House, “inflation will disappear completely”.

Trump vowed to end the war between Russia and Ukraine after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reached out to congratulate him on his Republican presidential nomination.

“I, as your next President of the United States, will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives and destroyed countless innocent families. Both sides will be able to come together and negotiate an agreement that ends the violence and paving a path to prosperity,” Trump said.

The four years of his second presidency will not only define how America deals with its pressing domestic issues, it may also dictate its place in the world. The world is watching.

(With the exception of the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)