By Mason Benovy
The 2016 Presidential Election is upon us, and one contender sticking out in the media is Donald Trump. According to Business Insider,Trump has appeared on Fox News more than twice as much as any other candidate.
Born June 14th, 1946 in New York City, Donald John Trump is an American businessman, seeking the nomination of the Republican Party for President of the United States. Trump formally announced his candidacy for president on June 16th of last year. Since then, he has gained enormous amounts of popularity and is leading the Republican Party by nearly 15 percent.
Trump has received an abundance of slack in the media for his stances on foreign policy and how to deal with conflicts with ISIS. On Monday December 7th, Trump’s campaign released a statement claiming “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
Civil Rights
Although he has not stated blatantly his thoughts on women’s rights, in his memoir from 1990, Trump stated, “I’m not a crusader for feminism, and I’m not against it, either. I’m just oblivious to a person’s gender when it comes to hiring people and handing out assignments.”
Recently, Trump has been at a point of criticism for his thoughts on immigration. He recently claimed that “a nation without borders is not a nation” and plans on making Mexico pay for a wall on the southern border of the United States. His outlandish comments on latinos have been ridiculed by many people. He stated that, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.” Due to recent events with ISIS, Trump believes we should not allow Muslims to enter our country, until further notice.
According to the Human Rights Campaign,Trump’s opinions on the LGBTQ community have been mixed over the past years. Trump considers himself a “traditional” man and supports “traditional” marriage. He has been relatively consistent with discrimination and believes federal law should protect people from being discriminated against because of sexual orientation. Trump’s stances on other LGBTQ issues remain unclear.
Foreign Policy
On Wednesday December 2nd, Trump stated that he would kill the families of terrorists in order to win the fight against ISIS. In lieu of the recent shooting in San Bernadino, California, Trump also he would ban all Muslims from entering America, in hopes of helping the war against terrorism according to an interview on CNN. In an interview with Bill O’Reilly, Trump stated that in order to beat ISIS, “America must, take back the oil. Once you go over and take back that oil, they have nothing. You bomb the hell out of them, and then you encircle it, and then you go in. And you let Mobil go in, and you let our great oil companies go in. Once you take that oil, they have nothing left.” He later refused to state whether or not he would put American Troops on the ground, in fear of “them” (the Syrians) finding out his plan.
Education
In June of 2015, Trump’s Presidential Announcement stated that “As president, I’d end Common Core. Common Core is a disaster.” On funding for education, Trump would cut it dramatically. He wants to cut down on money going to waste and fraud, but he does not wish to cut services. Because of Common Core, Trump says he “may” cut the Department of Education.
Although Trump is a conservative, his position on student loans is somewhat liberal. “That’s probably one of the only things the government shouldn’t make money off. I think it’s terrible that one of the only profit centers we have is student loans,” said Trump during an interview with thehill.com. He later said that one way to solve the issue of student loans, is to create more jobs for the American people.
Guns
Donald Trump’s official website shows that Trump is very much in favor of our Second Amendment. “The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period.”. To keep America’s right to bear arms, Trump believes we need to start taking violent crimes more seriously, and fix our mental health system.
Climate Change
Like many of his other stances, Trump’s stance on climate change is off-kilter. In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Trump claimed that “Unless somebody can prove something to me, I believe there’s weather. I believe there’s change.” In the past, Trump has used cold weather as a way to disprove climate change, climateprogress.com stated. He also tweeted that “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
As of January 12th 2016, according to Real Clear Politics, Trump leads the Republican Party by 14%.