10 Interesting Facts About Donald Trump

What are some interesting facts about Donald Trump? Donald Trump was born on Flag Day (June 14, 1946), is the son of a Scottish immigrant mother, and was the first US president with no prior military or political office experience before his election in 2016. He hosted The Apprentice for 14 seasons, co-wrote one of the best-selling business books in American history, was the first president to be impeached twice, became the oldest person ever elected US president (at age 78 in November 2024), and in May 2024 became the first former US president to be convicted of felony crimes.

Donald Trump served as the 45th President of the United States from January 2017 to January 2021, and was elected as the 47th President in November 2024, beginning his second term in January 2025. His career spans real estate, television, publishing, and politics across more than five decades. Below are ten verified, factual details about his life and career that go beyond the headlines.

1. He Was Born on Flag Day — the Same Day as the US Army

Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York City. June 14 is Flag Day in the United States — the annual commemoration of the adoption of the American flag by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. It is also, by proclamation, the birthday of the United States Army, which was established by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775.

Trump has noted the Flag Day coincidence on multiple occasions. He was the fourth of five children born to Fred Trump Sr. and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, and grew up in the Jamaica Estates neighbourhood of Queens in a substantial colonial-revival house his father had built.

2. His Mother Was a Scottish Immigrant from a Remote Island

Mary Anne MacLeod — Donald Trump’s mother — was born on May 10, 1912, in Tong, a small village on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. She was one of ten children in a Gaelic-speaking family and emigrated to the United States in 1930 at age 18, initially working as a domestic servant in New York.

She married Fred Trump Sr. in 1936 and became a naturalised US citizen in 1942. She died in 2000.

The Isle of Lewis is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the British Isles. The village of Tong, where she was born, still has a population of only a few hundred people. Trump has described his Scottish heritage with pride and in 2012 opened a golf resort, Trump International Golf Links, near Aberdeen, Scotland — not far from where his mother grew up.

3. His Paternal Grandfather Emigrated from Germany — and the Family Name Was Once Drumpf

On his father’s side, Trump’s heritage is German. His paternal grandfather, Friedrich Drumpf (later anglicised to Frederick Trump), was born in Kallstadt, Bavaria (now part of Germany) in 1869 and emigrated to the United States in 1902. The original family surname was Drumpf — a surname common in the Kallstadt region — which was anglicised to Trump over generations.

Friedrich made his fortune running restaurants and boarding houses in the Pacific Northwest during the Klondike Gold Rush era, accumulating enough capital to return to Germany briefly before settling permanently in New York. He died in the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr., became a major real estate developer in New York, and it was this family business that Donald Trump would eventually inherit and expand.

4. He Is a Lifelong Teetotaler Who Does Not Drink Alcohol or Smoke

Despite operating numerous casinos, hotels, and entertainment venues throughout his business career, Donald Trump has never consumed alcohol and has never smoked cigarettes or used tobacco. He is one of very few prominent figures in the hospitality and entertainment industries to maintain this stance throughout an entire career in those sectors.

Trump has been open about the reason: the death of his older brother Fred Trump Jr., who struggled with alcoholism throughout his adult life and died in 1981 at age 43. Trump has described his brother’s death as formative and has said it was Fred Jr. who explicitly advised him never to drink. In multiple interviews over the decades, Trump has credited his brother’s struggle as the reason he made a firm decision in his youth never to start.

This is a less-known aspect of Trump’s personal life — a man who built his brand around luxury, excess, and entertainment nonetheless maintained strict personal abstinence from alcohol for his entire adult life.

5. He Hosted The Apprentice for 14 Seasons, Earning Emmy Nominations

Before his entry into electoral politics, Donald Trump was a television celebrity as the host of The Apprentice, a reality competition show that premiered on NBC on January 8, 2004. The format placed contestants in business challenges, with the losing project manager each episode hearing Trump’s signature phrase: “You’re fired.”

The original series ran for eight seasons (2004–2007), with Trump as host. A celebrity spin-off, The Celebrity Apprentice, ran for a further six seasons (2008–2015), also hosted by Trump. In total, Trump was the face of the franchise for 14 seasons and approximately 187 episodes.

The Apprentice was a genuine hit. Its first season averaged over 20 million viewers per episode and was one of the highest-rated shows on American television that year. The show received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program. Trump’s television profile from the show significantly elevated his national name recognition outside of real estate circles, a profile that contributed directly to his political viability when he announced his presidential candidacy in June 2015.

6. The Art of the Deal Is One of the Best-Selling Business Books in American History

Published in November 1987, Trump: The Art of the Deal spent 51 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, including 13 weeks at number one. It has sold millions of copies and remains in print nearly four decades after publication — an unusual longevity for a business autobiography.

The book was co-written with journalist Tony Schwartz, who later stated publicly that he wrote the vast majority of the text after extensive interviews with Trump. Schwartz has been publicly critical of the book in subsequent years, expressing regret about the image of Trump it helped construct.

The Art of the Deal introduced several concepts and phrases that entered the broader business lexicon, including “truthful hyperbole” — Trump’s own term for what he describes as innocent exaggeration in business promotion. The book presented Trump as a deal-making pragmatist whose success came from bold action, rapid negotiation, and willingness to take risks that more cautious competitors avoided.

7. He Was the First US President With No Prior Military or Political Office Experience

Every US president before Donald Trump had held either a prior elected political office (senator, governor, congressman, vice president) or had served as a senior military officer (general or higher) before assuming the presidency. In many cases, presidents had held both.

Donald Trump was the first person elected to the US presidency with absolutely no prior military service and no prior electoral political experience of any kind. He had never run for, or been elected to, any political office — local, state, or federal — before winning the 2016 presidential election. He went from private citizen and businessman to President of the United States in a single election cycle.

This was historically unprecedented across 45 presidents. The previous closest parallels — Dwight D. Eisenhower (no political office, but Supreme Allied Commander in WWII) and William Howard Taft (never elected to office before, but had served as Secretary of War) — still had extensive prior government experience. Trump had none.

8. He Was the First US President to Be Impeached Twice

Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives twice — a distinction no other US president has held.

First impeachment (December 18, 2019): The House voted to impeach Trump on two articles — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — related to a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump was alleged to have conditioned military aid on Ukraine announcing an investigation into political rival Joe Biden. The Senate acquitted Trump on February 5, 2020.

Second impeachment (January 13, 2021): Seven days before the end of his first term, following the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol building, the House voted to impeach Trump on one article — incitement of insurrection. Ten House Republicans voted in favour, making it the most bipartisan impeachment in US history. The Senate trial concluded on February 13, 2021, with 57 senators voting to convict and 43 voting to acquit — falling short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction.

For context on the frequency of presidential executive authority use, the number of executive orders by US presidents provides a comprehensive comparison across administrations.

9. He Became the First Former US President Convicted of Felony Crimes

On May 30, 2024, a Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, related to hush-money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign and the recording of those payments as legal expenses in Trump Organization records.

This made Trump the first former (and then sitting) US president in history to be convicted of criminal felony charges. Sentencing was delayed multiple times and remained legally contested.

The conviction did not legally bar Trump from running for or holding the presidency — there is no constitutional provision preventing a convicted felon from serving as president. Trump ran as the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election, won the electoral college and popular vote against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in November 2024, and returned to the White House as the 47th President in January 2025.

10. He Is the Oldest Person Ever Elected US President

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election at age 70, he became the oldest person to be first elected to the presidency at the time, surpassing Ronald Reagan, who had been 69 at the time of his first election in 1980.

When Trump won the 2024 presidential election, he was 78 years old — making him the oldest person ever elected to the US presidency in American history, exceeding the record set by Joe Biden, who had been 77 when elected in 2020.

Trump turned 79 on June 14, 2025 (Flag Day), during his second term in office. Should he serve his full second term, he will be 82 years old at its conclusion in January 2029. Both major parties have fielded increasingly older presidential candidates in recent election cycles, a trend that has prompted ongoing public and political discussion about age and fitness for the demands of the presidency. For a broader look at the political landscape in accessible terms, how to explain Democrat vs Republican to a child offers a non-partisan overview of the two parties’ core beliefs.