Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 191

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FAQ suggestion

So do we need a new statement?

"Please read the article before making a request".

Thoughts? Slatersteven (talk) 11:01, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Does anybody read the FAQs before we point them out to them? I think not enough to count. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 11:21, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

But we can at least just type "see FAQ". Slatersteven (talk) 11:23, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Or, we could type "Please read the article before making a request". Or, we could skip the scold and type "Already in the article" or something. This is not consuming a lot of time in my opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 11:25, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 19 February 2025

Add in his most recent Approval rating. 49.5% (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/) JonArial (talk) 00:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 06:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Two other things to consider when making a request like this:

1. There's another Wikipedia article specifically about Trump's polling results:

Opinion polling on the second Donald Trump administration - Wikipedia

And that Which is then used in support of a section in yet another article:

Second presidency of Donald Trump - Wikipedia

And eventually all the results from Trump's 2025-2029 term will be aggregated here:

United States presidential approval rating - Wikipedia

2. That FiveThirtyEight page to which you link is an average, updated every time a new poll is posted. It would be excessive for any Wikipedia article to be adjusted every time it changes. In fact, since you posted here earlier today, his average approval number there dropped slightly from 49.5% to 48.7% because of a new poll from Ipsos that finds him under water by 7%. The average has barely changed during his first month in the White House. NME Frigate (talk) 21:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@NME Frigate: Two other things to consider when making a request like this: There is only one thing to consider when making a request like this: it violates the Wikipedia policy WP:CONLEVEL. See #Handling of edit requests, Part II. If you see a flaw in the reasoning there, please point it out there. Otherwise, please don't do this again. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 21:54, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

USAID

I will wait 24 hours to revert to what we had:

Trump and Musk dismantled most of USAID.

FriendlyRiverOtter and other editors seem to be interested in which judge blocked what, and they've sourced their statement to CBS which is an acceptable source. I doubt that sentence will remain here by tomorrow. Of more concern is what the world's richest man just dismantled. It's not an "attempt". Simonm223 wrote in their edit summary:"Need RSes for this - so far the news is still saying that the judge halted the workforce cuts". Here are two quotes from AP.

Administration appointees and Musk’s teams have shut down almost all funding for the agency, stopping aid and development programs worldwide.

Earlier Friday, a group of a half-dozen USAID officials speaking to reporters strongly disputed assertions from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the most essential life-saving programs abroad were getting waivers to continue funding. None were, the officials said.

See you tomorrow.

Sources

-SusanLesch (talk) 00:07, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

These sources are from thd 7th. As the situation is rapidly evolving they would be superseded by more recent sources. Simonm223 (talk) 11:10, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

However this appears to capture where we stand right now: [1] Simonm223 (talk) 12:37, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. Here's one of Knickmeyer's from last evening, Updated 5:05 PM PST, February 10, 2025. That it's evolving is a reason to keep this simple. -SusanLesch (talk) 14:57, 11 February 2025 (UTC).

To follow up, yesterday I added the USAID section in Second presidency of Donald Trump under DOGE. There's much more room there. On Washington Week with The Atlantic last week, Anne Applebaum called it a "test case of cruelty" for the American people. I'd like to find and add the AP article that explained Rubio's waivers are not in force. -SusanLesch (talk) 14:24, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Expansionism

This sentence was removed for using too many citations: "He expressed intent to annex Canada, Greenland, the Panama canal, and Gaza." I believe that it is notable enough to mention, however unlikely it may be to really happen. Should it be reintroduced using fewer (one or two) references? Alenoach (talk) 04:44, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

He talks bollocks a lot, lets wait and see if anything meaningful comers out of this, or if he forgets it ina week. Slatersteven (talk) 10:59, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

You note an interest fact about Donald Trump: he often fails to follow through (or even to seriously attempt) what he has says he will do. I wonder if that point itself somehow should be mentioned in this article. There are already a couple references to Trump promising and failing to do specific things (like constructing a border wall, not to mention having that paid by Mexico). There would need to be reliable sources going beyond the specific instances and noting that this is a pattern with him. I imagine there were some retrospective articles on his first term that made this point. NME Frigate (talk) 19:48, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

New official portrait

Original heading: "When Trump's new potrait is taken during his second term, should that replace the photo of his last Presidential potrait?" ―Mandruss ☎ 12:59, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to replace it to the new one once it becomes available. Current official picture should be then moved to the section about his first presidency. Onikaburgers (talk) 21:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes I also think it's reasonable to replace the current portrait with the 2025 version once it's available. 2A02:1406:10:ED6A:0:0:369E:4EDF (talk) 00:19, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

The 2025 portrait is now available. Hopefully someone can update it. 2600:6C4A:4B7F:DBC0:81AF:2AD8:9DD7:F170 (talk) 17:41, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

No, it is not. That is a photograph taken by a private individual, not a government portrait. There is no evidence that the photographer of this photograph has or ever will release it under an acceptable free license. It does not suddenly become public domain just because Trump wants to use it. Nobody other than the photographer or someone they sign rights away to, not even the President, can release copyright on an image they did not take. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 18:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Photos for both President Trump and Vice President Vance have been listed on the official White House website, is it good to now post them on the wiki page?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/donald-j-trump/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/jd-vance/ Pizza noob 65 (talk) 18:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

The previous image is more suited for his wikipedia page, dare I say even worth breaking precedent for. The new image is not suitable for the far future. Pharaoh496 (talk) 07:53, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

It is the official portrait of the current president's last term. Wikipedia doesn't curate the president's portraits. Onikaburgers (talk) 20:03, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Whos talking about curating. We can use the 2017 portrait, too Pharaoh496 (talk) 18:23, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The current practice with the presidents is using the latest official portrait. The literal definition of curating is selecting something. Please articulate your reason why the previous official portrait is more suitable to use here. Onikaburgers (talk) 18:45, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Every president has a proper smiling portrait without picture effects. The latest one has effects Pharaoh496 (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure if you are trolling or not but, again, the current practice with the presidents is using the latest official portrait, rather than subjective selection and preference like not smiling enough. WP:NPOV Onikaburgers (talk) 14:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

This picture is artifically edited with special effects. This was in particular my reasoning Pharaoh496 (talk) 15:08, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

This seems like a feedback you should forward to the author of the photograph. Onikaburgers (talk) 16:15, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't believe there is a standard for this exact situation yet on here, given that Trump is only the second person to serve two non-consecutive terms as POTUS. Although, newer potraits tend be used over older ones on pages for other politicians. Overall, I'm curious as to what you all think should happen. NesserWiki (talk) 12:54, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

For infoboxes for politicians, Wikipedia uses the most recent official portrait. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:05, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

The previous image is more suited for his wikipedia page, dare I say even worth breaking precedent for. The new image is not suitable for the far future. Pharaoh496 (talk) 07:53, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

There is a precedent with Barack Obama. We use the most recent, second White House portrait which is closer to how he currently looks (salt-and-pepper rather than his earlier black hair). https://petapixel.com/2013/01/18/a-closer-look-at-obamas-new-official-presidential-portrait/ GhulamIslam (talk) 08:25, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

It seems someone already made the change. 2601:483:400:1CD0:4F19:2F59:ED54:E088 (talk) 20:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Chairman of the Kennedy Center?

On February 7, Trump announced he was firing members of the Kennedy Center board of trustees and appointing himself chairman.[2][3] The Kennedy Center released a statement commenting on its unprecedented nature, but wrote there “is nothing in the Center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members”.[4] If this becomes official, it should be added. Rochambeau1783 (talk) 01:40, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Added where? GoodDay (talk) 01:44, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps the article second presidency of Donald Trump? Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:05, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

it should be added is not a policy-based argument. It's your editorial opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 04:28, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Mandruss here, this isn’t actually all that notable. New administrations can and often do replace officials from the old one. Moreover, conservatorship of an agency has happened before such as with the 2008 conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, albeit with board consent, but still the point stands. Irruptive Creditor (talk) 05:34, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

It's surely notable that Donald Trump has named himself as the chairman, isn't it? First person to do that, right? NME Frigate (talk) 18:33, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Broadly no, a chief officer of one of the three branches already is and has been the chancellor or chairman of an otherwise independent and subordinate agency. Namely, the Chief Justice of the United States is typically the chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution. Neither agency conservatorship nor the heading of a subordinate agency by its chief officer, in the before mentioned example, the chief judicial officer of the United States, is particularly unprecedented. Pleasant editing, Irruptive Creditor (talk) 19:12, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not following you. The position of chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution is indeed normally held by the Chief Justice, but the position of chair of the board of directors of the Kennedy Center is not normally held by the President. Wikipedia's article on the Kennedy Center itself cites a statement from the Center saying that what Trump (says he) is doing is unprecedented. As far as I can tell, it's never happened before. Or can you point to a case where another President has also been the Kennedy Center chair?

Howver, it seems that he can't just appoint himself chair: the chair is elected by the board. If he has removed the current chair, David Rubenstein (chair of the Carlyle Group and owner of the Baltimore Orioles), and various other current members from the board, as he claims, then the remaining members will need to elect a new chair, who may or may not be Trump. NME Frigate (talk) 21:17, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Add President of Kennedy Center to Donald Trump

As seen on Michael Kaiser’s Wikipedia page where it shows his position of the Kennedy center from 2001-2014, it should be added to Donald Trump’s page as he is the president of the Kennedy center Opama420 (talk) 22:28, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I fully agree. Not only is there a strong precedent for adding it, as you point out, but it is also quite notable for a US President to server in that role. It is not an ex officio role. Revangarde568 (talk) 17:51, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. Kaiser was president of the Kennedy Center, i.e., he ran the operation for 14 years, and that's what he's notable for. (FWIW, the Kennedy Center's current president is Trump's "Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions" aka Richard Grenell.) Trump's predecessor as Chairman of the Board of Trustees was David Rubenstein from 2010–2025. His Infobox didn't list the chairmanship. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:02, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Not a single mention of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?

Plenty of well documented primary sources including pictures and video. They were friends for appx 15 years.

The relationship between Bill Clinton and Epstein is a major blurb on Clinton's page.

If it's relevant for Clinton, then why not Trump?

We need to be consistent, it's very important. Necrambo (talk) 13:13, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

We don't use primary sources. We use reliable sources. --Malerooster (talk) 13:23, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Plenty of good sources too if you cared to look :) but thanks for the correction?

Also plenty of mentions of a relationship with Epstein on Bill Gates page.

So a relationship with Epstein is important for Clinton and Gates' articles but not for Trump?

That makes no sense seeing as the information on their relationships came from the same sources that include Trump. Necrambo (talk) 13:36, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

We're not going to make the same mistakes they made at Bill Clinton. I just took a look at Bill Clinton#Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and it's a whole lot of innuendo from around 2015. One of the sources is actually headlined "Plenty Of Innuendo, But No Hard Evidence Of New Clinton Sex Scandal". Much of that section needs to be removed, and the rest rewritten, per WP:BLP and WP:BLPPUBLIC. The Epstein documents unsealed in 2024 didn't contain any allegations of wrongdoing by Clinton or Trump. Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:54, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

If the only connection between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were that they had once been friendly, I would recommend against mentioning Epstein in this article, and I would say the same about the articles on Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and most other people that Epstein mingled with. Epstein clearly made a practice of cultivating rich and powerful people, most of whom just knew him as a wealthy investor, with only a few getting caught up in his nefarious activities (and there's no evidence that Trump, Clinton, or Gates were among those few). And most of these connections are noted in the article on Epstein himself. However, in the case of Donald Trump, the question is complicated by some other connections:

1. In Trump's first presidency, he appointed Alexander Acosta as Secretary of Labor. Acosta was the U.S. Attorney whose office had overseen the 2008 case in which Epstein got a sweetheart deal. And Acosta resigned two years later after Epstein was arrested and questions arose about why he had approved the 2008 agreement.

2. Michael Wolff, author of one of the first tell-all books about Trump's presidency, Fire and Fury (2018), later said that Epstein was a key source for that book and that Epstein had influence on the Trump administration in its early days. (To be fair, Wolff is not always considered reliable.)

3. Epstein killed himself in a prison that ultimately was under Trump's control and that of Trump's then-Attorney General, Bill Barr (whose father may have hired Epstein, who was not qualified, for his first serious job as a teacher at a private school in 1974). Now obviously lots of prisoners take their own lives, which is awful, and that generally has nothing to do directly with the Attorney General (who does, however, bear some responsibility for managing a Bureau of Prisons where this is prevented) much less with the President. But in this case, Epstein's suicide while under Trump's care somehow became the evidence for a ridiculous but wildly shared conspiracy theory claiming that Trump's political opponents had murdered Epstein, and a number of Trump's supporters still believe that Trump is at any moment going to release files which will support that claim and the larger QAnon conspiracy theories.

4. When Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was arrested for her role in Epstein's activities, Trump said "I wish her well," which is probably just Trump being ineloquent as usual but which is still a weird as hell thing to say.

There are other points that could also support a reference to Epstein, such as Trump praising Epstein in a 2002 interview and adding, "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” Creepy! And I'm probably forgetting some things. All of this has been amply documented in reliable sources. The question would be how do you boil it down to a short reference in this article? NME Frigate (talk) 21:21, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

This is not a lead story in the news. It has not been a lead story in the news for weeks. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:07, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Did you mean to reply to me? I didn't say anything about Trump's Epstein friendship being a current news story, and I don't think anyone else did either, but I might be overlooking something. NME Frigate (talk) 02:21, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Answer to both your 4-point post and Space4T in response to this Epstein thread. There are presently no mentions of Epstein in the Trump article here, though there are 58 in the Epstein article, who passed away 6 years. Its not clear how this material is relevant now to the Trump article 6 years after Epstein's death. Its possible that the release of his audio tapes during the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign had some passing relevance, however, it was not of lasting effect and does not seem to have affected the election results. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:51, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't think there would need to be news about Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump to correct the possible oversight of failing to have mentioned Epstein in the Trump article before. Isn't it pretty normal on Wikipedia for someone to read an article, realizing something notable is missing, identify reliable sources for its notability, and then add that? (Or the opposite: someone may read an article, notice that something trivial is included, and remove it.) If articles could only be updated when there was news about a subject, there'd be a lot less content on Wikipedia. And also, Wikipedia is, as one guideline says, not news. NME Frigate (talk) 18:48, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply backing up my point.

I will attempt to push this issue using the information you neatly provided. Necrambo (talk) 19:33, 13 February 2025 (UTC)