Talk:Donald Trump

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Donald Trump was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones Date Process Result June 2, 2006 Good article nominee Not listed February 12, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed September 17, 2016 Good article nominee Not listed May 25, 2017 Good article nominee Not listed December 2, 2018 Good article nominee Not listed July 15, 2019 Good article nominee Not listed August 31, 2019 Featured article candidate Not promoted April 29, 2020 Peer review Reviewed Current status: Former good article nominee

Health of Donald Trump was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on June 13, 2019 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Donald Trump. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations: Cuozzo, Steve (November 16, 2013). "Don't Trust Anything on Wikipedia". New York Post. Popper, Ben (July 22, 2015). "Someone just deleted Donald Trump's entire Wikipedia page". The Verge. Merrill, Jeremy (February 1, 2016). "On Wikipedia, Donald Trump Reigns and Facts Are Open to Debate". New York Times. Germ, Erik (May 28, 2016). "5 Secretly Bizarre Sections Of Websites You Use Every Day". Cracked.com. Guo, Jeff (October 25, 2016). "Wikipedia is fixing one of the Internet's biggest flaws". The Washington Post. Alcantara, Chris (October 27, 2016). "The most challenging job of the 2016 race: Editing the candidates' Wikipedia pages". The Washington Post. Staff Writer (December 21, 2016). "Most-edited Wikipedia pages of 2016 revealed". BBC News. Gartenberg, Chaim (January 20, 2017). "Wikipedia editors can't decide if Trump is the president yet". The Verge. Wyrich, Andrew (June 5, 2017). "Someone is trying to get Trump's official portrait deleted from Wikipedia". The Daily Dot. Warren, Tom (November 22, 2018). "Siri thinks Donald Trump is a penis". The Verge. Blumenthal, Eli (November 22, 2018). "Wikipedia vandalizing causes Siri to show a lewd image when asked about Donald Trump". USA Today. Griffin, Andrew (November 23, 2018). "Asking Siri for information about Donald Trump shows explicit image after Wikipedia edit". The Independent. Gander, Kashmira (November 23, 2018). "Someone hacked Donald Trump's Wikipedia page, replaced photo with image of penis". Newsweek. Martin, Alan (November 26, 2018). "The Trump penis Wikipedia war has kicked off again". The Inquirer. Brandom, Russell (December 3, 2018). "Wikipedia engages the 'nuclear option' after Trump penis hack". The Verge. Mak, Aaron (May 28, 2019). "Donald Trump's Wikipedia Entry Is a War Zone". Slate. Pasternack, Alex (March 7, 2020). "How Wikipedia's volunteers became the web's best weapon against misinformation". Fast Company. Flood, Brian (May 21, 2020). "Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger says online encyclopedia scrapped neutrality, favors lefty politics". Fox News. Evon, Dan (November 19, 2020). "Does Loser.com Redirect to Trump's Wikipedia Page?". Snopes. Williams, Zoe (October 23, 2023). "Why is Elon Musk attacking Wikipedia? Because its very existence offends him". The Guardian. Hays, Gabriel (May 31, 2024). "CNN host suggests Trump conviction not mentioned prominently enough on former president's Wikipedia page". Fox News. Harrison, Stephen (June 4, 2024). "The Most Heated Debate on Trump's Felony Conviction Is Happening on ... Wikipedia?". Slate. Sam Wineburg and Nadav Ziv (October 17, 2024). "Go ahead and use Wikipedia for research". The Boston Globe. Eugene Smith (June 3, 2025). "Who writes Trump's Wikipedia page? Meet the 'edit warriors'". The Times. Ashley Rindsberg (October 3, 2025). "How Wikipedia made Trump an 'authoritarian'". Fox News. David Ingram (October 27, 2025). "Elon Musk launches Grokipedia as an alternative to 'woke' Wikipedia". NBC News. Joe Sommerlad (January 12, 2026). "Trump shares fake Wikipedia page calling himself 'Acting President' of Venezuela". The Independent. Emery Winter (January 12, 2026). "Did Trump post this doctored screenshot calling him the 'acting president of Venezuela'?". Snopes. Kinsey Crowley (January 12, 2026). "Trump shares Wikipedia page calling him 'Acting President of Venezuela'". USA Today. Skyler Seets and Anna Lieb and Aaron Smith (January 13, 2026). "Wikipedia at 25: What the data tells us". Pew Research Center. Katie Drummond (January 20, 2026). "Jimmy Wales Will Never Edit Donald Trump's Wikipedia Page: He 'Makes Me Insane'". Wired. Retrieved January 23, 2026.

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Page history

On November 16, 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved from Donald Trump to Donald J. Trump. The result of the discussion was not moved. This article has been viewed enough times to make it onto the all-time Top 100 list. It has had 233 million views since December 2007. This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025. This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 150 times. The weeks in which this happened: June 14 to 20, 2015 June 28 to July 4, 2015 July 19 to 25, 2015 July 26 to August 1, 2015 August 2 to 8, 2015 August 9 to 15, 2015 August 16 to 22, 2015 August 23 to 29, 2015 August 30 to September 5, 2015 September 6 to 12, 2015 September 13 to 19, 2015 September 20 to 26, 2015 September 27 to October 3, 2015 December 6 to 12, 2015 December 13 to 19, 2015 January 3 to 9, 2016 January 10 to 16, 2016 January 17 to 23, 2016 January 24 to 30, 2016 January 31 to February 6, 2016 February 7 to 13, 2016 February 14 to 20, 2016 February 21 to 27, 2016 February 28 to March 5, 2016 March 6 to 12, 2016 March 13 to 19, 2016 March 20 to 26, 2016 March 27 to April 2, 2016 April 3 to 9, 2016 April 10 to 16, 2016 April 17 to 23, 2016 April 24 to 30, 2016 May 1 to 7, 2016 May 8 to 14, 2016 May 15 to 21, 2016 May 22 to 28, 2016 May 29 to June 4, 2016 June 5 to 11, 2016 June 12 to 18, 2016 July 3 to 9, 2016 July 10 to 16, 2016 July 17 to 23, 2016 July 24 to 30, 2016 July 31 to August 6, 2016 August 21 to 27, 2016 August 28 to September 3, 2016 September 4 to 10, 2016 September 11 to 17, 2016 September 18 to 24, 2016 September 25 to October 1, 2016 October 2 to 8, 2016 October 9 to 15, 2016 October 16 to 22, 2016 October 23 to 29, 2016 October 30 to November 5, 2016 November 6 to 12, 2016 November 13 to 19, 2016 November 20 to 26, 2016 November 27 to December 3, 2016 December 4 to 10, 2016 December 11 to 17, 2016 December 18 to 24, 2016 January 1 to 7, 2017 January 8 to 14, 2017 January 15 to 21, 2017 January 22 to 28, 2017 January 29 to February 4, 2017 February 5 to 11, 2017 February 12 to 18, 2017 February 19 to 25, 2017 February 26 to March 4, 2017 March 5 to 11, 2017 March 12 to 18, 2017 March 19 to 25, 2017 March 26 to April 1, 2017 April 2 to 8, 2017 April 23 to 29, 2017 May 14 to 20, 2017 May 21 to 27, 2017 May 28 to June 3, 2017 June 11 to 17, 2017 June 25 to July 1, 2017 October 8 to 14, 2017 October 22 to 28, 2017 November 26 to December 2, 2017 January 14 to 20, 2018 June 10 to 16, 2018 September 30 to October 6, 2018 October 28 to November 3, 2018 November 4 to 10, 2018 November 11 to 17, 2018 November 18 to 24, 2018 November 25 to December 1, 2018 December 9 to 15, 2018 September 22 to 28, 2019 December 15 to 21, 2019 January 5 to 11, 2020 February 23 to 29, 2020 March 1 to 7, 2020 April 12 to 18, 2020 May 31 to June 6, 2020 June 7 to 13, 2020 June 14 to 20, 2020 June 21 to 27, 2020 June 28 to July 4, 2020 August 9 to 15, 2020 August 16 to 22, 2020 August 23 to 29, 2020 September 27 to October 3, 2020 October 4 to 10, 2020 October 11 to 17, 2020 October 18 to 24, 2020 October 25 to 31, 2020 November 1 to 7, 2020 November 8 to 14, 2020 November 15 to 21, 2020 November 22 to 28, 2020 November 29 to December 5, 2020 December 6 to 12, 2020 December 13 to 19, 2020 January 3 to 9, 2021 January 10 to 16, 2021 January 17 to 23, 2021 January 24 to 30, 2021 January 31 to February 6, 2021 July 10 to 16, 2022 June 11 to 17, 2023 May 26 to June 1, 2024 June 23 to 29, 2024 July 14 to 20, 2024 July 21 to 27, 2024 October 20 to 26, 2024 October 27 to November 2, 2024 November 3 to 9, 2024 November 10 to 16, 2024 November 17 to 23, 2024 November 24 to 30, 2024 January 12 to 18, 2025 January 19 to 25, 2025 January 26 to February 1, 2025 February 2 to 8, 2025 February 9 to 15, 2025 February 16 to 22, 2025 February 23 to March 1, 2025 March 2 to 8, 2025 March 9 to 15, 2025 March 16 to 22, 2025 March 30 to April 5, 2025 April 6 to 12, 2025 July 13 to 19, 2025

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Section sizes Section size for Donald Trump (70 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 10,259 10,259 523 523 Early life and education 4,274 4,274 347 347 Business career 170 36,325 0 1,864 Real estate 5,535 16,399 413 969 Manhattan and Chicago developments 5,671 5,671 260 260 Atlantic City casinos 3,845 3,845 231 231 Golf clubs 1,348 1,348 65 65 Licensing the Trump name 1,511 1,511 67 67 Side ventures 6,000 7,283 158 295 Trump University 1,283 1,283 137 137 Foundation 5,176 5,176 219 219 Legal affairs and bankruptcies 2,259 2,259 134 134 Wealth 3,527 3,527 180 180 Media career 5,709 5,709 261 261 Political career 67 256,422 0 7,908 Early political aspirations 4,797 4,797 181 181 2016 presidential election 16,717 16,717 535 535 First presidency (2017–2021) 1,944 87,794 125 2,737 Conflicts of interest 1,385 1,385 61 61 Domestic policy 16,192 16,192 455 455 Pardons and commutations 2,617 2,617 100 100 Immigration 15,146 15,146 461 461 Foreign policy 9,581 9,581 295 295 Personnel 5,233 5,233 174 174 Judiciary 4,123 4,123 138 138 COVID-19 pandemic 5,479 5,479 157 157 Investigations 9,317 9,317 252 252 Impeachments 3,164 3,164 124 124 2020 presidential election and attempted rejection of outcome 10,839 10,839 293 293 January 6th attack 2,774 2,774 102 102 Between presidencies (2021–2025) 5,157 31,925 198 930 Legal issues 12,445 12,445 451 451 2024 presidential election 14,323 14,323 281 281 Second presidency (2025–present) 2,524 52,770 77 1,719 Early actions 4,715 4,715 208 208 Conflicts of interest (2025–present) 3,489 3,489 128 128 Mass terminations of federal employees 5,629 5,629 158 158 Targeting political opponents 3,062 3,062 92 92 Pardons and commutations (2025–present) 1,916 1,916 57 57 Domestic policy (2025–present) 3,816 15,484 59 484 Science 2,196 2,196 53 53 National emergencies/health policy 1,959 1,959 76 76 Social policy 5,574 5,574 133 133 One Big Beautiful Bill Act 1,939 1,939 163 163 Immigration (2025–present) 3,293 3,293 129 129 Foreign policy (2025–present) 9,864 9,864 301 301 Personnel (2025–present) 2,794 2,794 85 85 Political practice and rhetoric 7,221 57,337 190 1,623 Racial and gender views 15,359 15,359 518 518 Link to violence and hate crimes 7,070 7,070 239 239 Conspiracy theories 2,263 2,263 43 43 False or misleading statements 9,809 9,809 175 175 Social media 5,760 5,760 173 173 Relationship with the press 9,855 9,855 285 285 Assessment 17 5,015 0 183 Public image 2,486 2,486 100 100 Scholarly rankings 2,512 2,512 83 83 Personal life 18 11,330 0 412 Family 1,397 1,397 72 72 Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein 1,521 1,521 67 67 Health 3,692 3,692 131 131 Religion 4,702 4,702 142 142 See also 109 109 0 0 Notes 24 24 0 0 References 28 28 0 0 Works cited 17 12,253 0 0 Books 4,023 4,023 0 0 Journals 8,213 8,213 0 0 Further reading 169 169 0 0 External links 5,909 5,909 0 0 Total 342,811 342,811 11,315 11,315

Current consensus

• v
• e

NOTE: It is recommended to link to this list in your edit summary when reverting, as:
[[Talk:Donald Trump#Cn|consensus n]], where n (2 times) is the item number.
To ensure you are viewing the current list, you may wish to purge this page.

01. Use the official White House portrait as the infobox image. (Dec 2016, Jan 2017, Oct 2017, March 2020) (temporarily suspended by #19 following copyright issues on the inauguration portrait, enforced when an official public-domain portrait was released on 31 October 2017)

02. Show birthplace as "Queens, New York City, U.S." in the infobox. (Nov 2016, Oct 2018, Feb 2021) "New York City" de-linked. (September 2020)

03. Omit reference to county-level election statistics. (Dec 2016)

04. Superseded by #15

Lead phrasing of Trump "gaining a majority of the U.S. Electoral College" and "receiving a smaller share of the popular vote nationwide", without quoting numbers. (Nov 2016, Dec 2016) (Superseded by #15 since 11 February 2017)

05. Use Trump's annual net worth evaluation and matching ranking, from the Forbes list of billionaires, not from monthly or "live" estimates. (Oct 2016) In the lead section, just write: Forbes estimates his net worth to be [$x.x] billion. (July 2018, July 2018) Removed from the lead per #47.

06. Do not include allegations of sexual misconduct in the lead section. (June 2016, Feb 2018)

07. Superseded by #35

Include "Many of his public statements were controversial or false." in the lead. (Sep 2016, February 2017, wording shortened per April 2017, upheld with July 2018) (superseded by #35 since 18 February 2019)

08. Superseded by unlisted consensus

Mention that Trump is the first president elected "without prior military or government service". (Dec 2016, superseded Nov 2024)

09. Include a link to Trump's Twitter account in the "External links" section. (Jan 2017) Include a link to an archive of Trump's Twitter account in the "External links" section. (Jan 2021)

10. Canceled

Keep Barron Trump's name in the list of children and wikilink it, which redirects to his section in Family of Donald Trump per AfD consensus. (Jan 2017, Nov 2016) Canceled: Barron's BLP has existed since June 2019. (June 2024)

11. Superseded by #17

The lead sentence is "Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, television personality, politician, and the 45th President of the United States." (Jan 2017, Jan 2017, Jan 2017, Jan 2017, Jan 2017, Feb 2017) (superseded by #17 since 2 April 2017)

12. The article title is Donald Trump, not Donald J. Trump. (RM Jan 2017, RM June 2019)

13. Auto-archival is set for discussions with no comments for 7 days. Manual archival is allowed for (1) closed discussions, 24 hours after the closure, provided the closure has not been challenged, and (2) "answered" edit requests, 24 hours after the "answer", provided there has been no follow-on discussion after the "answer". (Jan 2017) (amended with respect to manual archiving, to better reflect common practice at this article) (Nov 2019) Strikethrough per #74.

14. Omit mention of Trump's alleged bathmophobia/fear of slopes. (Feb 2017)

15. Superseded by lead rewrite

Supersedes #4. There is no consensus to change the formulation of the paragraph which summarizes election results in the lead (starting with "Trump won the general election on November 8, 2016, …"). Accordingly the pre-RfC text (Diff 8 Jan 2017) has been restored, with minor adjustments to past tense (Diff 11 Feb 2018). No new changes should be applied without debate. (RfC Feb 2017, Jan 2017, Feb 2017, Feb 2017) In particular, there is no consensus to include any wording akin to "losing the popular vote". (RfC March 2017) (Superseded by local consensus on 26 May 2017 and lead section rewrite on 23 June 2017)

16. Superseded by lead rewrite

Do not mention Russian influence on the presidential election in the lead section. (RfC March 2017) (Superseded by lead section rewrite on 23 June 2017)

17. Superseded by #50

Supersedes #11. The lead paragraph is "Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality." The hatnote is simply {{Other uses}}. (April 2017, RfC April 2017, April 2017, April 2017, April 2017, July 2017, Dec 2018) Amended by lead section rewrite on 23 June 2017 and removal of inauguration date on 4 July 2018. Lower-case "p" in "president" per Dec 2018 and MOS:JOBTITLES RfC Oct 2017. Wikilinks modified per April 2020. Wikilink modified again per July 2020. "45th" de-linked. (Jan 2021)

18. Superseded by #63

The "Alma mater" infobox entry shows "Wharton School (BS Econ.)", does not mention Fordham University. (April 2017, April 2017, Aug 2020, Dec 2020)

19. Obsolete

Following deletion of Trump's official White House portrait for copyright reasons on 2 June 2017, infobox image was replaced by File:Donald Trump Pentagon 2017.jpg. (June 2017 for replacement, June 2017, declined REFUND on 11 June 2017) (replaced by White House official public-domain portrait according to #1 since 31 Oct 2017)

20. Superseded by unlisted consensus

Mention protests in the lead section with this exact wording: His election and policies have sparked numerous protests. (June 2017, May 2018, superseded December 2024) (Note: In February 2021, when he was no longer president, the verb tense was changed from "have sparked" to "sparked", without objection.)

21. Superseded by #39

Omit any opinions about Trump's psychology held by mental health academics or professionals who have not examined him. (July 2017, Aug 2017) (superseded by #36 on 18 June 2019, then by #39 since 20 Aug 2019)

22. Do not call Trump a "liar" in Wikipedia's voice. Falsehoods he uttered can be mentioned, while being mindful of calling them "lies", which implies malicious intent. (RfC Aug 2017, upheld by RfC July 2024)

23. Superseded by #52

The lead includes the following sentence: Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, citing security concerns; after legal challenges, the Supreme Court upheld the policy's third revision. (Aug 2017, Nov 2017, Dec 2017, Jan 2018, Jan 2018) Wording updated (July 2018) and again (Sep 2018).

24. Superseded by #30

Do not include allegations of racism in the lead. (Feb 2018)

25. In citations, do not code the archive-related parameters for sources that are not dead. (Dec 2017, March 2018)

26. Do not include opinions by Michael Hayden and Michael Morell that Trump is a "useful fool […] manipulated by Moscow" or an "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation". (RfC April 2018)

27. State that Trump falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton started the Barack Obama birther rumors. (April 2018, June 2018)

28. Include, in the Wealth section, a sentence on Jonathan Greenberg's allegation that Trump deceived him in order to get on the Forbes 400 list. (June 2018, June 2018)

29. Include material about the Trump administration family separation policy in the article. (June 2018)

30. Supersedes #24. The lead includes: "Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist." (RfC Sep 2018, Oct 2018, RfC May 2019). Consensus on "racially charged" descriptor later superseded (February 2025).

31. Do not mention Trump's office space donation to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition in 1999. (Nov 2018)

32. Omit from the lead the fact that Trump is the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean supreme leader. See #44. (RfC July 2018, Nov 2018)

33. Do not mention "birtherism" in the lead section. (RfC Nov 2018)

34. Refer to Ivana Zelníčková as a Czech model, with a link to Czechs (people), not Czechoslovakia (country). (Jan 2019)

35. Superseded by #49

Supersedes #7. Include in the lead: Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency. The statements have been documented by fact-checkers, and the media have widely described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American politics. (RfC Feb 2019)

36. Superseded by #39

Include one paragraph merged from Health of Donald Trump describing views about Trump's psychology expressed by public figures, media sources, and mental health professionals who have not examined him. (June 2019) (paragraph removed per RfC Aug 2019 yielding consensus #39)

37. Resolved: Content related to Trump's presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy. (June 2019)

38. Do not state in the lead that Trump is the wealthiest U.S. president ever. (RfC June 2019)

39. Supersedes #21 and #36. Do not include any paragraph regarding Trump's mental health or mental fitness for office. Do not bring up for discussion again until an announced formal diagnosis or WP:MEDRS-level sources are provided. This does not preclude bringing up for discussion whether to include media coverage relating to Trump's mental health and fitness. This does not prevent inclusion of content about temperamental fitness for office. (RfC Aug 2019, July 2021)

40. Include, when discussing Trump's exercise or the lack thereof: He has called golfing his "primary form of exercise", although he usually does not walk the course. He considers exercise a waste of energy, because he believes the body is "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy" which is depleted by exercise. (RfC Aug 2019)

41. Omit book authorship (or lack thereof) from the lead section. (RfC Nov 2019)

42. House and Senate outcomes of the impeachment process are separated by a full stop. For example: He was impeached by the House on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was acquitted of both charges by the Senate on February 5, 2020. (Feb 2020)

43. The rules for edits to the lead are no different from those for edits below the lead. For edits that do not conflict with existing consensus: Prior consensus is NOT required. BOLD edits are allowed, subject to normal BRD process. The mere fact that an edit has not been discussed is not a valid reason to revert it. (March 2020)

44. Superseded by #71

The lead section should mention North Korea, focusing on Trump's meetings with Kim and some degree of clarification that they haven't produced clear results. See #32. (RfC May 2020)

45. Superseded by #48

There is no consensus to mention the COVID-19 pandemic in the lead section. (RfC May 2020, July 2020)

46. Use the caption "Official portrait, 2017" for the infobox image. (Aug 2020, Jan 2021) The consensus carries forward to "Official portrait, 2025" in 2025.

47. Do not mention Trump's net worth or Forbes ranking (or equivalents from other publications) in the lead, nor in the infobox. (Sep 2020)

48. Supersedes #45. Trump's reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic should be mentioned in the lead section. There is no consensus on specific wording, but the status quo is Trump reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic; he minimized the threat, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, and promoted false information about unproven treatments and the availability of testing. (Oct 2020, RfC Aug 2020)

49. Supersedes #35. Include in lead: Trump has made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. (Dec 2020)

50. Superseded by #70

Supersedes #17. The lead sentence is: Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. (March 2021), amended (July 2021), inclusion of politician (RfC September 2021)

51. Include in the lead that many of Trump's comments and actions have been characterized as misogynistic. (Aug 2021 and Sep 2021)

52. Supersedes #23. The lead should contain a summary of Trump's actions on immigration, including the Muslim travel ban (cf. item 23), the wall, and the family separation policy. (September 2021)

53. The lead should mention that Trump promotes conspiracy theories. (RfC October 2021)

54. Include in the lead that, quote, Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. (RfC October 2021) Amended after re-election: After his first term, scholars and historians ranked Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history. (November 2024)

55. Regarding Trump's comments on the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, do not wiki-link "Trump's comments" in this manner. (RfC December 2021)

56. Retain the content that Trump never confronted Putin over its alleged bounties against American soldiers in Afghanistan but add context. Current wording can be altered or contextualized; no consensus was achieved on alternate wordings. (RfC November 2021) Trump's expressions of doubt regarding the Russian Bounties Program should be included in some capacity, though there there is no consensus on a specific way to characterize these expressed doubts. (RfC March 2022)

57. Do not mention in the lead Gallup polling that states Trump's the only president to never reach 50% approval rating. (RfC January 2022)

58. Use inline citations in the lead for the more contentious and controversial statements. Editors should further discuss which sentences would benefit from having inline citations. (RfC May 2022, discussion on what to cite May 2022)

59. Do not label or categorize Trump as a far-right politician. (RfC August 2022)

60. Insert the links described in the RfC January 2023.

61. When a thread is started with a general assertion that the article is biased for or against Trump (i.e., without a specific, policy-based suggestion for a change to the article), it is to be handled as follows:

1. Reply briefly with a link to Talk:Donald Trump/Response to claims of bias, optionally using its shortcut, WP:TRUMPRCB.
2. Close the thread using {{archive top}} and {{archive bottom}}, referring to this consensus item. Suggested closure for copy-and-paste:
   {{atop|Please read [[WP:TRUMPRCB]]. Closing per [[Talk:Donald Trump#C61|consensus 61]]. Eligible for manual archival after this time tomorrow. ~~~~}}
   [existing thread]
   {{abot}}
3. Wait at least 24 hours per #13.
4. Manually archive the thread.

This does not apply to posts that are clearly in bad faith, which are to be removed on sight. (May 2023)

62. The article's description of the five people who died during and subsequent to the January 6 Capitol attack should avoid a) mentioning the causes of death and b) an explicit mention of the Capitol Police Officer who died. (RfC July 2023)

63. Supersedes #18. The alma mater field of the infobox reads: "University of Pennsylvania (BS)". (September 2023)

64. Omit the {{Very long}} tag. (January 2024)

65. Mention the Abraham Accords in the article; no consensus was achieved on specific wordings. (RfC February 2024)

66. Omit {{infobox criminal}}. (RfC June 2024)

67. The "Health" section includes: "Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs. He drugs, and that he sleeps about four or five hours a night." (February 2021) Amended (October 2025)

68. Do not expand the brief mention of Trumpism in the lead. (RfC January 2025)

69. Do not include the word "criminal" in the first sentence. (January 2025)

70. Supersedes #50. First two sentences read:

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021.

Linking exactly as shown. (February 2025)

71. Supersedes #44. Omit from the lead a mention of the Trump–Kim meetings of 2018 and 2019. (April 2025)

72. Omit from the lead a mention of the January 6 pardons. (RfC July 2025)

73. Article body includes:

Trump had a 15-year friendship with Jeffrey Epstein; persons who knew them at the time said they frequently hit on and competed for women. Media attention and public pressure mounted in 2025, when his administration did not release files relating to Epstein, despite Trump's promise to do so during the 2024 campaign.

(August 2025, September 2025)

74. This article adheres to WP:EDITREQ. If an edit request is potentially controversial, an editor responds in one of three ways:

• :{{subst:EEp|c}} ~~~~, rendering as:
   Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. [your signature]
• If the editor prefers a less formal, more personal touch, non-template language to the same effect as above.
• Or some combination of the above two, with the template first.
  Unless someone feels the response was incorrect for the situation (the edit request was not potentially controversial), no comments are posted after the response. Unless there is a good faith challenge in the interim, the thread is manually archived after 24 hours after the response, per #13. (October 2025)

Internal consistency

This article generally conforms to MoS guidelines. Where MoS guidelines allow differences between articles at editor discretion, this article uses the conventions listed here.

Copy editing

These conventions do not apply to quotations or citation |title= parameters, which are left unchanged from the sources.

1. Use American English, per the {{use American English}} template. A good American English dictionary is at https://www.merriam-webster.com/.
2. Use "Month Day, Year" date format in prose, per the {{use mdy dates}} template.
3. To prevent line breaks between month and day in prose, code for example April 12. Since content is often moved around, do this even if the date occurs very early on the line.
4. To prevent line breaks within numerical quantities comprising two "words", code for example $10 billion.
5. Use unspaced em dash ("—"), not spaced en dash (" – ").
6. For em dash, code the HTML entity —. Do not code:
   • the actual em dash character (which is not found on standard keyboards and can be ambiguous in the font used in the edit window) or
   • the {{em dash}} template (which would unnecessarily consume some of the limited PEIS resource)
7. For en dash, code the HTML entity –. Do not code:
   • the actual en dash character (which is not found on standard keyboards and can be ambiguous in the font used in the edit window) or
   • the {{en dash}} template (which would unnecessarily consume some of the limited PEIS resource)
8. Use "U.S.", not "US", for abbreviation of "United States".
9. Use the Oxford/serial comma. Write "this, that, and the other", not "this, that and the other".
10. Code template names in all lower case. Write {{main}} and {{cite news}}, not {{Main}} and {{Cite news}}.
11. In the captions of images that depict Trump, generally omit identification of him; that is, omit his name. We omit the obvious, as image captions should always do. There are rare exceptions where "the obvious" is not so obvious, as at Donald Trump#Wealth.

References

The Citation Style 1 (CS1) templates are used for most references, including all news sources. Most commonly used are {{cite news}}, {{cite magazine}}, {{cite book}}, and {{cite web}}.

1. |work= and its aliases link to the Wikipedia article when one exists.
2. Generally, |work= and its aliases match the Wikipedia article's title exactly when one exists. Code |work=[[The New York Times]], not |work=[[New York Times]]. Code |work=[[Los Angeles Times]], not |work=[[The Los Angeles Times]].
   • There are some exceptions where a redirect is more appropriate, such as AP News and NPR News, but be consistent with those exceptions.
   • When the article title includes a parenthetical, such as in Time (magazine), pipe the link to drop the parenthetical: |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]. Otherwise, there is rarely a good reason to pipe this link.
3. Code |last= and |first= for credited authors, not |author=.
4. Code |author-link= when an author has a Wikipedia article (known author links are listed below). Place this immediately after the |last= and |first= parameters for that author. |last1=Baker|first1=Peter|author-link1=Peter Baker (journalist)|last2=Freedman|first2=Dylan.
5. In |title= parameters, all-caps "shouting" is converted to title case. "AP FACT CHECK:" becomes "AP Fact Check:".
6. Per consensus 25, omit the archive-related parameters for sources that are not dead. These parameters are |url-status=, |archive-url=, and |archive-date=.
7. Omit |language= for English-language sources.
8. Omit |publisher= for news sources.
9. Omit |location= for news sources.
10. Omit |issn= for news sources.
11. Code a space before the pipe character for each parameter. For example, code: |date=April 12, 2025 |last=Baker |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Baker (journalist)—not: |date=April 12, 2025|last=Baker|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Baker (journalist). This provides the following benefits for the edit window and diffs:
    • Improved readability.
    • Over all, this tends to allow more line breaks at logical places (between cite parameters).
12. Otherwise, coding differences that do not affect what readers see are unimportant. Since they are unimportant, we don't need to revert changes by editors who think they are important (the changes, not the editors:). For example:
    • Any supported date format is acceptable since the templates convert dates to mdy format for display.
    • For web-based news sources, the choice between |work=, |newspaper=, and |website= is unimportant.
    • The sequence of template parameters is unimportant.

Known author links

|author-link=Davey Alba |author-link=Jacqueline Alemany |author-link=Binyamin Appelbaum |author-link=Matt Apuzzo |author-link=Rachael Bade |author-link=Peter Baker (journalist) |author-link=Dan Balz |author-link=Wayne Barrett |author-link=James Barron (journalist) |author-link=David Barstow |author-link=Michael C. Bender |author-link=Ruth Ben-Ghiat |author-link=Sheri Berman |author-link=Joan Biskupic |author-link=Gwenda Blair |author-link=John Blaxland (historian) |author-link=Laura Bliss |author-link=Melissa Block |author-link=Marie Brenner |author-link=Luke Broadwater |author-link=Ron Brownstein |author-link=Russ Buettner |author-link=Jason Burke |author-link=Alex Burns (journalist) |author-link=Fox Butterfield |author-link=Thomas Carothers |author-link=Ben Casselman |author-link=Kyle Cheney (journalist) |author-link=Chris Cillizza |author-link=Eleanor Clift |author-link=Kaitlan Collins |author-link=Nicholas Confessore |author-link=Kate Conger |author-link=Helene Cooper |author-link=Robert Costa (journalist) |author-link=Susanne Craig |author-link=Michael Crowley (journalist) |author-link=Daniel Dale |author-link=Michael D'Antonio |author-link=Julie Hirschfeld Davis |author-link=Josh Dawsey |author-link=Saeed Kamali Dehghan |author-link=Lisa de Moraes |author-link=Lisa Desjardins |author-link=Jeremy Diamond |author-link=David Enrich |author-link=Steven Erlanger |author-link=David Fahrenthold |author-link=Nicholas Fandos |author-link=Marc Fisher |author-link=David Folkenflik |author-link=Trip Gabriel |author-link=William G. Gale |author-link=Jamie Gangel |author-link=Bill Geist |author-link=Susan Glasser |author-link=Adam Goldman |author-link=David Greenberg (historian) |author-link=Maggie Haberman |author-link=Stephan Haggard |author-link=Shane Harris |author-link=Drew Harwell |author-link=Steven Hassan |author-link=Rosalind S. Helderman |author-link=Angie Drobnic Holan |author-link=Scott Horsley |author-link=Carl Hulse |author-link=Harry Hurt III |author-link=Mike Isaac |author-link=Ben Jacobs (journalist) |author-link=Kevin Johnson (academic) |author-link=David Cay Johnston |author-link=Andrew Kaczynski |author-link=Michiko Kakutani |author-link=Zolan Kanno-Youngs |author-link=Annie Karni |author-link=Aaron Katersky |author-link=Tamara Keith |author-link=Glenn Kessler (journalist) |author-link=Naomi Klein |author-link=Alison Kodjak |author-link=Maria Konnikova |author-link=Michael Kranish |author-link=Adrienne LaFrance |author-link=Sharon LaFraniere |author-link=Matt Lee (journalist) |author-link=Michelle Ye Hee Lee |author-link=Jonathan Lemire |author-link=Carol D. Leonnig |author-link=Adam B. Lerner |author-link=Adam Liptak |author-link=Eric Lipton |author-link=Ryan Mac |author-link=Ewen MacAskill |author-link=Tim Mak |author-link=Arash Markazi |author-link=Jonathan Martin (journalist) |author-link=Phil Mattingly |author-link=Jane Mayer |author-link=Mark Mazzetti |author-link=Sarah McCammon |author-link=Brett McGurk |author-link=Jesse McKinley |author-link=Jon Meacham |author-link=Jennifer Mercieca |author-link=Zeke Miller |author-link=Sara Murray (journalist) |author-link=Brigitte L. Nacos |author-link=Adam Nagourney |author-link=Ellen Nakashima |author-link=Ron Nixon |author-link=Floyd Norris |author-link=Emily Nussbaum |author-link=Timothy L. O'Brien |author-link=Ed O'Keefe |author-link=Toluse Olorunnipa |author-link=Michael Oreskes |author-link=Ashley Parker |author-link=Azi Paybarah |author-link=Robert Pear |author-link=Samuel L. Perry |author-link=Bill Pennington |author-link=Jeremy W. Peters |author-link=Abby Phillip |author-link=Kendra Pierre-Louis |author-link=David Pion-Berlin |author-link=James Poniewozik |author-link=Paul Pringle |author-link=Alan Rappeport |author-link=Frank Rich |author-link=Simon Romero |author-link=Matthew Rosenberg |author-link=Philip Rucker |author-link=Jim Rutenberg |author-link=Jason Samenow |author-link=David E. Sanger |author-link=Choe Sang-hun |author-link=Austin Sarat |author-link=Stephanie Saul |author-link=Charlie Savage (journalist) |author-link=Brian Schaffner |author-link=Noam Scheiber |author-link=Michael Scherer (journalist) |author-link=Michael S. Schmidt |author-link=David Segal (journalist) |author-link=Robert Y. Shapiro |author-link=Michael D. Shear |author-link=Sara Sidner |author-link=Scott Simon |author-link=Felicia Sonmez |author-link=Marianna Spring |author-link=Barbara Starr |author-link=Jeff Stein (author) |author-link=Eli Stokols |author-link=Sheryl Gay Stolberg |author-link=David Stout |author-link=Eileen Sullivan |author-link=Jonathan Swan |author-link=Hiroko Tabuchi |author-link=Michael Tackett |author-link=Glenn Thrush |author-link=Shawn Tully |author-link=Megan Twohey |author-link=Nadia Urbinati |author-link=Kenneth P. Vogel |author-link=Kenneth T. Walsh |author-link=David Weigel |author-link=Richard Winger |author-link=Patrick Wintour |author-link=Julia Carrie Wong |author-link=Christopher Zara |author-link=Jeff Zeleny

Tracking lead size

Word counts by paragraph and total. Click [show] to see weeklies.

2024

01 Oct 2024 — 615 = 029 + 101 + 108 + 156 + 100 + 121 08 Oct 2024 — 627 = 029 + 101 + 108 + 156 + 112 + 121 15 Oct 2024 — 629 = 029 + 101 + 108 + 156 + 100 + 135 22 Oct 2024 — 615 = 029 + 101 + 108 + 156 + 100 + 121 29 Oct 2024 — 615 = 029 + 101 + 108 + 156 + 100 + 121 05 Nov 2024 — 614 = 029 + 101 + 106 + 156 + 101 + 121 12 Nov 2024 — 657 = 046 + 101 + 116 + 175 + 176 + 043 19 Nov 2024 — 418 = 062 + 076 + 153 + 127 26 Nov 2024 — 406 = 056 + 070 + 138 + 142 03 Dec 2024 — 418 = 053 + 064 + 158 + 143 10 Dec 2024 — 413 = 054 + 062 + 153 + 144 17 Dec 2024 — 422 = 058 + 057 + 141 + 166 24 Dec 2024 — 437 = 058 + 057 + 156 + 166 31 Dec 2024 — 465 = 087 + 060 + 154 + 164

07 Jan 2025 — 438 = 058 + 060 + 156 + 164

14 Jan 2025 — 432 = 058 + 060 + 145 + 169

21 Jan 2025 — 439 = 046 + 060 + 181 + 152

28 Jan 2025 — 492 = 047 + 084 + 155 + 135 + 071

---

04 Feb 2025 — 461 = 044 + 082 + 162 + 147 + 026

11 Feb 2025 — 475 = 044 + 079 + 154 + 141 + 057

18 Feb 2025 — 502 = 044 + 081 + 154 + 178 + 045

25 Feb 2025 — 459 = 040 + 087 + 149 + 138 + 045

---

04 Mar 2025 — 457 = 040 + 087 + 149 + 128 + 053

11 Mar 2025 — 447 = 040 + 087 + 149 + 128 + 043

18 Mar 2025 — 446 = 040 + 087 + 147 + 129 + 043

25 Mar 2025 — 445 = 040 + 087 + 147 + 128 + 043

---

01 Apr 2025 — 458 = 040 + 087 + 171 + 114 + 046

08 Apr 2025 — 493 = 040 + 104 + 167 + 128 + 054

15 Apr 2025 — 502 = 040 + 101 + 158 + 128 + 075

22 Apr 2025 — 495 = 040 + 110 + 159 + 128 + 058

29 Apr 2025 — 522 = 040 + 113 + 159 + 128 + 082

---

06 May 2025 — 534 = 040 + 113 + 159 + 128 + 094

13 May 2025 — 530 = 040 + 113 + 159 + 063 + 090 + 065

20 May 2025 — 529 = 040 + 113 + 091 + 068 + 064 + 088 + 065

27 May 2025 — 528 = 040 + 113 + 091 + 050 + 064 + 087 + 083

---

03 Jun 2025 — 549 = 040 + 112 + 141 + 087 + 086 + 083

10 Jun 2025 — 549 = 040 + 112 + 141 + 087 + 086 + 083

17 Jun 2025 — 549 = 040 + 112 + 141 + 087 + 086 + 083

24 Jun 2025 — 549 = 040 + 112 + 141 + 087 + 086 + 083

---

01 Jul 2025 — 545 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 086 + 083

08 Jul 2025 — 530 = 040 + 108 + 135 + 087 + 077 + 083

15 Jul 2025 — 538 = 040 + 108 + 135 + 087 + 085 + 083

22 Jul 2025 — 547 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 085 + 086

29 Jul 2025 — 547 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 085 + 086

---

05 Aug 2025 — 547 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 085 + 086

12 Aug 2025 — 556 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 094 + 086

19 Aug 2025 — 564 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 102 + 086

26 Aug 2025 — 564 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 102 + 086

---

02 Sep 2025 — 564 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 102 + 086

09 Sep 2025 — 564 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 102 + 086

16 Sep 2025 — 564 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 102 + 086

23 Sep 2025 — 568 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 106 + 086

30 Sep 2025 — 568 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 106 + 086

---

07 Oct 2025 — 568 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 106 + 086

14 Oct 2025 — 568 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 106 + 086

21 Oct 2025 — 572 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 110 + 086

28 Oct 2025 — 546 = 040 + 108 + 141 + 087 + 084 + 086

---

04 Nov 2025 — 547 = 040 + 109 + 141 + 087 + 084 + 086

11 Nov 2025 — 535 = 040 + 109 + 141 + 075 + 084 + 086

18 Nov 2025 — 512 = 040 + 109 + 145 + 077 + 072 + 069

25 Nov 2025 — 532 = 040 + 109 + 145 + 080 + 072 + 086

---

02 Dec 2025 — 532 = 040 + 109 + 145 + 080 + 072 + 086

09 Dec 2025 — 532 = 040 + 109 + 145 + 080 + 072 + 086

16 Dec 2025 — 571 = 040 + 109 + 145 + 081 + 110 + 086

23 Dec 2025 — 537 = 040 + 108 + 145 + 081 + 072 + 091

30 Dec 2025 — 537 = 040 + 108 + 145 + 081 + 072 + 091

---

06 Jan 2026 — 537 = 040 + 108 + 145 + 081 + 072 + 091

13 Jan 2026 — 537 = 040 + 108 + 145 + 081 + 072 + 091

20 Jan 2026 — 537 = 040 + 108 + 145 + 080 + 073 + 091

---

Tracking article size

Readable prose size in words – Wiki markup size in bytes – Approximate number of additional citations before exceeding the PEIS limit.^[a] Click [show] to see weeklies.

2024

01 Oct 2024 — 15,811 – 414,704 – n/a 08 Oct 2024 — 15,823 – 414,725 – n/a 15 Oct 2024 — 15,824 – 415,035 – n/a 22 Oct 2024 — 15,873 – 420,021 – n/a 29 Oct 2024 — 15,822 – 421,276 – n/a 05 Nov 2024 — 15,818 – 421,592 – 103 12 Nov 2024 — 15,883 – 427,790 – 046 19 Nov 2024 — 15,708 – 430,095 – 012 [discussion] 26 Nov 2024 — 15,376 – 414,196 – 067 03 Dec 2024 — 15,479 – 415,176 – 064 10 Dec 2024 — 15,279 – 404,464 – 122 17 Dec 2024 — 15,294 – 405,370 – 080 24 Dec 2024 — 14,863 – 402,971 – 190 31 Dec 2024 — 14,989 – 409,188 – 180

07 Jan 2025 — 14,681 – 404,773 – 187

14 Jan 2025 — 14,756 – 403,398 – 191

21 Jan 2025 — 15,086 – 422,683 – 094

28 Jan 2025 — 12,852 – 365,724 – 203

---

04 Feb 2025 — 11,261 – 337,988 – 254

11 Feb 2025 — 11,168 – 339,283 – 249

18 Feb 2025 — 11,180 – 339,836 – 247

25 Feb 2025 — 11,213 – 343,445 – 242

---

04 Mar 2025 — 11,179 – 346,533 – 240

11 Mar 2025 — 11,058 – 343,849 – 243

18 Mar 2025 — 10,787 – 338,465 – 253

25 Mar 2025 — 10,929 – 340,876 – 248

---

01 Apr 2025 — 11,191 – 350,011 – 230

08 Apr 2025 — 11,334 – 356,921 – 217

15 Apr 2025 — 11,443 – 363,611 – 175

22 Apr 2025 — 11,397 – 361,630 – 180

29 Apr 2025 — 11,344 – 361,732 – 180

---

06 May 2025 — 11,537 – 365,243 – 171

13 May 2025 — 11,565 – 365,873 – 171

20 May 2025 — 11,574 – 366,310 – 171

27 May 2025 — 11,636 – 369,056 – 164

---

03 Jun 2025 — 11,678 – 369,696 – 164

10 Jun 2025 — 11,758 – 370,645 – 163

17 Jun 2025 — 11,705 – 370,943 – 160

24 Jun 2025 — 11,650 – 369,162 – 162

---

01 Jul 2025 — 11,622 – 368,483 – 163

08 Jul 2025 — 11,599 – 368,528 – 162

15 Jul 2025 — 11,843 – 373,664 – 152

22 Jul 2025 — 11,978 – 376,726 – 146

29 Jul 2025 — 11,813 – 375,310 – 146

---

05 Aug 2025 — 12,051 – 381,202 – 136

12 Aug 2025 — 12,213 – 384,442 – 112

19 Aug 2025 — 12,383 – 388,816 – 104

26 Aug 2025 — 12,529 – 395,560 – 091

---

02 Sep 2025 — 12,726 – 398,489 – 086

09 Sep 2025 — 12,826 – 405,283 – 071

16 Sep 2025 — 12,975 – 408,166 – 069

23 Sep 2025 — 12,979 – 408,503 – 068

30 Sep 2025 — 13,171 – 417,860 – 051

---

07 Oct 2025 — 13,167 – 416,077 – 052

14 Oct 2025 — 13,114 – 414,237 – 057

21 Oct 2025 — 13,108 – 414,101 – 054

28 Oct 2025 — 13,171 – 417,154 – 048

---

04 Nov 2025 — 13,175 – 417,011 – 050

11 Nov 2025 — 13,164 – 415,372 – 034 [discussion]

18 Nov 2025 — 12,956 – 394,038 – 061

25 Nov 2025 — 12,783 – 388,790 – 071

---

02 Dec 2025 — 12,773 – 386,717 – 072

09 Dec 2025 — 12,752 – 386,130 – 063

16 Dec 2025 — 12,220 – 377,872 – 057

23 Dec 2025 — 11,506 – 344,755 – 151

30 Dec 2025 — 11,194 – 334,303 – 171

---

06 Jan 2026 — 11,238 – 335,167 – 169

13 Jan 2026 — 11,349 – 341,400 – 154

20 Jan 2026 — 11,449 – 346,888 – 140

---

Note

Notes This number is (PEIS limit minus PEIS) divided by 2000. A typical citation in this article contributes about 2,000 bytes to the article's PEIS. While all other template transclusions also contribute to PEIS, they are far fewer in number and their contributions vary widely. This number is a very rough but useful approximation. If it falls below about 40, it's time to start talking about ways to reduce the article's PEIS. (Trimming cited body content is only one of the ways; for another example, we can remove dispensable navboxes at the bottom of the article.) This is more meaningful to editors than showing the PEIS or the number of additional bytes before exceeding the PEIS limit.

Merge multiple subheadings for ANI listed close request for Bulking down the article

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Condense/summarize but don't split. There's ~2:1 support for reducing the length of prose in the "Political practice and rhetoric" section. There is less support for splitting off a new article (not enough to justify doing it) and more support for moving details to subarticles (Political positions of Donald Trump and Rhetoric of Donald Trump), dropping less-important details which are mentioned in subarticles, and rephrasing to say the same thing in fewer words - in other words, to reduce verbosity and redundant phrasing. -- Beland (talk) 05:16, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

---

Struck through a joke which has caused confusion. To clarify, I found support for reducing word count by any of the three mentioned methods: 1.) moving details to existing subarticles, 2.) dropping less-important details already mentioned in subarticles, and 3.) rephrasing without changing the meaning or connotation or using different terminology that for whatever reason someone finds unacceptable. There was no specific wording changes agreed to in this discussion, so although (3) seems pretty safe and useful to do if executed with care and attention to detail, for (1) and (2), there may be pushback from other editors on specific items they find important (some of whom expressed a preference to keep everything currently in this section). There was no consensus on how much the word count of this section should be reduced, just that method 4, splitting off a new subarticle, should not be used. Editors will need to collaborate on how to improve brevity and come up with creative solutions and fair summaries that neutrally convey information and flag for interested readers the subarticles where they can get fuller detail. -- Beland (talk) 22:36, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Split "Political practice and rhetoric" to a new article?

Discussion and !votes

Thanks to edits from Bsherr and Bill Williams to trim and condense the article recently, the size of the Trump biography has been brought down from about 390Kb to about 345Kb. That is a positive step to try to manage the still overlarge and sprawling Trump biography. The still overlarge and sprawling biography can be significantly further enhanced by considering doing a page split of the full section of "Political practice and rhetoric" into its own stand alone article on Wikipedia. By doing such a full page split for the article as it is in its current condition, then the Trump biography as a whole would benefit by being very close to going under 300Kb for the first time since 2017 here: [1]. That would be a significant advantage to readers of the article who wish to read it from top to bottom; the current version take up to 50-55 minutes to read in its entirety, while the article split would bring the approximate article read time down to 35-40 minutes total read time.

The previous attempt to deal with the overlarge size of the Trump article from several months ago was to try to condense that section about "Political practice and rhetoric" to a 2-3 paragraph shortened version, which caused much division among opinions from many editors along with an inconclusive RfC. The approach here is to avoid getting into the same debate by doing a full split of that section without any deletions whatsoever, in order that the section in its entirety could then go through further updates and edits as being in its own stand alone article on Wikipedia. This current post is to request opinions from other editors about going ahead with the full page split for the current section of "Political practice and rhetoric" into its own stand alone Wikipedia article, which would bring the size of the present Trump biography down to under 300KB for the first time since 2017; opinions can be stated as either 'Support' for the page split, or 'Oppose' for the full page split as described above. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:43, 20 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support: As supporting the bulking down of the article in general to a smaller size. For example, by splitting the article, discussions about the Navbox in the "Politicial practice and rhetoric" section currently also taking up editors time here on the Trump Talk page above could then also be moved to the split article instead. Split the subheading into a new article, and editors of this Trump biography no longer would need to worry about discussions like the Navbox, and related matters as well. ErnestKrause (talk) 20:25, 20 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - a common sense approach to solving this problem. The child article would be more coherent than many of the vast array of Trump articles on Wikipedia, Riposte97 (talk) 05:39, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Note existing articles Political positions of Donald Trump and Rhetoric of Donald Trump. No opinion on the best solution, but a new article is not it. I was not aware of those articles until I browsed WP:TRUMPOTA. I recommend that in general. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 07:33, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• None of the above. Trim "Political practice and rhetoric" by 80-90%, summarizing the above linked two articles. Basically, rewrite the section from scratch. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 07:50, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose split, support condensing — Both articles already exist. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 16:46, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose split. This is the March 2025 RfC on reducing the size of the Political practice and rhetoric section. It wasn't inconclusive, it was unsuccessful. The current section is summary-style — see the 13 "main", "further", and "see also" articles listed. Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:17, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  No, that's not what it said. It stated that no consensus was reached in the RfC using the following words: "There is no concensus to adopt the proposed text. Roughly half of the respondents support the conciseness and structure of the proposal, while roughly half say that the reduced text is too concise...". That's stating that the result was split "Roughly half... and ...half". The page split now being put forward sounds like the best option on the table at this time; there appears to be no advantage to reduplicating material in the Trump biography here which is already being fully covered on the sibling pages both for his Political positions of Donald Trump and for his Rhetoric of Donald Trump. Why do you defend the reduplication of this material on the Trump biography page here? ErnestKrause (talk) 23:31, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  For process purposes, no-consensus results are treated as if the discussion never occurred in the first place. They are non-events. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 09:54, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  In practice that is not how is works. There is a large difference between unproductive RfC which are leading nowhere which are closed, and RfCs which are closed because of deeply divided opinions. When divided opinion RfCs are closed as unresolved, then they can often be replaced by reformulated RfCs which lead to more explicit outcomes which are then useful to Wikipedia. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:12, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree it is long but not everyone wants to read it too to down. If people want to only read about his politics, they could skip the business section and go towards the politics. If people want to read both they could read both. I also think shortening some sentences without reducing the amount of information and reorganizing it would be more practical rather than splitting into more articles. Sections exist so readers can prioritize what information they want to see and not want to see. WikiGrower1 (talk) 22:55, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  True. If we are writing the article with the assumption that readers read top-to-bottom, we don't need the table of contents. I've been a reader or editor for some 15 years and I have never read any but the shortest articles top-to-bottom. Attention spans are short and getting shorter every day. YMMV.

  It's just a poor argument. In this case, it's an argument for something I happen to support, the dramatic reduction of this section. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 09:37, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That’s what I am saying we could shorten the article without making a new article or reduce information. WikiGrower1 (talk) 13:17, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose this is not Trumpopedia, we do not have to have this many articles, we already have Political positions of Donald Trump, Rhetoric of Donald Trump, Trumpism and god knows how many other places this can go. Slatersteven (talk) 14:34, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Hi Slatersteven: Nobody wants Wikipedia to turn into Trumpopedia. If you can follow-up on your suggestion and do a reduction of that full 60K section for the "Political practice and rhetoric" section down to about 6K, and then replace the current 60K version with the new 6K version with links in order to defer to the already existing articles for Political positions of Donald Trump and Rhetoric of Donald Trump, then it looks like you would have multiple supporters above to go along with you. That would represent a 90% reduction of the prose in the current Trump article for that section, and there would not be the present problem of reduplicating the material in those 2 sibling articles just mentioned on Wikipedia as a whole. You might have multiple supporters for doing this if you go ahead with it. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:12, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose The prior RfC on this failed and I don't see this new proposal as substantially different from the prior proposal. BootsED (talk) 04:24, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  To expand on my opposition a bit, I'll quote myself during the prior discussion on this in March: The Rhetoric section is written in summary style of the many child articles on Donald Trump with appropriate links to them, not just the Rhetoric article itself as some suggest. It is not a "full duplication", but a highly abridged summary of the main points of several other relevant child articles. Removing the section entirely would be the wrong way to approach this. Furthermore, the content within this section has been subject to extensive discussion and agreement over the years to keep here. The argument regarding "byte size" has been thoroughly debunked as not based in policy. There are over 1,000 featured articles with larger "byte sizes" than this one. To quote myself from March: Reagan has 10093 words and 436 references, Washington has 9386 words and 353 references, and Trump has 11182 words and 685 references." Material should be removed based on word count and article length, where 15,000 words is considered "long", not 11,000. There are many other pages on Wikipedia that are 11,000 words long. I have never seen "page bytes" being used as a justification for removing words. If anything, the high byte size from the used references are a testament to the higher sourcing and reference standards on this page, and should be celebrated, not condemned. The page for Jimmy Carter is at 15,309 words, Richard Nixon is at 14,015 words, Abraham Lincoln is at 13,718 words, Jesus is at 13,400 words, and this article is at 11,214 words. Removing more at this point is premature. As of 6 January 2025, the article is at 11,238 words, hardly larger than it was almost a year ago. Why are we removing an entire section, now?

  Regardless, owing to the statement of a disputed opinion as a fact based on flawed and non-existent wiki policy and the advocacy for a solution with leading questions makes it clear this proposal, should it go through, will need a proper RfC per the March 2025 RfC that did not reach a consensus for such large changes here. BootsED (talk) 23:53, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  A previous RfC failed to reach consensus, therefore we need an RfC to establish one? No, I don't think that's right. Per WP:RFCBEFORE, we don't need an RfC if a consensus can be established here, without one. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 00:08, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - put into the Rhetoric of Donald Trump article. GoodDay (talk) 16:27, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Too much confusion on this talkpage, about this topic. GoodDay (talk) 17:35, 13 January 2026 (UTC) [reply]
• Support - This seems like the most practical, logical and best practise option. Halbared (talk) 17:14, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose; it's sufficiently central to his personal biography (being key to his main source of notability relative to other presidents and figures of comparable overall weight) that it ought to be covered in-depth here. --Aquillion (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose split. A few things to note: (1) the 11,000 words of readable prose is a lot but not in excess of WP:PAGESIZE recommendations. (2) the focus on how long it takes to read the article misses the point, in any case, that almost no one consumes an article like this in such a manner. (3) There is an inherent assumption in splitting that is invalid. If the information being split out of the article is the information the reader wants, we save them nothing by splitting - in fact we are tempted to pad the split article, so they must read more, and in multiple documents, to meet their information requirement. It would be much better to address concerns about size by rewriting in summary style, per Mandruss above. (4) Being a populist, his rhetoric is core to understanding the person and his appeal. This is key information about Trump, well sourced, that should be in any general article about the man. Ot does not serve the encyclopaedia, nor the reader, to hive out and hide this core information. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:16, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Moved discussion - Please add new Split Discussion !votes above this section

The following related subsection moved into this thread. Please, add further !votes or comments above this text. Space4TCatHerder🖖 21:12, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Delisted RfC — Splitting the Political Practice and Rhetoric Section

Original heading: "RfC on Splitting the Political Practice and Rhetoric Section" ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 20:39, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There has been enormous discussion on the best way to reduce the Political Practice and Rhetoric section, but no consensus on how to do that. This proposal is to split the entire section, preserving all content, to a different Trump-releated page. Riposte97 (talk) 19:57, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. This content is more evaluative than biographical. It clearly does not belong in this biography. It should be preserved at one of the pages dedicated to content of that type (probably Rhetoric of Donald Trump), although I wouldn't be opposed to a short paragraph being added back in under the Assessment section which summaries the content and links to the child article. Riposte97 (talk) 20:02, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Bad RFC - the RFC above (RfC: Trump's 2020 photo op at St. John's Church) is trending towards a result that the nom. and one other editor have opposed, so they have concocted this RFC [2] that would, if successful, obviate the above emerging consensus. We should not be overturning the emerging consensus of a still running RfC by phrasing another RfC to obviate it, and being the only editors to oppose the above thus far, this is not a good look. Further, this is presented as an RfC, when the nom. was, only last week, pointed to WP:PROSPLIT on their talk page. Strongly suggest this be withdrawn before any !votes are placed. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:34, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  On the contrary, the above RfC is the one designed for the purpose you alleged, as it seeks to end-run a pre-existing discussion above. In any case, no result of this RfC need contradict a 'keep' result of that one. That one asks whether the content in question should be deleted entirely - this proposal would move it to a more appropriate location. Riposte97 (talk) 21:29, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  It asks whether it should be removed from this page. The answer is strongly trending no. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:34, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Longstanding content was removed from the article independently of the discussions about splitting off and bulking down. The removal was challenged, and the content was removed again, twice. THAT was the end-run necessitating the RfC. Space4TCatHerder🖖 18:16, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Bad RFC and Strong Oppose Two other discussions on content removal supported by the nom have resulted in a lack of consensus and opposition to the edits/trims. This RfC seeks to circumvent the prior two discussions and institute a broad, sweeping deletion from this page.
• Why should this material be split out anyway? The majority of the content in this section does not belong in the Rhetoric of Donald Trump page or any other sub-page about Trump. In fact, this section thoroughly summarizes and links to the many sub-pages about Trump in a summary-style overview per Wiki policy. Trump's history of using false and misleading statements and promotion of conspiracy theories is extremely notable for a biography about Trump, I'm not sure how a biography can be complete without a section mentioning this. Some of the strongest sourcing on the page is in this section. Furthermore, much of this content has existed on this page for years and multiple discussions have decided to keep it.
  Lastly, any concerns about length have been thoroughly addressed before, with this page smaller than many other pages on other presidents. The page for George W. Bush is at 14,761 words, Richard Nixon is at 14,333 words, Jimmy Carter is at 13,758 words, Jesus is at 13,556 words, and this article is at 11,238 words. Removing more at this point is premature. BootsED (talk) 23:39, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I didn't know Jesus was US President. Jack Upland (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Should have been more specific with the prior sentence! Meant to include presidents and historical figures. BootsED (talk) 00:36, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Does this RfC meet WP:RFCBEFORE? The discussion Split "Political practice and rhetoric" to a new article? was opened on December 20 and the subsection Bulking down the article from 345Kb: Article appears to be at a crossroads subsection three days later; a second subsection, Trim to Political practice and rhetoric, was added on January 6. The only argument for splitting this section off appears to be that the article must be reduced to under 300kB so that readers who want to read it in its entirety can do so in 35–40 minutes. The contents of the section are mostly summary-level. Around a dozen other child articles are mentioned in the WP:SUMMARYHATNOTEs of the section's subsections. Any content considered to be too trivial or otherwise not meeting the criteria for inclusion in this top bio, should be discussed individually. Space4TCatHerder🖖 18:16, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  No, that's not the only reason for doing it as has been discussed above. In addition, the Trump article currently suffers from the fact that 'archive urls' have been suspended from the article as a whole which is normally a bad direction to go (see Item #25). But because of saving system space in an overlarge and sprawling article like Trump was seen as important, then a consensus view to eliminate archive urls from the article was made which is generally against what Wikipedia would recommend for important articles. By shortening this biography to under 300Kb, then it might be possible to again start using archive urls constructively rather than banning them altogether. Supporting splitting that entire subheading as constructive and beneficial to the article as a whole. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:14, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd certainly oppose adding 5,000 or so bytes to add archive-urls in this long article to links that are not dead because it's easy to paste links e.g. to geo-blocked or paywalled cites into the Wayback Machine. But revoking #25 is off-topic here and requires its own discussion. So we should shorten[] this biography to under 300Kb so we can add the latest Trump announcements, complete with Fox News analysis (reverted)?

Trump's Iran threats

In response to growing political unrest within Iran escalating in January 2026, Trump warned that the United States would intervene if Iranian authorities violently suppressed "peaceful protests".[1] On 9 January 2026, Trump stated on Truth Social that the US was "locked and loaded and ready to go" if the Iranian security forces killed protesters. Retired US general and Fox News analyst Jack Keane said, "If I was in the Iranian regime, I would take President Trump dead serious here."[2] Trump later said that US is considering "very strong options" as a response to the Iran protests, among them possible military intervention, and he said: "we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before".[3] References "Trump says U.S. will intervene if Iran violently suppresses peaceful protests". Reuters. 2 January 2026. Retrieved 5 January 2026. Samsel, Stephanie (9 January 2026). "Keane warns Iranian regime to take Trump 'dead serious' on protest killing threat amid ongoing demonstrations". Fox News. Retrieved 10 January 2026. Ward, Alexander; Seligman, Lara (January 11, 2026). "U.S. Steps Up Planning for Possible Action in Iran". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 12, 2026.

Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:52, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Split proposals are not an RfC matter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:14, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  For clarity, your complete edit. You de-listed the RfC, making it a normal discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 20:57, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Shouldn't we be moving this discussion up to the first one (Talk:Donald Trump#Split "Political practice and rhetoric" to a new article?) where a number of editors have already !voted? Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:26, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  You appear to have already moved the link from the split template to another Trump Talk page section above without any discussion with anyone (pinging Redrose64 who has delisted this as an RfC in preference to making it a 'page split' discussion). Separately, you have included the discussion from the 2nd Presidency section in this thread for some unknown reason. If you wish to discuss Trump's foreign policy about Iran, then it should be moved to a separate thread below. ErnestKrause (talk) 19:55, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  We already had a "split page" discussion with more than a dozen comments and !votes when the RfC was opened. Now that the RfC is just another discussion, IMO the older one takes precedence. Notifying Sirfurboy, the only editor from this discussion who hasn't participated in Talk:Donald Trump#Split "Political practice and rhetoric" to a new article?. Space4TCatHerder🖖 20:57, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Your posting of the 'Trump Iran threat' material in this section is fully inappropriate; are you intentionally trying to confuse the issue being considered in this thread about a page split? Start a new thread for Iran at the end of this Talk page and move it there; it does not belong in this page split discussion here. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Bulking down the article from 345Kb: Article appears to be at a crossroads

There appear to be three options for dealing with bulking down the currently overlong and sprawling article for the Trump biography.

Option 1. A page split of the "Political practice and rhetoric" section into a standalone Wikipedia article would bring the article down to under 300Kb for the first time over the last five year period.

Option 2. A sharp condense and trim of the entire "Political practice and rhetoric" section could reduce it to 10% or 20% of its current size (60Kb) by noting that it is a duplication of material which already exists on the Trump sibling articles for Political positions of Donald Trump, Rhetoric of Donald Trump, and Trumpism. No need to reduplicate prose which already is fully maintained in current sibling Wikipedia articles.

Option 3. The prose in that section should be kept without changes to the 345Kb size of the current article, and the article and section should be allowed to continue to expand and grow, perhaps up to reaching the 500Kb size of the article back in 2020 here [3]. Computer memory is cheap and there is no priority which requires editors to absolutely follow WP:TOOBIG and WP:TLDR Wikipedia policy statements.

If editors have a preference for any of the above then it can be added below:

Support Option 1. Along with Riposte97, this seems to be the simplest and most direct method to trim and condense the currently oversized and sprawling article for the Trump biography. One extra sibling article more or less in the collection of Trump sibling articles seems a small price to pay for bring the Trump article down to under 300Kb for the first time in over 5 years. WP:TOOBIG and WP:TLDR are serious issues for many editors at Wikipedia. ErnestKrause (talk) 23:16, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

here is my concern if we do option 2 we might be deleting important information since he is important figure if we trim too much. I have been working on combine sentiences and shorten without reducing information as there is duplicate information. If we do option 1, it will be hard to find information. So we would need to make sure it is clear on where to find it. Another option which I propose is having sections of the article. On domestic policy it talks about tax cuts then environmental policy. WikiGrower1 (talk) 13:52, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for these comments. For the Option 2 issue which you raise, then it seems that the information being looked for could still be found by including multiple links in the article to the sibling articles which already include all of that information; all of the information is still on Wikipedia as a whole and its just a matter of providing good links to get there. For option 1 as you mention it, I'm thinking that including more prominent redirects and see-also's would help alot in getting editors to where they want to be as navigation aids for interested editors. It would be interesting to see if you prefer Option 1 or Option 2 if all of these links are added into the biography. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:12, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the support votes that this section is too long and must be cut down. As Mandruss pointed out, the two articles for this section already exist. Hence I agree with Mandruss's solution to trim this section by 80-90% and summarize the linked articles. I will attempt to do so now. Bill Williams 08:08, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just finished deleting a good bit throughout the section. It needs to be trimmed a lot further, and I welcome other editors to cut it down. Bill Williams 08:49, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

20% reduction by word count (1,966 to 1,570). My nominal target is 80% reduction to 393 words, ceding the remaining 10%. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 13:29, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The prose size of Donald Trump as of just now is 72,449 bytes. There are 1,740 featured articles whose prose length is bigger, with Taylor Swift leading the pack with 353,418 bytes. Of course, Trump's life hasn't been as long, eventful, and consequential as Taylor's ... Seriously, this is not a technical subject, just a subject who's been in the public eye forever and whose two presidencies will have grave consequences for years and maybe decades to come. WP:CANYOUREADTHIS: There are times when a long or very long article is unavoidable, though its complexity should be minimized. Readability is a key criterion: an article should have clear scope, be well organized, stay on topic, and have a good narrative flow. My opinion: the article has clear scope, is well organized, stays (mostly) on topic, and has (mostly) a good narrative flow. There are details than can be improved and/or updated, trivial details removed. Whitewashing, such as the violent removal of protesters from Lafayette Square for Trump's photo-op, shouldn't be part of "trimming because size". Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:42, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Full support for Bill Williams to continue with the very useful trim and condense edits to that section which he started on yesterday. There are multiple editors supporting him on this and if he can get it down to 299Kb or better, then he should be supported in full. Wikipedia policy about duplicating the same material and the same prose in different sibling articles simply for the sake of duplicating the same material is fairly clear and against such reduplication. WP:TOOBIG and WP:TLDR are also clear about the negative aspects of articles becoming overlarge and sprawling. Fully supporting Bill Williams to continue with the useful trim and condense edits for the "Political practice and rhetoric" section which is currently supported by multiple editors. ErnestKrause (talk) 20:22, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If it needs trimmed further we might need to put it in a different article we have. WikiGrower1 (talk) 17:50, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Trims are to be completed when the participating editors return from holiday week. Those subheading are already fully present in the other sibling articles. ErnestKrause (talk) 01:43, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea why the byte size of an article is relevant for removing information from a page when Space4TCatHerder makes it clear the current byte size for prose is 72,449 bytes, smaller than 1,740 other featured articles on Wikipedia. There is no policy that a page should be made smaller because of byte size, the only policy is an essay recommending articles stay below 15K words. The article is at 12,773, well below the recommended limit.

Furthermore, it appears that the same two individuals, Riposte97 and ErnestKrause are again proposing to remove the majority of a section despite an RfC that failed to establish a consensus for such a change. I see no new arguments being raised here, but the same editors now supporting a unilateral mass deletion effort through a third editor who is already mass deleting content based on the exact same rationale which was decided against in the prior RfC. This ongoing effort to implement mass changes by Bill Williams on the same rationale seems to be a violation of the RfC requiring immediate reversal and possible sanctions if it is not stopped immediately to prevent an edit war. BootsED (talk) 04:36, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The best metric for article size is "readable prose size". Anything else is a distraction. See Tracking article size above. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 22:43, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Other editors believe that excessive load time for articles is a factor, which is directly related to the system size of the article. The Trump article is overlong and sprawling which causes longer load time for the article. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There are over a thousand pages with larger byte sizes than this on Wikipedia that contribute to longer load times. Start with those articles. You have proposed removing this entire section multiple times in the past with a variety of different reasons, byte size being one of your more recent ones. BootsED (talk) 19:56, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Completely agree! Byte size is not relevant at all. BootsED (talk) 00:16, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Byte size is not about policy but it is not relevant to have a certain byte size. Byte size was meant to only ESTIMATE how much someone contributed or deleted by a measurement in computer science. It is not meant to be 100% accurate. We should be looking at how do we make information clearer verses removing it. I am not sure it is realistic to trim 80% due to trump being the president of the United States. If he ends up doing a lot of things which he will likely do, it could be the case we might need to move things to other articles of him. As I mentioned earlier we have information going all over the place from domestic policy to healthcare to environmental policy. If we can maybe putting another subsection. Like healthcare policy, environmental policy since it is related to domestic policy. It will make it easier for people to want to find information they need. WikiGrower1 (talk) 02:34, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The article load time is directly related to the system size of the article. The main issue being discussed here is whether Wikipedia should include four (4) copies of the material in the subheading for "Political practice and rhetoric" here on the main Trump biography along with its being copied on the sibling articles for Political positions of Donald Trump, Rhetoric of Donald Trump, and Trumpism. Bill Williams, Riposte97, myself and others are maintaining that 4 copies of the same material on sibling articles is wasteful and unnecessary. Others seem to be maintaining Option 3 above stating that computer memory is cheap and that keeping four copies of it on sibling articles is their choice. I'm still supporting Bill Williams, Riposte97, or any other editor to condense and trim those subheadings as being fully redundant and unnecessary here. ErnestKrause (talk) 17:31, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It serves no useful purpose to state the same argument over and over. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 19:58, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You just made your point about the system size of the article as, in your view, not being of primary importance. Other editors believe that excessive load time for articles is a factor on Wikipedia, which is directly related to the system size of the article. The Trump article is overlong and sprawling which causes longer load time for the article. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Let other editors speak for themselves, please. Aside from you, I see none of that in this discussion. I strongly believe that technology advances such as 5G cellular have largely eliminated performance issues for the page sizes we deal with. If someone is getting slow downloads for this article, they are getting slow downloads for a large part of the internet, and they need to upgrade their hardware or live with the problem. We primarily serve the average case, not the worst case. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 21:03, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Other editors have spoken for themselves. The primary difficulty here remains that the article is still sprawling and overlarge; the download time is another factor although the Trump article at 330Kb is not helping there either. The article can be brought to under 299Kb by trimming material that is already fully included in 3 other sibling Trump articles currently on Wikipedia; why not go for the shorter version and leave more room for new Trump critique and commentary as discussed by Bill Williams, Riposte97 and others. ErnestKrause (talk) 02:00, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Correct goal, wrong argument. Reduce to achieve summary style, not to decrease download time. You keep making the same claim without evidence, and you're cluttering this discussion. We heard you the first time, and the second, and no one has the time to read repetitive comments. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 02:39, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A decision to do this was decided against via an RfC. Going ahead and making these changes would require an RfC. So please don't encourage people to violate an RfC. BootsED (talk) 21:18, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is not related to any old RfC which you are referring to. This is a discussion of Options 1-3 listed above and editors are free to agree to whatever a consensus leads them to; presently the consensus appears to be to trim and condense the subheadings in the "Political practice and rhetoric" section as discussed above due to the overlarge and sprawling size of the current Trump article currently at about 330Kb. All of that material already exists in several sibling articles (3-4 separate Trump-related articles) and you appear to be the single supporter of Option 3 in the above list. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:35, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If these proposals are going against an RFC decision? they can't be implemented. GoodDay (talk) 21:27, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi GoodDay; That contested RfC being referred to was from 9-10 months ago which was closed as being without consensus; since it was closed without consensus, then current consensus should be followed, which is currently to continue to condense the article as discussed by Riposte 97, Bill Williams and other editors above. ErnestKrause (talk) 02:00, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

What current consensus? There is no current consensus. BootsED (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's not the case. Based on the prevailing consensus between Bill Williams, Riposte97, Mandruss and myself, then Bill Williams was able to condense that section and bring the article down to about 330Kb in size. Mandruss has now apparently reversed his position and seems no longer to support further reduction in that section; that's his current preference. If you are opposed to the current discussion for further reduction to that section, then you have already stated that, however, do not misrepresent that there was a consensus of 4 editors at that time for the reduction of that section by Bill Williams with support from multiple editors. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:02, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

the prevailing consensus between Bill Williams, Riposte97, Mandruss and myself — four people ... you could play rubber bridge. It's not enough participation to form a new consensus to remove massive amounts of longstanding material after three days of discussion of the three options you presented, including that totally unbiased third option. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:54, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That is the prevailing consensus which was installed before the holidays of 4 editors in agreement and it was unchallenged at that time. You'll need to establish a new consensus on this Talk page if you wish to revert against an edit which was placed last month. Restoring the version which had 4 editors in agreement last month. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:51, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

⇈⇈⇈ What BootsE[rectile]D[ysfunction] said. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 07:12, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You, Mandruss, know better than to misrepresent your change in position on the question of reducing the size of this section. Your previous comment was as stated by you, Mandruss, was "...20% reduction by word count (1,966 to 1,570). My nominal target is 80% reduction to 393 words, ceding the remaining 10%." Those are your words. Could you stop making misrepresentations of your position as stated in your own words. You appear to have entirely reversed your position and seem to not be making a clear statement of your abrupt change in direction. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:02, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm concerned about here is that you made this request for mass deletion under an innocuous header called "Bulking down the article from 345Kb: Article appears to be at a crossroads". The title isn't clear to editors that your proposal is to drastically remove or reduce the political practice section which you have repeatedly advocated for in the past. The fact this was started during the Holdiays further reduced editor involvement. Likewise, you are aware that your prior proposal for this using the exact same reasoning via an RfC attracted significant pushback from multiple editors. Yet this request using the exact same reasoning, under an innocuous header title, without an RfC, over the Holidays, and immediately implemented with only a handful of editors seems to be a violation of the prior RfC. If anything, the removed content should be restored until another RfC is implemented for further discussion as the prior RfC did not reach a consensus for the changes. BootsED (talk) 17:50, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also add, your "split political practice and rhetoric" unofficial RfC above seems to be split on implementing these changes. So preemptively making the changes then reverting restorations to the status quo while discussion is ongoing seems improper. BootsED (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I regret the choice of ED in my username! BootsED (talk) 18:57, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Education Department? Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:54, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! Obviously! BootsED (talk) 20:34, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I need some clarity. Is a consensus being sought to delete something that's currently in this BLP? or is consensus being sought to delete something that's currently not in this BLP? I would presume the former, rather than the latter. GoodDay (talk) 03:09, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi GoodDay; Option 1 listed above indicates the option to delete the section for "Political positions and rhetoric" because it is fully represented on three other pages on Wikipedia listed above; it is fully redundant. Option 2 listed above indicates the option to abridge all the material in that section which is fully duplicated on three other Trump sibling articles. Option 3 indicates that some editors may prefer to do nothing since computer memory is cheap and just leave the entire section as is for Wikipedia to have 4 full Wikipiedia articles which repeat the same information for this topic. The list of Options is also listed above on this thread. I hope that helps. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:10, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Several editors above have been misstating the outcome of the 'No Consensus" RfC from last May, and this practice should be fully curtailed. It was a "No Consensus" close which did not favor one point of view over another point of view and editors should not continue to misquote it. The full text of the "No Consensus" close is presented here for the benefit of fully informing all editors participating in this discussion which states: "There is no concensus to adopt the proposed text. Roughly half of the respondents support the conciseness and structure of the proposal, while roughly half say that the reduced text is too concise and does not adequately summarize sources, violating NPOV." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:06, 29 May 2025 (UTC). The outcome of that previous "No Consensus" close should not be misrepresented by any new editors. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:10, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no consensus for what changes should be made, editors shouldn't unilaterally go ahead and make changes without consensus. The above discussion will likely need a formal RfC, honestly. The current discussion presents a disputed opinion as a fact, then presents and advocates for one of three options that result in the section being heavily trimmed or deleted, and presents the option to do nothing in a sarcastic and dismissive manner by suggesting it will grow to 500kb (which again assumes that's somehow a bad thing). BootsED (talk) 16:28, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've been too lazy to try to analyze the process here, so I'm not taking a side, but I'll dispute this small part of it. If there's no consensus for what changes should be made, editors shouldn't unilaterally go ahead and make changes without consensus. I thought that was called a bold edit. The bold edit can be challenged by reversion, but not with a "no consensus" rationale. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 17:28, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I challenged the bold edits, one in its entirety, and the second one partially, and neither with a "no consensus" rationale. EK reverted my challenges, citing an alleged new consensus. Space4TCatHerder🖖 18:14, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As Mandruss said, BootsED is violating one of the most basic Wikipedia policies; WP:BOLD. Anyone can revert my edits to the article, but they're perfectly in line with Wikipedia policy. Editors such as myself, Mandruss, ErnestKrause, elijapepe@wikipedia, WikiGrower1, all support trimming this section. Hence I am going to trim it some more, and editors can revert me if they feel as though I made a mistake. Bill Williams 01:58, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget me! Riposte97 (talk) 10:12, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that we are talking at cross-purposes here. This started out as a discussion about splitting off Donald Trump#Political practice and rhetoric into its own article (a 4:3 majority opposed), then meandered off into another "must trim article down to size not bigger than [insert your favorite name]'s article". Your initial bold edits — fine. Once they are challenged, however, they need to be discussed, individually, which puts challenging editors at a disadvantage because of 3RR but OK. And the discussion should have a heading that tells the reader what it's about, deleting xyz. Both ErnestKrause and, particularly, Riposte97 with this edit, violated, if not the letter, then the spirit of The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article is related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing this article: You must follow the bold-revert-discuss cycle if your change is reverted. Space4TCatHerder🖖 15:26, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No violation at all by Riposte97 since Bill Williams already has given the list of the many editors supporting him by agreement when he made the edit on Dec 26. After that edit was established last month, I then opened this current thread to see if that full section could be either archived as a fully redundant copy available fully in 3 other Trump sibling articles, or, to make even further trims to that entire section as 'Option 2' listed above. I'm fully supporting Riposte 97, Bill Williams and all the others listed above to continue to follow all Wikipedia policy rules in order to further trim and condense the article if 'Option 2' is their preference since they have multiple editors supporting them. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:56, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If someone proposes a general trim of material, some editors respond by going "trim good", an editor deletes material from the article, and another editor challenges that particular bold edit, you can't use "trim good" as the justification for reverting the challenge. Asking administrators who have regularly or repeatedly commented on this Talk page for their expert opinion: @Firefangledfeathers:, @Muboshgu:, @ScottishFinnishRadish:. Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:08, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be devoloping into an editor conduct situation. That would point things toward WP:ANI, IMHO. GoodDay (talk) 16:06, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to the aspersions against me by @Bill Williams with his comment above "As Mandruss said, BootsED is violating one of the most basic Wikipedia policies; WP:BOLD". There is no consensus for these changes. Four in favor versus three against does not constitute a consensus. Bill's claim that "Hence I am going to trim it some more, and editors can revert me if they feel as though I made a mistake", and then @ErnestKrause 1 2 3 4 and @Riposte97 1 immediately reverting anyone who reverts these edits claiming a "consensus" was made is frankly at this point an edit war.

As stated on @ScottishFinnishRadish's talk page in his reasoning for the closure of the March RfC: "So, from what I see there was a rough consensus that it should be trimmed down, but no consensus on what to do to trim it down. On an obviously contentious article like Donald Trump it's pretty likely that any large trims are going to be challenged and there will need to be consensus for any specific large trim, removal, or rearrangement." This is not me violating WP:BOLD, this is me enforcing the March RfC that did not agree to any specific trims to the section.

For context: on the 26th of December, right in the middle of the holidays, Bill Willams made 14 major deletions to this page in a single day. In my view, several of Bill's edit summaries involved original research and personal opinions being used to justify the changes. Many of these deletions involve content that has been on this page for years with much prior discussion that ultimately resulted in it being kept. No substantive discussion on Bill's claims and the current reasoning for the removal of content has been made other than "I support them" along with a non-existent argument that the "byte size" of the article needs to be reduced to an arbitrary number because some people's computers load too slow, which has been completely debunked both now and in back in March as not based in policy. There exist over a thousand featured articles with larger "byte sizes" than this one as pointed out by @Space4TCatHerder🖖, and this article seems to be the only one being targeted after prior attempts by ErnestKrause and Riposte97 to delete, remove, and excise this section of the page with prior arguments have all failed (see Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 198). BootsED (talk) 04:53, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 3 and procedural oppose; the wording of option 3 here is egregiously non-neutral. The sweeping removals being proposed here go wildly beyond merely trimming for length, removing key aspects of Trump's personal biography. --Aquillion (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Trim to Political practice and rhetoric

In this edit, I reverted the restoration of content that I believe there was consensus to remove. However, that removal has been criticised above. So as to preserve the above topic for what it's intended to be, a discussion on the excision of that entire section (given it is duplicative), I start this topic purely so that editors can discuss this specific trim. Please indicate support or opposition, with reasons. Riposte97 (talk) 22:41, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

---

• Support removal of the content (obviously). The two parts removed are trivial. They are a legacy of the history of insinuation and exhaustive detail that this page is slowly dragging itself away from. Riposte97 (talk) 22:44, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• @ErnestKrause @Bsherr @Bill Williams @Mandruss @ElijahPepe @Space4Time3Continuum2x @WikiGrower1 @Slatersteven @BootsED @GoodDay Riposte97 (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - removal. GoodDay (talk) 23:44, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  No longer interested, in this topic. GoodDay (talk) 05:08, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Support — The Lafayette Square incident is relatively irrelevant. I can't see the importance of the sentences above it. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 23:58, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Support; per Riposte97 above. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:29, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• This content needs to be immediately restored to the status quo ante. This is rapidly becoming an edit war.
  Where was this consensus? Is there an RfC I am unaware of? I see roughly 4 editors in favor and at least 3 against. This does not constitute a consensus. No reasoning has been provided for any of these removals. No discussion on the sources has been made. The only reasoning I see for removing this is a non-existent argument that the "byte size" of a page is reason to remove content because some people's computers load too slow, which has been debunked above. There exist well over a thousand featured articles with "byte sizes" larger than this one. It just so happens that the only removed information is info that Riposte97 views as negative against Trump per his comments. Some of the removed content is sourced to extremely-high quality review articles from leading political science journals. No actual discussion on the content itself has been made. Why should this content be removed? The only reasoning I see here is "I just don't like it". BootsED (talk) 03:53, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• I just opened an RfC about the removal of the photo-op. Haven't decided yet what to do (how to word eventual RfCs) about the removal that I partially challenged in this edit and another one that I flagged and partially reverted as a violation of restrictions in effect on this page. Seems clear that neither ErnestKrause nor Riposte97 seem willing to err on the side of caution and reinstate the material while the discussions are ongoing. Space4TCatHerder🖖 18:05, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  @Space4Time3Continuum2x: Go ahead and do it, that's standard practice. I can't do it because I don't know the specifics of the restore. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 18:24, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. The argument that this is somehow part of a legacy of the history of insinuation does not reflect the consensus or prior discussions (which focused solely on length); the removed text is well-cited and cover key aspects of Trump's biography. More generally, I am concerned that many of these discussions seem to be intermingling concerns over length and POV or due weight in a way that risks giving insufficient attention to what aspects are actually significant by the sources; we need to slow down and focus on individual proposal for changes rather than these sweeping and poorly-considered removals for length. Since the original concern was article length, we should also go back and consider what key points from previous removals can be worked back in or summarized a more succulent manner. --Aquillion (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose (for the record, which should be clear from my RfC !vote below). Note that the RfC supersedes any local WP:CONLEVEL in this discussion, in any case, because the RfC is more widely advertised and neutrally phrased. It also has better participation (as one would expect). This discussion can be closed. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:14, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Is it possible to do more subsections it will make it easier to read certain sections by knowing what sections we are talking about? WikiGrower1 (talk) 00:24, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Stick with it on the Talk page here since that's the only way to try to control this oversized and sprawling articles. Another editor has even tried to expand this discussion to "Iran" matters for his own purposes. Try to stick with the Talk page discussion as best you can to address bulking down the oversized article. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  What I have done was divided it into more subsections in the political section on the section domestic policy for the first administration. I labeled environment, health, and social policy so it is easier for readers to find what information and so it didn’t look like a mess there. WikiGrower1 (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• The editors in this sections are trying to discuss the section titled "Political practice and rhetoric"; how does your edit in the first administration section (First presidency?) apply to the section in the Trump biography titled "Political practice and rhetoric". ErnestKrause (talk) 00:53, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  The point of subsections is so readers can find specific information they need. The first administration also says about policies. By the way I labeled section January sixth attack and put a link for the January 6th attack. If it the article seems long we might need to move forward information to a different article. If someone is trying to discussion to "Iran" matters for his own purposes is unacceptable v.s putting information on “Iran” to inform people. WikiGrower1 (talk) 03:44, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closing of "Split "Political practice and rhetoric" to a new article?" and subsections

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Beland, I realize that the initial "split" discussion then went all over the place, but I don't see the ~2:1 support for reducing the length of prose. And a phrase such as reduce verbosity and redundant phrasing doesn't sound neutral to me. Please, explain. Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:01, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I counted three editors in favor of splitting off a full article, five in favor of either trimming or pushing details to subarticles, one probably in favor of rephrasing without removing details, and three in favor of keeping everything. That's a total of 3+5+1+3=12, and a ratio of 8:4 or 9:3. Editors stated their positions multiple times on multiple overlapping questions, so it's possible to quibble over this or that individual or go back for clarification. But given the strong overall direction, I don't think that would change the outcome, and it's probably more productive to move on and focus on the details of how to reduce the length of that section while not letting information fall through the cracks if things are getting moved to subarticles.

I'm not sure what sort of "neutrality" you are referring to? Just speaking from Wikipedia policies and guidelines, certainly political neutrality needs to be maintained as word count is reduced, and due weight used to prioritize importance. Fair summaries need to be in this article so that perceived misdeeds or accomplishments or whatever it is that people feel is important but can't be described in detail due to length aren't swept under the rug simply by being relocated.

I added the phrase "reduce verbosity and redundant phrasing" as an ironic self-referential joke, coming after "rephrasing to say the same thing in fewer words". If you did not laugh, then I have failed. This is simply reflecting the suggestion made by WikiGrower1. I did not see any objection to that suggestion, and I find it hard to imagine that rephrasing an overly verbose sentence to say exactly the same thing could in any way be non-neutral or objectionable. (I suppose if terminology changes to use polarized language? But word choice is important to neutrality regardless of length changes.) It seems like a good idea no matter the article length, but a really useful thing for an article where we're worried about hitting the PEIS limit and reader attention span. I have not read the "Political practice and rhetoric" section, so I have no comment on whether there actually are sentences that need this kind of improvement. It is certainly not intended as a euphemism for removing information by falsely labeling words as redundant. -- Beland (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Agreement with Beland. I'll go with the fairest way to do the actual trimming of the article which would have some equanimity for all the participating editors. Since the entire contents of those subheading are already fully available on the separate article for Political positions of Donald Trump, then it seems like each of those subheadings could be trimmed down to their opening paragraphs alone without much controversy; similarly for the image which will be trimmed to include the first one at the top of the section and trim and condense the rest. ErnestKrause (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Beland, thanks. I have not read the "Political practice and rhetoric" section — that makes a difference. Yeah, I missed the irony, wasn't sure whether to get my hackles up or not. Space4TCatHerder🖖 20:11, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Beland, please tell me that this isn't what you meant. Space4TCatHerder🖖 20:17, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there was any particular consensus for how to trim or re-word this section, so feel free to discuss if this bulk removal of entire paragraphs is the right way to reduce the word count here. I do not wish to participate in that discussion. -- Beland (talk) 20:25, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The key part to me is that any cuts must be aimed at reduce verbosity and redundant phrasing. I don't think that that's non-neutral phrasing at all, I think it's fine - but it's important to keep in mind what it means. My concern during the discussion was that some people seemed to suggest that they wanted the removals to shift the tone or focus of the section by removing actual events; the closure clearly bars that. No actual points of information can be removed under this consensus, they can just be condensed. That also makes this removal wildly out of line with the closure and clearly against consensus - nothing was condensed there, and none of that phrasing was redundant. For example, it removed the well-sourced in-group / out-group aspect, and removed the only reference to birtherism in the entire article; the connections to fearmongering and demagogy, the alt-right connection, the vilification and anti-communism, the accusations of racism related to the central park jogger case, and more. ErnestKrause, the RFC's consensus was clear - you can only remove redundant phrasing, or reword things to reduce their verbosity while keeping the same essential points. You can't remove anything unique. If you feel there are specific topics the article shouldn't cover, you need separate RFCs for those; this RFC only covered methods of reducing the article's length without losing any content. --Aquillion (talk) 20:48, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sorry if I have used ambiguous grammar, but that is the opposite of my intended meaning. As I mentioned above, editors such as yourself who wanted to keep all existing information in the section were in the minority. I have put a clarification in the section above, but to reiterate here: I found there was support for reducing the word count by 1.) moving details to existing subarticles or 2.) removing details already in existing subarticles. Editors will need to collaborate on how much of this to do and how to adjust the remaining summaries to stay neutral and still point readers toward the facts and level of detail they are interested in. The highest level of presumed support was for 3.) rephrasing without changing meaning, etc., and there was not overall support for 4.) move details into a new subarticle. -- Beland (talk) 22:46, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Beland: It appears that Aquillion may be been misled by Space4T's full revert today of an attempt to trim the section without Space4Time offering a single word constructively about doing the trims you discussed for this section. My own trim was made today to note that there is a full identical copy of this section of the sibling article for Political positions of Donald Trump and then to trim the material here as being a duplicate of the material already on the other article. Please note that my preference was for the full split of that section which your close spoke against doing; therefore I've adapted my edit to a trim of that section to constructively implement your decision in your closing comments. Space4Time then simply reverted the trim without offering a single constructive option of actually accomplishing the trim which you requested, as apparently his version of edit warring in the section which he has been doing since December 26 in similar reverts against Bill Williams's trim edits at that time here: [4]. If Space4Time is not contributing constructively to your request to make trims, then his revert edit should be removed from the main article, and my trim edits restored until he complies with the terms of your close comments yesterday. He appears to have been edit warring against all trims to these sections since December 26 as they came originally for Bill Williams and Riposte97. I'm requesting that his edit be reverted and the trims restored. ErnestKrause (talk) 23:09, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Some editors don't know how to lose, so this is becoming an interminable debate. If you insist on pursuing this, please review Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Challenging other closures and take your first stroll down that path. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 23:16, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to have changed your mind about this edit as a back and forth process over the past weeks; following the close instructions from Beland is important to do. You appear to wish to ignore his constructive comments. ErnestKrause (talk) 23:25, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Then take it to closure review. You have received due process for this page. You are becoming disruptive of this page. A closer should be accountable to you, but that has its limits. They are not required to discuss the closure with you until you are in agreement. Beland has been very responsive, I think more so than most closers would be in this situation. You do you, but I'd move on at this point. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 23:30, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Its clear that you are supporting Space4Time here and that you are opposed to Beland's request that the subheading be trimmed in a constructive manner. Your disruptive editing WP:DE has already been noted both in your back and forth edit choices, and in your misstatements about the 'No consensus' RfC close from ScottishFinnish in the discussion just closed. The close from Beland here appears to be fully adequate for the purposes of trimming the subheading being discussed, but you appear to be opposed to Beland on this question. Beland in his close here is trying to present a useful close to a long discussion and you appear to be opposed to him for your own personal reasons. Give Beland a chance to respond to the questions you have raised about his close and try to stop lecturing him as you tried to do here: [5]. ErnestKrause (talk) 23:48, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@ErnestKrause: Please stop commenting on the behavior of other editors; some of these comment constitute personal attacks. These appear to be inciting an in-kind response rather than constructive collaboration. I will not be reverting anyone's edits, as I have neither the time nor interest to become involved in the details of rewriting this section. The positions outlined in my close are not my personal opinions; they are my discernment of the rough consensus of the participants.

It appears your removal of a large amount of material does not have consensus among interested editors, so you need to try a different approach to build consensus. One way would be to ask politely on the talk page what parts of what was removed are important to other editors, or to point out the bits they are the least opposed to trimming. It's a big change, though, which makes it difficult to have concise opinions or negotiate all at once. So another way to would be to make small changes, starting with your best guess at the least-controversial changes, and stop to discuss politely at the first revert. A good place to start would be type 3 changes (rephrase for brevity without changing meaning). Or as Aquillion suggests below, you might find trimming is less controversial for other sections of the article, and an easier way to achieve your ideal word count. -- Beland (talk) 01:11, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Beland, now I need to clarify my position. editors such as yourself who wanted to keep all existing information in the section — just because Option 3 claims that editors (which probably includes me) say that the section should be kept without changes to the 345Kb size of the current article, and the article and section should be allowed to continue to expand and grow, perhaps up to reaching the 500Kb size of the article back in 2020 here [3] ... doesn't mean that that is my or anyone's opinion. What EK did was a repeat of a previous attempt to purge the section by keeping the subsection heading and the first one or two sentences or, in one case, only the heading and the hatnote and delete the rest, regardless of the merits of the deleted content.

Excerpt of challenged trim

Conspiracy theories Main article: List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump Since before his first presidency, Trump has promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including Obama "birtherism", climate change denial, and alleged Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections.[551][552][553] After the 2020 presidential election, he promoted conspiracy theories for his defeat that were characterized as "the big lie".[554][555] False or misleading statements Main article: False or misleading statements by Donald Trump Fact-checkers from The Washington Post,[1] the Toronto Star,[2] and CNN[3] compiled data on "false or misleading claims" (orange background) and "false claims" (violet foreground). Social media Main articles: Social media use by Donald Trump and Twitter use by Donald Trump See also: Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump § Lawsuits over social media ban Trump's social media presence attracted worldwide attention after he joined Twitter in 2009. He posted frequently during his 2016 campaign and as president until Twitter banned him after the January 6 attack.[559] He often used Twitter to communicate directly with the public and sideline the press;[560] in 2017, his press secretary said that his tweets constituted official presidential statements.[561] Relationship with the press Further information: First presidency of Donald Trump § Relationship with the news media, Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump, Donald Trump's conflict with the media, and Timeline of government attacks on journalists in the United States § 2016–present: Trump era Trump sought media attention throughout his career, maintaining a "love-hate" relationship with the press.[562] In the 2016 campaign, he benefited from a record amount of free media coverage,[563] estimated at $2 billion.[564] As a candidate and as president, he frequently accused the press of bias, calling it the "fake news media" and "the enemy of the people".[565]

Space4TCatHerder🖖 23:50, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Then what is your constructive version of a trimmed version of those subheadings as requested by the closing editor of the discussion. Rather than making a single constructive comment on trimming the article, all you have done is revert the attempt to follow instructions from Beland to trim that subheading in the article. You should restore the edit you have reverted and make constructive comments about improving a version trimmed by an editor trying to follow instructions from Beland. Your revert appears to show that you are opposed to the instructions left by Beland to trim the subheading constructively. You appear to be edit warring in opposition to Beland's closing comments. I've requested that he restore the trimmed version of subheadings as Beland has indicated this as being his suggested approach for the article to meet his close comments. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:05, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If there was any support for the complete text of ErnestKrause's Option 3 that would enthusiastically let the article grow to 500 KB, I did not notice it. Method 3 in my clarification was not referencing that Option 3. -- Beland (talk) 01:24, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Does Beland have to further clarify their close? GoodDay (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Closers are generally expected to answer clarifying questions if they come up, though they might not always do so. Do you have a specific question? -- Beland (talk) 01:26, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My question is to the others, who appear to be in disagreement on what the consensus is. GoodDay (talk) 01:36, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like GoodDay is referring to the four different versions of the reduced size of this subheading which have been presented by Bill Williams, Riposte97, and myself over the last month, and even since last April or May.

The first version presented for trimming was for a 2 paragraph version of the entire subheading, which appeared to be opposed by both Space4Time and others, while so others supported. This was from on or about last April 2025.

The second version was for a 3 paragraph version of the entire subheading, which appeared again to be opposed by Space4Time and others, this time with a "No consensus" RfC close from ScottishFinnish last May here: [6].

The third version was to propose full archival of the subheading in preference to keeping it fully in three sibling articles Wikipedia as sufficient for purposes of readers of Wikipedia who wanted this information. Space4Time again opposed this option which the Closer had closed a day or two ago with the statement that trimmed version of the subheading was being endorsed in contrast to the no changes version supported by Space4Time.

A fourth version of the subheading using a trim factor of about 60% of the section was then applied as providing at least a workable trim solution compatible with instructions from the Closer from yesterday's close. Space4Time again reverted it as not meeting his requirements, returning it to Option 3 of no changes to the subheading whatsoever with no trims.

That seems to be what GoodDay is referring to, though he is more than capable to speak for himself about what he meant about the status of what "the others" were doing. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:11, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Are the big deletions/reverts and/or additions/reverts coming to an end? GoodDay (talk) 21:23, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be productive to start a lot smaller, like changing a single sentence. Just because someone doesn't support a big trim doesn't mean they don't support a small trim or a different way to do the same amount of trimming. The RFC did not endorse any particular diff. -- Beland (talk) 00:57, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Trump's 2020 photo op at St. John's Church

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The article has for years included two sentences and a photo about the removal of protesters from D.C.'s Lafayette Square park in June 2020 and Trump's subsequent photo-op with a Bible. Should this content be removed? 22:14, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

The two sentences with accompanying photo and cited sources

With a group of officials and advisors walking from the White House to St. John's Church, following the forced removal of protesters at Lafayette Square In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, federal law-enforcement officials used tear gas and other crowd control tactics to remove a largely peaceful crowd of lawful protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House.[4][5] Trump then posed with a Bible for a photo op at the nearby St. John's Episcopal Church,[4][6][7] with religious leaders condemning both the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself.[8]

Sources

Kessler, Glenn; Kelly, Meg; Rizzo, Salvador; Lee, Michelle Ye Hee (January 20, 2021). "In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 11, 2021. Dale, Daniel (June 5, 2019). "Donald Trump has now said more than 5,000 false things as president". Toronto Star. Retrieved October 11, 2021. Dale, Daniel; Subramiam, Tara (March 9, 2020). "Fact check: Donald Trump made 115 false claims in the last two weeks of February". CNN. Retrieved December 15, 2025. Leonnig, Carol D.; Zapotosky, Matt; Dawsey, Josh; Tan, Rebecca (June 2, 2020). "Barr personally ordered removal of protesters near White House, leading to use of force against largely peaceful crowd". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 3, 2020. Bump, Philip (June 2, 2020). "Timeline: The clearing of Lafayette Square". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 6, 2020. Gittleson, Ben; Phelps, Jordyn (June 3, 2020). "Police use munitions to forcibly push back peaceful protesters for Trump church visit". ABC News. Retrieved June 29, 2021. O'Neil, Luke (June 2, 2020). "What do we know about Trump's love for the Bible?". The Guardian. Retrieved June 11, 2020. Stableford, Dylan; Wilson, Christopher (June 3, 2020). "Religious leaders condemn teargassing protesters to clear street for Trump". Yahoo News. Retrieved June 8, 2020.

---

• No as OP. Per consensus #37, the two sentences (with the accompanying illustration of Trump accompanied by GEN Milley in combat uniform) are a summary-level mention of an event that has a lasting impact on his long-term presidential legacy. There is also no other place to link to the main article Donald Trump photo op at St. John's Church. It was major headline news at the time (see the references in the main article) and has since been mentioned as a portent of things to come, particularly in connection with the January 6 United States Capitol attack, in articles and books (among them Baker/Glasser's The Divider, pg. 468–483, and Leonig/Rucker's I alone can fix it, pg. 164–170). The event is also has also been back in the news since last year in connection with the actions of ICE in Democratic-run cities and the Trump administration's planned deployment of federal troops to Democratic-run cities and states. A selection of 2025 cites: New York Times 1, New York Times 2, New Yorker, UPI, Guardian1, Palm Beach Post, Mother Jones, Washington Examiner op-ed via American Enterprise Institute, Guardian2, Al Jazeera, Sojourners, WaPo.
  Note: The material was first removed from the article on December 26, 2025. I challenged the removal and reinserted the material, but it was removed again. Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:24, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. WP:RFCBEFORE is satisfied. There is no existing consensus covering this content. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 17:33, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  RFCBEFORE clearly specifies that editors should try to resolve things by discussion first. There is an open thread addressing this point which is still active. Riposte97 (talk) 01:43, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• No There's enough citations above that this is clearly notable. Loki (talk) 19:50, 9 January 2026 (UTC) (Summoned by bot)[reply]
• Yes: it was a trivial incident, a media bubble...!!!--Jack Upland (talk) 23:41, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No per Space4TCatHerder. It's a clearly notable incident from his first term. --DragonBrickLayer (talk) 00:13, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes in the context of Trump's entire life, these details are clearly trivial. They are more appropriately addressed on his presidency page (which they are). Riposte97 (talk) 01:44, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No per Space4Time3Continuum2x and Sirfurboy. --David Tornheim (talk) 08:31, 10 January 2026 (UTC) [revised 10:00, 10 January 2026 (UTC)][reply]
• No - Wikipedia is not a newspaper. What was notable for an article is notable. Notability does not fade away. We have a full page on this at Donald Trump photo op at St. John's Church, and unless that can be deleted at AfD, it is clearly the consensus opinion that this is and always was a notable event that should be treated in summary style in the parent article (this one). It is discussed in histories (Harvey, 2022) and elsewhere. It is a matter of significant historical import inasmuch as it is emblematic of Trumps tapping into anti-intellectualism in American evangelicalism to place himself as the most prominent force in American white evangelical politics to date. That is how historians such as Harvey are discussing it. A failure to even mention it would be utterly reprehensible.
  Harvey, Michael (11 April 2022). Donald Trump in Historical Perspective: Dead Precedents. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-57257-5.
  Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:42, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No per Space4Time3Continuum2x. Lafayette Square should stay here. Mr. Trump appeared to exploit the spotlight. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:34, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No I am surprised by the amount of sources that Space4TCatHerder was able to find about this, and the more recent sources that discuss this in the context of present events. I was ambivalent about this at first, but seeing the amount of sources that refer to this in 2025 when discussing present events, it seems to clearly satisfy notability requirements for mentioning here. I also agree that the page for Donald Trump photo op at St. John's Church establishes the importance of this event that it has its own page on it and survived AfD with a speedy keep. BootsED (talk) 23:37, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No, it has significant and sustained coverage, sufficient that a relatively brief paragraph can't be called undue. --Aquillion (talk) 16:22, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No: This photo and the two accompanying sentences should not be removed: This was a major event displaying Mr. Trump's character. FYI, I prefer to split the secont paragraph into two, as, "Trump then posed with a Bible for a photo op at the nearby St. John's Episcopal Church.[556][558][559] Religious leaders condemned both the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself.[560]": As one sentence, not two, it sounds like the religious leaders who made negative comments might have been at the event. Splitting that sentence into two make it clearer and easier to read. DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:01, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-24126-0 (talk) 05:07, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No. Clearly notable part of his presidency given the citations about this moment so should be included. GothicGolem29 (Talk) 14:07, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes – This is a trivial event that, while covered at the time, has no longlasting or sustained importance or coverage. It is one of many, many artifically generated contraversies involving this President. Beyond that, its neutrality in form is disputable. It is false to say or imply (as this text does) that the square was cleared for a "photo op". 1; 2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcgaylor (talk • contribs) 13 January 2026

  The IG report addresses only actions taken by the Park Police, not by other federal forces at the scene, and it doesn't mention that the demonstrators were there legally (the curfew started at 7 p.m., the Secret Service began moving against demonstrators at 6:16). Citing your AP source: The report determined that the decision to clear the protesters was justified, but that law enforcement agencies on the scene failed to effectively communicate with each other and failed to communicate warnings to the protesters about the impending crackdown. Several different law enforcement agencies moved ahead of schedule and started engaging with protesters before the protesters had been sufficiently warned. ... The report details how on June 1, a contingent from the Bureau of Prisons arrived to the scene late, didn’t receive a full briefing and used pepper pellets on protesters "contrary to the USPP incident commander’s instructions." Citing NPR: The report, however, "does not clear law enforcement on use of force and acknowledges problem with its response. ... This report does not address allegations of individual use-of-force incidents, as those are the subject of separate inquiries as well as ongoing lawsuits." Two of the problems it pointed to included: "the U.S. Secret Service's deployment before the USPP had begun its dispersal warnings", and "the USPP's failure to provide dispersal warnings that were loud enough for everyone to hear and that told protesters where to exit before the clearing operation began". Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:12, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  None of that has anything to do with the content of this RFC or my comment. The sources I cited make clear that the clearing of the square and Trump's walk to the Church were separate events, with the latter not causing the former. Discussions surrounding the alleged legality of the "protests" or the actions of law enforcement are irrelevant to my comment or the sentences we're here to discuss.

  The sources make clear that all agencies were there in support of the mission to install fencing, but claims there was poor coordination between the various agencies invovled. Jcgaylor (talk) 03:25, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes. Support for Riposte97 above and other editors. No need to fully replicate this photo which is already displayed on sibling Trump articles; remove the image along with the surrounding text there since it is a redundant replication of material already fully present on sibling Trump articles at this time on Wikipedia. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:39, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes - it's fading in public awareness, as new events occur during Trump's second term. GoodDay (talk) 01:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Fading public awareness is not the criterion against which we judge the applicability for information in an encyclopaedic article. What would be the point of only telling people what they are already aware of? The question is whether it is WP:DUE and that is a matter of the event's historical significance as indicated by its inclusion in historical sources. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:49, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  That's not quite true. While page notability does not fade, we do not judge content for inclusion by its prevalence in 'historical' sources. We weight it in proportion to the coverage given in the highest-quality RS. The most recent biographical sources seem to treat this as a flash-in-the-pan. Riposte97 (talk) 11:03, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  It is precisely true, whatever your feelings about it. We are influenced by sources, not by public awareness, as I said. If you want to make the case we should ignore the historical coverage already noted above and below (Baker & Glasser 2022), (Leonig & Rucker, 2021), (Harvey, 2022), (Allin, 2020), or significant coverage in other sources such as Rhode, D. (2024) Where Tyranny Begins - The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy Taylor & Francis, and if you want to try to make a case that its appearance in journal articles and other histories does not make this permanently significant, then place your comment next to comments citing such sources, not against a comment arguing this may be omitted because it is fading in public awareness. Once again, public awareness is not a valid criterion. If anything, it is an argument as to why an encyclopaedic article has a duty to cover such a notable event. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:41, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I am disturbed by the coverage of this incident. The tone of many commentators seems to be alibi-ing arson and implying Trump was a fascist because he held the Bible the wrong way. This was a media bubble...Jack Upland (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Wrong location? Is this the rationale for your !vote above ⇈? Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:51, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• No, the lasting significance to Trump's biography of his personally escalating the response to demonstrators, publicly involving leaders of the military, then posing with a bible outside the church weighted with historical implications, is well shown by the the recent sources linked by Space4TCatHerder. It is also shown in the section on "Donald Trump's Legacy" by Dana H. Allin in the 2003 International Institute for Strategic Studies book, Survival December 2020–January 2021: A World After Trump. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis. 2023-04-21. ISBN 978-1-000-94754-0. which summarises these actions, and says "n the midst of overlapping crises caused by a global pandemic; consequent economic collapse; racial wounds emerging from four centuries of slavery, civil war and injustice; and bitter political divisions animated by deeply contested visions of American identity, the president had fomented a full-blown crisis of civil-military relations." . . dave souza, talk 17:40, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  That source focuses on two months, not a full synthesis of his presidency, and dedicates one page (out of ~300) to this event. And if the criteria is a full-blown crisis of civil-military relations, there have been far more dire, frequent and repeated CIVMIL crises since then, which we don't mention once (and most of them would not deserve mention). DFlhb (talk) 07:40, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes. Too trivial for this article. One line about the Greenland crisis was just rejected as "overdetail for this biography" but the photo op isn't overdetail? Yes, it is. Bishonen | tålk 09:08, 19 January 2026 (UTC).[reply]

  Federal forces teargassing and clubbing protesters demonstrating legally to enable a show of domination isn't trivial. The "Greenland crisis" so far consists of Trump musings and threats dominating the news. Time will tell whether this will actually amount to a crisis or last week's outrage. Space4TCatHerder🖖 15:30, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes - It was an important event. But for the main DJT article and with everything else that is going on, it is difficult to see this passing WP:10YT. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:40, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - It should also be noted that the paragraph as we have it clearly implies that the protesters were cleared to facilitate the 'photo op'. That is a distortion. As WaPo and others later reported, an Inspector General's report found that decision to clear the square was unrelated to the photo. This is an excellent example of legacy chaff that got funnelled into the page when it was WP:NEWS, and now can't be removed because it's 'longstanding'. It should never have been added in the first place. Riposte97 (talk • contribs) 06:30, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes Agree with O3K that this likely wouldn't pass the WP:10YT. Overall, we should stop trying to decide ourselves "which event [had] a lasting impact on his legacy" (quoting Space4T). It's an indirect, implicit approach where we try to paint a portrait of him by deciding which events would best "illustrate" him and his impact, his approach to protestors or to power. That was never a great approach from a policy standpoint and it's no longer necessary. We can describe his impact directly based on academic sources. Individual events can be mentioned in passing and linked if important, but I'm not sure this event even meets that threshold. The only events that could deserve the weight this photo-op is currently given, are events that directly, on their own, had real-world ramifications. But we really should stop "illustrating" and start describing. DFlhb (talk) 07:22, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• No, as the others pointed out, this is quite significant to him, but perhaps slightly change it, such as by adding "some" before religious leaders, or specifying which religious leaders it was that condemned this, as I'm sure it wasn't all of them. Wikieditor662 (talk) 08:56, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, per User:Jack Upland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-44769-7 (talk) 13:27, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Then- re Harris

Isn't titling someone as "then-X" like in "After winning the 2024 presidential election against then-vice president Kamala Harris..." generally discouraged? I feel like I remember reading it somewhere in the MOS but I cannot remember it for the life of me. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If it isn't, it should be. It's pedantic and verbose.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:46, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed it. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 00:06, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Support removal. Excessive and unnecessary correctness (i.e., pedantry). Overthink. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 22:29, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Remove, indeed. PS - Should it not be capitalised "Vice President Kamala Harris"? GoodDay (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Per MOS:JOBTITLE, it should be "Vice President Kamala Harris" or "then-vice president Kamala Harris". I was holding off until it was decided whether to include or omit, but it makes more sense to do it now, and I have done so.[7] Remember to de-cap if the ultimate resolution is to include. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 22:45, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

C-Span,

User:Space4Time3Continuum2x just deleted the following three #External links, citing WP:ELYES and WP:LINKSTOAVOID (including WP:NOSOCIAL):

• {{C-SPAN}}

• Donald Trump at IMDb

• Donald Trump on the Internet Archive

I did not find any of these three on any of the cited pages, and I think it's appropriate to include Donald Trump on the Internet Archive.

I agree with deleting {{C-SPAN}}, because [without "nowiki" code], it generates, "Preview warning: No Wikidata value found as fallback; add a valid C-SPAN ID to this template or this page's Wikidata item". And I have no coment on, {{IMDb name}}.

What do you think? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 12:29, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Four, actually. Space4TCatHerder🖖 12:47, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at this point we might as well as remove every external link, but of course it depends from one user to another, and in my opinion, i don't want things to be deleted in this case. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

IMDb is specifically mentioned in WP:IMDBREF as being generally unacceptable as a source. I'm thinking Internet Archive, in this use case, would fall under the same user-generated content provision. DragonBrickLayer (talk) 11:34, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, looking at the Internet Archive link again, you'd want to reference the source of the specific video you're looking to reference (the primary source), not an unaffiliated website where a user has archived a copy. Linking that Internet Archive page is sort of like finding a quote you want to reference in a book, then linking the library you found the book in as the reference. DragonBrickLayer (talk) 12:43, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts on "press freedom decline" addition to paragraph in lede

Since 2015, Trump's leadership style and political agenda—often referred to as Trumpism—have reshaped the Republican Party's identity. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racist or misogynistic. He has made many false or misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. He promotes conspiracy theories. Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. After his first term, scholars and historians ranked him as one of the worst presidents in American history.

-> Change to

Since 2015, Trump's leadership style and political agenda—often referred to as Trumpism—have reshaped the Republican Party's identity. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racist or misogynistic. He has made many false or misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. He promotes conspiracy theories. Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding and a significant decline in press freedom. After his first term, scholars and historians ranked him as one of the worst presidents in American history.

---

The addition, "and a significant decline in press freedom," links to Timeline of government attacks on journalists in the United States#2016–present: Trump era. I wrote the timeline article I'm proposing we link so I am obviously biased and would like second opinions on its inclusion in the lede, especially considering how Donald Trump is such a high-profile article. I think it's notable with 9 different press freedom incidents under Trump being described in detail in the article (with a summary section at the top of the linked section), most recently the FBI raid of a Washington Post journalist's home. So other editors, please let me know what you think of this proposal. If possible I'd like a speedy consensus to add, but if not we can discuss in greater depth.

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 15:53, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In the current press, there seem to be two sides to this coin; are you planning to cover both sides of this issue. For example, I'm reading alot about the BBC law case which the administration is currently pursuing currently in the press. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:04, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

What WP:RS sources do you have that argue there are two sides to this coin, i.e., that the idea there is press freedom decline in the US under Trump is seriously contested? Because Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Knight First Amendment Institute, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, PEN America, the American Enterprise Institute, the American Civil Liberties Union, Reporters Without Borders, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Freedom Forum have all reported decline in press freedom. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be an abundance of RS material on these two-sides already on Wikipedia; do you need a list of the coverage of the Stephanopoulos case which Trump won against him. The current case of Trump versus the BBC is being covered on a daily basis in both Britain and the US. Its listed as a billion dollar law suit case. You can find these and others on the Wikipedia articles for these and similar issues with multiple, multiple RS citations. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:20, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This is a textbook WP:FALSEBALANCE argument. Reporter organizations in the United States and across the world have more or less unanimously claimed the Trump administration is causing a significant press freedom decline. This is not negated just because an editor feels like one or two failed court cases unilaterally override this. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:36, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Its significantly more than just 2 cases and Trump winning court cases has brought over 100 million USD in his direction already. This should not be left out based on multiple WP:RS already being maintained on Wikipedia. ErnestKrause (talk) 17:14, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If Trump is winning court cases, then we can report that. We cannot however synthesize this information to make our own conclusion that because he is winning court cases, therefore there is not a decline in press freedom per WP:SYNTH. If you are arguing there is not a decline in press freedom, please find WP:RS sources that draw that conclusion without us needing to violate WP:SYNTH to get there. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:25, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reasonably certain that the argument will be read as: If Trump is seen as abridging press freedom, then Trump has a defensible position that he is protecting himself against libel and that he has prevailed in court cases filed and paid off in his favor. Its over 100 million USD so far in his favor; it should be mentioned as being a non-trivial amount. ErnestKrause (talk) 17:36, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This is all synthesis. We only report what reliable sources say; Wikipedia is not a place for editors to post their own conclusions about things that happened. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:42, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There is no synthesis here at all. I'm including the full passage of this case below in this same thread. I'll need to add the observation that when a filed court case is settled out of court, that its usually considered a win for the one side or the other side; in the case of Stephanopoulos, Trump got the settlement payment offered by ABC of $15M USD and the press reported that he won the case as stated in multiple RS listed below. There is no NOR here at all; see the full quotation below. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:45, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:IDONTGETIT / re-read what I said. I don't think you're understanding why this violates WP. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:05, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should be careful about claiming Trump is "winning" these court cases: At least some of these cases have been described as thinly veiled (and effective) requests for bribes, as noted by Thomas G. Moukawsher (8 July 2025). "Here Comes the Bribe. What To Do About the $16M CBS Is Paying Donald Trump | Opinion". Newsweek. ISSN 0028-9604. Wikidata Q137790193..

I'm not sure the best terminology, but claiming he is "winning" suggests to me that he is "winning" on the merits of the cases, and that sounds OP to me. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:49, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'll need to make the observation that when a filed court case is settled out of court, that its usually considered a win for the one side or the other side; in the case of Stephanopoulos, Trump got the settlement payment offered by ABC of $15M USD and the press reported that he won the case as stated in multiple RS listed further below in this thread. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:45, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. And David, do you support the proposed changes? If so I think that's enough for speedy consensus and I'll get them added. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 18:21, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Trump winning court cases has brought over 100 million USD in his direction already. Settling a case out of court does not mean that one side wins and the other side loses. Corporations often settle cases because the settlement is cheaper than continuing to fight the case would be. If you're referring to the cases settled out of court by the corporate owners of ABC (Disney) and CBS (Paramount):

Cases

Disney. The company was concerned that a jury in Florida — a deep-red state that Mr. Trump carried by 13 points in the election last month — would side with the president-elect and potentially award him a sizable sum exceeding what it would cost to settle. Disney could have appealed, of course, and executives felt the law was on their side. But the appeals process also carried substantial risk, Disney lawyers concluded. At a minimum, the $205 billion company would be litigating against a vindictive sitting president and risking harm to its brand. ... In the worst-cast scenario, Disney concluded, fighting the case could lead to the Supreme Court and become a vehicle for Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the landmark First Amendment decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. ... 'Disney’s legal team, headed by Mr. Gutierrez, ultimately decided that settling, even with the inevitable negative headlines, was the best outcome — that $16 million was a small price to pay for resolving a tricky case. Source: NY Times 1 Paramount. The deal is the clearest sign yet that Mr. Trump’s ability to intimidate major American institutions extends to the media industry. Many lawyers had dismissed Mr. Trump’s lawsuit as baseless and believed that CBS would have ultimately prevailed in court, in part because the network did not report anything factually inaccurate, and the First Amendment gives publishers wide leeway to determine how to present information. Source: NY Times 2

The cases against the WSJ, the NYT and two of its reporters, and the BBC are still pending. Win, lose, or settle — the lawsuits themselves are intended to intimidate. Space4TCatHerder🖖 18:58, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How about mentioning the fact that the Inside CECOT 60 Minutes segment got removed at the behest of the Trump administration? ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:21, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Covered at Inside CECOT. Might belong in another article about his presidency, but not here. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:27, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I meant something like "... and a significant decline in press freedom, such as the removal of Inside CECOT 60 Minutes segment.", something like that. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would be WP:UNDUE for the lede. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:33, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, woundl't that be due, not undue? Like it is the main example of it, hence my sentence proposal. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:35, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in the (Top) section, The Apprentice is mentioned, so why not Inside CECOT? ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, what i meant in "Well, how about "among others" after the Inside CECOT statement?", i meant it something like "... and a significant decline in press freedom, such as the removal of Inside CECOT 60 Minutes segment, among others." or "among other examples". ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:40, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well, how about "among others" after the Inside CECOT statement? ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:37, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Let me preface that I am 100% on the same page on you that these are very alarming and noteworthy events. However, MOS:LEAD says The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic, and considering how there are so many instances of Trump suppressing press freedom, there's no real reason to mention Inside CECOT over the other controversies, like the Jimmy Kimmel controversy, the FBI raid, etc. I think they are neatly summarized by and a significant decline in press freedom, which is a very unintrusive addition to the already-verbose lede in the article. The only material events listed in the lede are the main, most historical events directly related to Trump like his impeachment, his biggest policies, etc, whereas Inside CECOT is the result of one of his policies but is not one of his policies directly. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:41, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

But it is significant enough to be mentioned in that he and/or the Trump administration ordered to remove a segment on TV because he and/or the Trump administration didn't wanted it to air it on TV because they didn't wanted negative reaction of the Trump administartion from the public, removing it ironically made the negative reaction from the public even bigger. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:50, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If you want CECOT in the lead, then you're welcome to open a new discussion proposing we add it. But Trump has done 1 million notable things meaning we have to be very intentional about what we choose to include in the lede, and I don't think this cuts it. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:02, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How about not just the Inside CECOT segment, but also transphobia, and maybe even homophobia, acephobia, biphobia, interphobia/intersexphobia and other queerphobia in general? Like mentioning "queerphobia" instead of "transphobia"? ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 17:55, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Let's open a new discussion about the Inside CECOT segment and queerphobia. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:01, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good — do I have your support for the proposed change in this section alone? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 18:02, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Look down, i made a new discussion below. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This articel is about him, not his presidency, or his politics or his policies. Slatersteven (talk) 16:24, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If that's true, then why is Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding currently in the lede? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:26, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This article is not only about him, but also about his presidency, his politics, and his policies. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:33, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Then why do we have other articles on those subjects as well? Slatersteven (talk) 16:47, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, this article is not only about him, but also about his presidency, his politics, his policies and other. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:53, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that this article should be primarily about him, with only the most salient aspects of his presidency, politics, and policies here with links to those other articles for more detail.

Sometimes we communicate more while saying less.

Thanks to all who want to make Wikipedia better, DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:03, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia articles are not mutually exclusive. That's why hyperlinks exist in Wikipedia. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:00, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

True, but we also do not need to have the same thing said in 6 different articles. We can just have overviews here and hyperlink to the more detailed articles. Slatersteven (talk) 17:10, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly what I'm proposing: adding a hyperlink to the more detailed article in this one. So then we are in agreement my proposed addition is good to add? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:22, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I find it odd we do not already Hyperlink to it, which article do we not hyperlink to? Slatersteven (talk) 17:25, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This article. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 17:28, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Then we should add it. Slatersteven (talk) 17:36, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Could you specify the sources to support contributing to ... [a] significant decline in press freedom? Lead follows body, and the body currently says that in his second term, Trump's actions against the media were unprecedented in modern American history,[source AP News, Sep 2025] and historians described them as mirroring actions by authoritarian leaders to censor political opponents and negatively impacting the freedom of speech and free press.[source PolitiFact Apr 2025][source Deutsche Welle, Apr 2025]. This addition to the lead will probably be contested. (I looked at "2025–present: Donald Trump's second presidency" in the "Timeline" article and found it a little confusing, wondering why it lists Australia, China, and other countries before realizing that the sections were referring to ICE attacks on journalists from those countries in Los Angeles.) Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:38, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well, how about the removal of the Inside CECOT 60 Minutes segment at the behest of the Trump administration? And also, The Apprentince is mentioned in the (Top) section of this article, so why not this? ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 16:44, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at [the] article and found it a little confusing - I fixed the specific point you raised just now with the "Australia" meaning "Australian journalists" being confusing, thanks for making this suggestion.

---------------------------------------------------

Sources that support a significant decline in press freedom

 ::2025 World Press Freedom Index^[1] ::

  Good: 85–100 points

 ::

  Satisfactory: 70–85 points

 ::

  Problematic: 55–70 points

 ::

  Difficult: 40–55 points

 ::

  Very serious <40 points

 ::

  Not classified

• In 2022, the U.S. ranked 42nd in the Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index.^[2] This is an overall measure of freedom available to the press, including a range of factors including government censorship, control over journalistic access, and whistleblower protections.
• The U.S.'s ranking fell from 20th in 2010 to 57th in 2025.^[3]
• The ability of reporters in America to do their jobs is also a growing concern, with the US Press Freedom Tracker documenting over 150 assaults of journalists during protests. More than 30 journalists were arrested while covering protests or government meetings in 2025. Nearly 90 per cent of those arrests and detentions occurred while covering demonstrations on the issue of immigration.^[4]
• Watchdog groups also cite troubling trends in Western democracies, notably the United States, where they accuse the Donald Trump administration of taking actions that threaten independent fact-based news reporting domestically and internationally.^[5]
• After a century of gradual expansion of press rights in the United States, the country is experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history, and Donald Trump’s return to the presidency is greatly exacerbating the situation.^[6]
• Journalists working in the United States are facing extraordinary and intensifying pressures amid President Donald Trump’s second term.^[7]

---------------------------------------------------

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:56, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any other than World Press Freedom Index? ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 17:58, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there's all the quotes above from journalistic sources such as Reporters without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 18:03, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

But how about other than these mentioned? ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:22, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How about Press Freedom Tracker by Press Freedom https://pressfreedomtracker.us/ https://freedom.press/ and Civicus Monitor https://monitor.civicus.org/ ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 23:09, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Those are good too, we can use all of them as our references. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 23:41, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not shocked that liberal/leftist institutions are claiming Trump is a threat to them. It is a shame, though, that their perspectives get laundered as truth on Wikipedia. Jcgaylor (talk) 04:58, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a WP:BATTLEGROUND. There are WP:RS sources that are those that are not. All of the sources listed are the former. This is not a space to launder your ideological laundry. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 14:36, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There's plenty of RSed material to support this addition. Bill Heller (talk) 04:43, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

OK, to win a court case, it actually has to go to court, so how many of these cases have gone to court (and which ones has he won)? Slatersteven (talk) 17:52, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'll need to make the observation that when a filed court case is settled out of court, that its usually considered a win for the one side or the other side; in the case of Stephanopoulos, Trump got the settlement payment offered by ABC of $15M USD and the press reported that he won the case as stated in multiple RS listed below. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:45, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How are court cases relevant (without WP:SYNTH) to the many WP:RS supporting that his presidency has enacted policies leading to significant press freedom decline? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The other Wikipedia articles about Trump disagree with you, and there is no synthesis here at all. Here is the wording already in use on Wikipedia for the Stephanopoulos settlement for the court case pursued by Trump with multiple RS: "Though many lawyers thought ABC would win the suit due to the high legal bar for defamation of public figures, after Trump was elected president a second time, ABC settled and paid $15 million to the Trump presidential library, $1 million in legal fees, and gave an apology.^[8][9][10]"

Wikiepedia Is not an RS, and "settling out of court" means just that it was not taken to court. Slatersteven (talk) 12:37, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That has nothing to do with the claim made by many WP:RS sources that there is a significant decline in press freedom. We cannot make our own conclusions about what we think it means that Trump won or lost certain court cases—this is WP:SYNTH and a violation of Wikipedia policy. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 14:46, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It means exactly what AP News said it means, exactly what the NY Times said it means, and exactly what NPR said it means; that the press has been using its platform for "defamation" of the president, which they admitted by the payments they made for their mistakes. Both sides of the coin need to be included in any edits added to the Trump biography on this issue. 'Press freedom' is not a synonym for "defamation", the preferred word of the RS I've just linked above, and Trump's side of this has won him multi-million dollar awards because of press misconduct, which the press has acknowledged. If you cannot acknowledge what the NY Times, NPR and AP News are stating about this matter, then your edit could lead to an 'Oppose' opinions from other editors. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:19, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This feels WP:IDONTGETIT, so I'll explain differently this time. You are saying the following:

1. X Y and Z defamed Trump, as found by court cases

2. WP:RS sources reported on that

3. Therefore, the idea that Trump has caused decline in press freedom is false or somehow less true than it was before

The problem is we are not allowed to make assumption 3. 1 and 2 are fine but you cannot synthesize information to form your own unique conclusions about how you believe some defamation cases failing means there is not a decline in press freedom.

But even if we put that aside, it can be true that court cases against Trump failed (or even that certain outlets defamed him) and that there is a decline in press freedom caused by Trump. These are not mutually exclusive facts.

The only ways to contest this proposal are A) by arguing it is WP:UNDUE in the lede or B) by claiming the WP:RS sources are in some way flawed, for example, because other sources directly contest the claim his actions have led to a decline in press freedom. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 15:46, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. User Alexandraaaacs appears to be in violation of the principles discussed in both Wikipedia:Balance Your Perspectives and WP:NPOV; the edit he is presenting is only one side of the issue of 'Press freedom' and appears to not be neutral in its viewpoint. The issue of 'Press freedom' has two sides to it which includes the limitations on 'Press freedom' which discusses protection against libel, defamation, and slander. Covering one side of this topic to the exclusion of the other appears to be against WP:Balance Your Perspectives and WP:NPOV. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:48, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  This is a textbook WP:FALSEBALANCE argument.

  But even putting that aside, if the other "side" has counter-arguments that actually belong on Wikipedia, then it should be easy to find WP:RS arguing there is not press freedom decline. I have not seen a single one presented throughout this entire discussion, because there is no other "side" — just vibes that the other "side" is probably out there somewhere. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 16:54, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 17:16, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I would expand on this in the body a bit in the "relationship with the press section". Put some good sources, ideally academic ones to support this, and I'd then consider adding this into the lead. But it needs to be sourced in the body first. BootsED (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Both of you, Alexandraa and Mandrus, are contradicted by the account in Freedom Forum here: [8]. Supporting Wikieditor662 and BootsED that this is still a disputed edit. It does not belong in the article until consensus is established on the Talk page here. Supporting Wikieditor662 that it is still being disputed. The current dispute in addition to the ABC $15M lawsuit, is the BBC lawsuit which Trump has filed described in the Wikipedia article here: 2025 BBC editorial bias allegations. No further edits on main article until consensus with Wikieditor662, BootsED and others is established on this Talk page. See their thread below to establish consensus. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:06, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  It would have been nice if you explained how it contradicts the edit, since I read it and no part of it contradicts the edit, so your suggestion does not override the consensus per WP:SNOW. And as has been repeatedly explained, your WP:SYNTH argument about how lawsuits are somehow connected to whether Trump is causing a decline in press freedom is in direct contradiction of Wikipedia policy. Undid your removal of the sentence. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 22:31, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, sounds good. I'll add the sources to the body in that section. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 22:41, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Here ya go BootsED:

--------

Many have characterized Trump as causing a significant decline in freedom of the press, including journalist advocacy groups^{[5][6][7][11]} and academic sources.^[12][13][14]

--------

I gauged consensus before and uploaded the change, but if you contest the article in its current form, I'll acknowledge the absence of consensus and remove my proposal from the page until we talk it out. Since I heeded your suggestion, are we all good to get it added to the top?

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 22:51, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So to adhere to WP:PRIMARY, I see that several of the advocacy groups reports have been covered in the mainstream press, like this one from Axios which covers the Reporters without Borders report. We should cite these news articles citing these reports to establish the notability of the reports first. The Brookings Institution is a think tank, not an academic source, and you should cite the book its based on and not a faculty publication at Harvard which uses the book. I know there are better sources than the other two provided. The Northwestern Law and Missouri Law sources look like they are two graduate student essays. I would go on Google Scholar and search for "press freedom" and "America" and search by review article and find sources that are published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. I'm not against mentioning this as I know there's a lot of research out there on this, but these sources should be higher quality, especially before being added to the lead. We don't want to overcite, so finding 1-3 really good sources is better than the current 7 mid to low-tier sources used. BootsED (talk) 19:31, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment, I appreciate your suggestions. How does this update look?

Trump has caused a significant decline in freedom of the press.

Citations:

• Axios coverage of 2025 Reporters Without Borders rating: ^[15]
• 2018 Harvard book: ^[16]
• 2023 article by Sonja R. West: ^[17]

Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 02:16, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Something like:

Trump has caused a significant decline in freedom of the press.^[18][19][20] Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 02:21, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that changing events, necessitates changes to the content of a BLP. But, how are we going to trim this BLP, if we keep adding to it? GoodDay (talk) 19:34, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's a very unintrusive, but important, addition, no? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:38, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

"2025 World Press Freedom Index". Reporters Without Borders. 2025. Archived from the original on 3 May 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2024. "United States | RSF". rsf.org. Archived from the original on July 27, 2022. Retrieved 2022-07-25. "United States | RSF". rsf.org. Archived from the original on July 27, 2022. Retrieved July 25, 2022. "Will press freedom decline further?". Media Diversity Institute. Media Diversity Institute. January 6, 2026. Retrieved January 15, 2026. Ferragamo, Mariel (May 2, 2025). "World Press Freedom Continues Decline at a Time of Upheaval". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved January 15, 2026. "United States". Reporters Without Borders. Retrieved January 15, 2026. "Press freedom in the US". Committee to Protect Journalists. Retrieved January 15, 2026. David Folkenflik (December 16, 2024). "ABC settles with Trump for $15 million. Now, he wants to sue other news outlets". NPR. "ABC agrees to give $15 million to Donald Trump's presidential library to settle defamation lawsuit". AP News. 2024-12-14. Retrieved 2025-07-02. Barnes, Brooks (December 18, 2024). "Inside Disney's Decision to Settle a Trump Defamation Suit". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 21, 2024. "Will press freedom decline further?". Media Diversity Institute. Media Diversity Institute. January 6, 2026. Retrieved January 15, 2026. West, Sonja R. (2018). "Presidential Attacks on the Press". Missouri Law Review. 83: 915. Retrieved 2026-01-16. Jones, RonNell Andersen; West, Sonja R. (2017). "The Fragility of the Free American Press". Northwestern University Law Review. 112 (3): 567. Retrieved 2026-01-16. Kalb, Marvin (2018). Enemy of the People: Trump's War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy. Brookings Institution Press. Retrieved 2026-01-16. Fischer, Sara (2025-05-02). "U.S. press freedom falls to historical low". Axios. Retrieved 2026-01-20. Kalb, Marvin (2018). Enemy of the People: Trump's War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy. Brookings Institution Press. JSTOR 10.7864/j.ctt1zxskqf. Retrieved 2026-01-20. Andersen Jones, RonNell; West, Sonja R. (2022). "The Disappearing Freedom of the Press". Washington and Lee Law Review. 79 (4): 1377. Retrieved 2026-01-20. Fischer, Sara (2025-05-02). "U.S. press freedom falls to historical low". Axios. Retrieved 2026-01-20. Kalb, Marvin (2018). Enemy of the People: Trump's War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy. Brookings Institution Press. JSTOR 10.7864/j.ctt1zxskqf. Retrieved 2026-01-20. Andersen Jones, RonNell; West, Sonja R. (2022). "The Disappearing Freedom of the Press". Washington and Lee Law Review. 79 (4): 1377. Retrieved 2026-01-20.

Should the Inside CECOT 60 Minutes segment, Donald Trump and fascism and queerphobia be mentioned in this article?

It is significant enough to be mentioned in that Trump and/or the Trump administration ordered to remove the Inside CECOT 60 Minutes segment on CBS News because he and/or the Trump administration didn't wanted it to air it on CBS News because they didn't wanted negative reaction of the Trump administration from the public, removing it ironically made the negative reaction from the public even bigger, and also mentioning Donald Trump and fascism, because there has been significant academic and political debate about whether Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, can be considered a fascist according to consensus definitions of fascism or because of expressed attitudes some critics perceive as sympathetic to the extreme right. Trump has supported political violence against opponents; many academics cited Trump's involvement in the January 6 United States Capitol attack as an example of fascism. Trump has been accused of racism and xenophobia with respect to his rhetoric about illegal immigrants and his policies of mass deportation and family separation. Trump's base, referred to as the MAGA movement, is sometimes analyzed as a cult of personality. Especially during his second term, several experts of fascism have characterized Trump and his allies' rhetoric and style of governance as authoritarian, and have compared them to previous fascist leaders'. And also mentioning transphobia, and maybe even homophobia, acephobia, biphobia, interphobia/intersexphobia and other queerphobia in general in the article, like mentioning "queerphobia" instead of "transphobia", because it isn't just transphobia but also others, like queerphobia in general. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And also democratic backsliding in the United States. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:14, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

What does this add we do not already say? Slatersteven (talk) 18:16, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well, ok, but how about the other stuff? ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We do not discuss multiple issues at once. But as we still have a very large artcioel, new content must be really significant to our understanding of him. Slatersteven (talk) 18:29, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

All of these are really significant to the article. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:30, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Also, i decided to put it all into one instead of having seperate discussions. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:31, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Because i decided it would have been easier if it was all into one instead of each being seperate. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 22:53, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And also, mentioning the Trump derangement syndrome (TDS), Trump derangement syndrome (TDS) is a pejorative term used to describe negative reactions to U.S. president Donald Trump that are characterized as irrational and disconnected from Trump's actual policy positions. The term has mainly been used by Trump supporters to discredit criticism of him, as a way of reframing the discussion by suggesting that his opponents are incapable of accurately perceiving the world, thus making TDS an informal fallacy. Some journalists have used the term to call for restraint when judging Trump's statements and actions. The term has also come to be used to describe the nature of Trump supporters in their unwavering support of the president. A group of Minnesota Senate Republicans introduced a bill in March 2025 that seeks to classify "Trump Derangement Syndrome" as a mental illness and incorporate it into the state's legal definition through amended statutes. The bill has proposed that the "syndrome" as the "acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump" which should be recognized in legal and medical contexts. The bill also states that the symptoms may include "Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald Trump's behavior" which can manifest as "intense verbal hostility toward Trump" and "overt acts of aggression and violence" towards Trump and MAGA supporters. The Minnesota bill uses the same wording that Krauthammer used to describe Bush derangement syndrome.

U.S. Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio introduced a bill in May 2025 that would require the National Institutes of Health to study Trump derangement syndrome and report annually to Congress. Davidson said "TDS has divided families, the country, and led to nationwide violence — including two assassination attempts on President Trump. The TDS Research Act would require the NIH to study this toxic state of mind, so we can understand the root cause and identify solutions." ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:18, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And also mentioning about the Relationship of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in this article. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:27, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Some (all?) of this is already covered. Slatersteven (talk) 18:30, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Really?, but it definetly isn't all, but there should be more in this article. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 18:32, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be good if there is more about it. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 22:54, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So what (out of all of the above) do we not already have content about? Slatersteven (talk) 14:19, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I meant mentioning in the Donald Trump article, not Wikipedia in general. If it is already mentioned, then it should be expanded to include more about it. ~2025-43053-85 (talk) 19:06, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

First term judiciary appointments

Correcting my edit summary: I read Pew Research's note too late. Their counts contain each appointment to a district court and to an appeals court. But if the same person is first appointed to a district court and then to an appeals court, they're counted only once towards the sum total for both types of court. Including the six appointments to the SC and the U.S. Court of International Trade, Trump made 234 appointments, according to this Brookings article. Also according to logic, because presumably Trump also appointed the successors of the people he appointed to appeals courts? Space4TCatHerder🖖 14:40, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Updating the phrase

As per the the recent result of the RfC written by @S Marshall, the phrase "Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding." should be rewritten (and has the disputed tag until then). What do you all think we should rewrite this to? I would suggest coming up with a few ideas then creating another RfC between the specific ideas, as this might be a lengthy and contentious process. Wikieditor662 (talk) 19:06, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I would just say "researchers have described" and remove the "especially in his second term" middle-break of the sentence and leave the rest as it is. The main point from the RfC was that we need to source who is saying that more clearly. The academic sources make it clear that he's widely seen that way by researchers. This would satisfy the first point raised: use in-text attribution or some other way of being clear about who is saying this about Trump.

The second and third points about both keeping it in the lead without giving it undue prominence and doing so as succinctly as possible can be handled together by removing the "especially in his second term", which makes the existing sentence longer than necessary and can be more succinctly described without this. Reducing the size of the sentence would also reduce its prominence, and the fact that it's already in the last paragraph of the lead would satisfy it being both due to mention in the lead per RfC without giving it undue prominence in the lead by placing it higher up. BootsED (talk) 20:51, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed sentence: A possible sentence would be: Trump's actions have been described by researchers as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. This shortens the sentence and makes it more succinct, attributes the description as being among researchers, and gives this an appropriate weight by shortening the sentence and ensuring it's in the last paragraph. BootsED (talk) 20:58, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the press freedom mention wasn't part of the consensus discussion. Someone just added that on later. Consensus 75 needs to be updated to remove this part as that wasn't part of the discussion. BootsED (talk) 20:54, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Mandruss and Muboshgu about this. Not sure if an administrator is required to update consensus 75 as this press freedom sentence seems to have been added on that wasn't part of the prior discussion. BootsED (talk) 21:06, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Its currently listed as a 'no consensus' item in the consensus list above; it should likely be removed until consensus is established on this issue here on the Talk page. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:10, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's a consensus list, not a no-consensus list (see its heading). The archived discussion will be sufficient record. Admins have never had much involvement in the consensus list (in their admin capacity). ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 05:27, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Full agreement with both of you on this question and the edit does not belong in the main body until consensus is established on the Talk page. Disputed edit is removed for the reasons both of you have just stated since it is still disputed and without consensus. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:01, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, we are in agreement about removing the press freedom sentence. Per the RfC, the authoritarian sentence remains in place and should be there but rewritten to satisfy the 3 points raised by the close. BootsED (talk) 21:09, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much so, and I think you have correctly read most of Wikieditor662's comment; separately if you saw the RfC close above on the previous discussion, then it appears that the closer was inviting you to try the first draft of the rewrite there. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:13, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yep! I put my proposed rewrite above. Ideally per the RfC, we won't need another long drawn out RfC is enough people agree with a particular change here. Per S Marshall's comment: I hope this helps, and I very much hope that it will now be possible to agree fresh wording without the need for yet another RfC. BootsED (talk) 21:30, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@ErnestKrause what are you thinking of the phrase @BootsED proposed? Trump's actions have been described by researchers as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:47, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Wikieditor662; that appears to be the version which Space4T just restored, apparently with notice to Alexandraaaa about the revert, and request to stop edit warring. She is apparently adding questionable material to the main body now and saying that this is for the purpose of next bringing it into the lede again. It looks like her edits both to the main body and to the lede are both questionable and should be removed from the article with notice for contentious editing, which is already on her page for another of her edits. In the thread above she appears to state her plans to again force her edits into the lede section in spite of 4 editors now asking her to stop. ErnestKrause (talk) 03:15, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the version Space4T restored is somewhat different. Compare the two, 1 proposed from BootsED, and 2 restored by Space4T:

1) Trump's actions have been described by researchers as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding.

2) Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding.

Basically, it seems the biggest changes from BootED's version would include "by researchers" as those describing it and remove the "especially in his second term".

Wikieditor662 (talk) 03:41, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Space4Time3Continuum2x and @Alexandraaaacs1989 you're also welcome to share your thoughts on the phrase that BootsED proposed: Trump's actions have been described by researchers as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:13, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Trump's actions have been described by researchers as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding. - I looked and honestly all the proposed options look pretty good to me. But specifying it's more prominent in his second term seems important, so I slightly support this option more. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 05:33, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying you support the pre RfC version, just with adding "by researchers"? Wikieditor662 (talk) 06:36, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Trump's actions, especially in his second term, have been described by experts as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding.

This is my preferred version. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 21:50, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So the pre-RfC version? I'm pretty sure the result of the RfC was to change it from that to something else. Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:56, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the pre-RfC version then I've lost track of what's happening in this thread. I thought the described by experts as would resolve the Wikivoice concern from the RfC, no? Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 22:29, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, you're right, I didn't see the "described by experts". So you're proposing that while BootsED proposed "described by researchers". @ErnestKrause @Space4Time3Continuum2x which do you prefer? Wikieditor662 (talk) 23:34, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I removed #75 and reverted the lead sentence to the status quo ante. IMO, Trump's actions have been described by researchers as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding should satisfy the closing's points (a), (b), and (c). Notifying Alexandraaaacs1989. The addition of as well as a significant decline in press freedom was challenged; we should leave the discussion open for longer than barely more than 24 hours. I, for one, haven't had the time to look at the sources. Space4TCatHerder🖖 00:22, 17 January 2026 (UTC) I copied this comment into the hatted part, below, and struck the part that doesn't apply in the respective copy; couldn't think of another way to fix this. Space4TCatHerder🖖 14:42, 18 January 2026 (UTC) [reply]

Hatting discussions about press freedom and removal of premature #75. Please, add !votes/comments about upgrading the sentence above this sentence. Space4TCatHerder🖖 14:42, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I removed #75 and reverted the lead sentence to the status quo ante. IMO, Trump's actions have been described by researchers as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding should satisfy the closing's points (a), (b), and (c). Notifying Alexandraaaacs1989. The addition of as well as a significant decline in press freedom was challenged; we should leave the discussion open for longer than barely more than 24 hours. I, for one, haven't had the time to look at the sources. Space4TCatHerder🖖 00:22, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] While it was challenged and I can think of legitimate arguments used to challenge it, all the arguments provided were WP:SNOW flat out misunderstandings of Wikipedia policy. But totally fine to reopen if you'd like and give it some more time. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 00:38, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] You are being asked by 3 editors to stop forcing your version of the lede into the article. At this point in time, you need to acknowledge that 3 other editors are asking for you to stop forcing your edits into the article, and that you should remove your edits from the main body of the article as well until you have consensus on the Talk page. Three other editors seem to disagree with your version of this material. Do you plan to continue forcing your edits into the article without Talk page consensus? ErnestKrause (talk) 03:15, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] @Alexandraaaacs1989 Even if you think you're correct, that's not an excuse to be Wikipedia:Edit warring, which specifically states, Claiming "My edits were right, so it wasn't edit warring" is not a valid defense. you must, especially for contentious edits, achieve consensus before making changes, and please don't make an edit if you know you're being challenged on an edit, or that people are going to undo you. Wikieditor662 (talk) 03:46, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] It's not that "my edits were right, so it wasn't edit warring". It was more that the two counterarguments presented in this discussion were based on basic misunderstandings of Wikipedia policy: This was one of the two people who opposed. I'm not shocked that liberal/leftist institutions are claiming Trump is a threat to them. It is a shame, though, that their perspectives get laundered as truth on Wikipedia - Casting an aspersion against the sources, violation of WP:BATTLEGROUND. This shouldn't count as a voice against consensus in my view. And then ErnestKrause proposing we synthesize information about court cases and Donald Trump to infer that therefore there is not freedom of press decline under Trump. But if we put aside how this is a clear violation of WP:SYNTH, he was the only editor (other than the "liberal/leftist isntitution" aspersion guy) voicing opposition while the rest of the people who commented on the discussion pushed back against Ernest's argument, explicitly supported the proposal, or abstained. So I felt like the discussion had enough consensus (and that the votes against did not provide logic that made much sense prima facie) that it was safe to close the discussion when I did. I did this to save editor time because few new editors were contributing to the discussion and some editors were talking about other topics than the proposal at hand, so it felt like little more productive discussion was going to be had and therefore I made the call to close things up which felt right in the moment. But as soon as you indicated interest in reviewing it yourself and potentially opposing the proposal, I agreed to undo the consensus call and resubmit it to review. But you are right the consensus may not have been uncontroversial enough so next time I will wait an extra day or two before making the same kind of call in a similar scenario to give more the opportunity to chime in —  Self-trout for that. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 10:50, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] So I felt like the discussion had enough consensus (and that the votes against did not provide logic that made much sense prima facie) that it was safe to close the discussion when I did. It probably depends on the situation, but I think it's safer in most cases, even if you have consensus and you're certain that you're right, for the closer to be uninvolved for contentious situations. Thank you for understanding and taking accountability, it's very much appreciated. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:10, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] @Space4Time3Continuum2x Why did you remove #75 instead of at the minimum changing it? Shouldn't it at least mention the result of the related RfC and that discussions for how the lead will be re-worded should be occurring now? Wikieditor662 (talk) 03:20, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] I suggest you leave the consensus list to more experienced editors. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 05:32, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] to more experienced editors. @Mandruss Will you please tell me what level of experience you're looking for and what criteria you're using? Wikieditor662 (talk) 05:39, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] I don't have standard criteria here; I look at each case separately. You tried to add a no-consensus to the consensus list. That's all I need to see to tell me you lack the necessary experience to deal with something as critical as that list. At this point in your career, I think it's unlikely anything you do in the list would go unchallenged by experienced editors. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 05:51, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] At this point in your career Because I tried to add a no-consensus to the consensus list.? People can make mistakes sometimes, are you sure being wrong (or disagreeing) over one decision means you'd be wrong about everything else in that area? Wikieditor662 (talk) 06:04, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] My initial comment began with I suggest. I don't run the place and it was a mere suggestion. I believe the suggestion is in your interest, but you are free to take it or leave it. That's all I have to say about this. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 06:14, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] Of course, and I do take your suggestions to heart; especially considering how experienced you are. I was just trying to better understand your reasoning and where you were coming from. Wikieditor662 (talk) 06:21, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] @Wikieditor662: You tried to add a no-consensus to the consensus list. Exactly. It was one heck of a long closing but basically it boils down to "interested editors [having] to come up with the rewrite". Space4TCatHerder🖖 14:55, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] This talk section has gotten off-topic. We're not here to discuss the sources used for an edit about press freedom, we're here to talk about a rewrite to the sentence regarding authoritarianism. Let's not debate this second issue here. BootsED (talk) 19:33, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] +1 - In the other thread, if it's decided to add the press freedom bit, it should be uncontroversial and intuitive enough to add to the end of the sentence being debated in this thread without needing a discussion here. Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk) 19:37, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply] I also think that we should discuss the rewrite of the sentence that was subject of the RfC first. Adding the freedom of the press decline to the lead and, if there's a consensus to add, how and where to add it is a separate discussion. My bad, I should have posted a separate comment in the "decline" thread to let you know why I reverted your addition along with the rest of the sentence. Space4TCatHerder🖖 21:13, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Input request on related Donald Trump article

Asking here because you guys have done a wonderful job in balancing quotes. See....Talk:American hybrid warfare against Greenland during the second Trump administration#Too many quotes tag. Moxy🍁 20:29, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like both Greenland and Iran may need more attention in the Trump main biography. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:26, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"Pathological urge" quasi-diagnosis

I wanted to make a point that Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Institute and former Norwegian chief of defense Sverre Diesen has given Donald Trump a kind of quasi-diagnosis for his Greenland policies, but it was deleted from one of the Greenland crisis articles throughout. In this article: [9], Diesen says: "This has nothing to do with US national security, but is partly linked to Greenland's mineral resources, and partly to Trump's pathological urge to expand American territory." As reaction analysis, not Wikipedia's voice, I would have liked to show how the former Norwegian defense chief framed Trump's motives to turn them into a diagnosis. Any ideas how or if this could be done? Eao (talk) 05:24, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Absent a lot more historical perspective, this would be overdetail for this biography. See WP:TRUMPOTA for alternatives. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 05:40, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Updating lead due to it being 2026

To align with most politician articles, I think the lead should be updated to say "...who has been the 47th and current president of the United States since 2025." This is what the Joe Biden article had before his term ended, for example. I know the lead has consensus already, but this is a change that would not make sense back when that consensus was reached. TheSilksongPikmin (talk | contribs) 18:29, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No need to update, as he's still the US president. Will update when he leaves office. GoodDay (talk) 19:32, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"Has been" and "since 2025"/"since January 2025" were brought up in the February 2025 discussion and rejected. The current wording is factually and grammatically correct; I oppose reopening that discussion. Space4TCatHerder🖖 19:47, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose any change at this time. This has received adequate attention, including after 1 Jan 2026. There is nothing ambiguous or misleading about the current sentence, and most of the arguments have been "because other U.S. presidents' biographies do it". This article is not governed by those articles, and there is no Wikipedia policy or guideline that U.S. presidents' articles should be consistent in this way. I generally oppose a cookie-cutter approach to Wikipedia editing. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 20:15, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No need to change it, as he is the only sitting president. Slatersteven (talk) 16:49, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Greenland crisis

The Greenland crisis, currently featured on the main page and front page news all around the world, should be mentioned in the article. In fact, it should be mentioned in the lead too. It has become, by now, something that will define his legacy, something that could end the transatlantic alliance, the rules-based international order, and US global credibility and trust among NATO allies. Kori Schake said it will take a generation to rebuild US global standing and trust. Trump himself is quite explicit about the importance he attaches to the Greenland crisis. He links it to his failure to receive a Nobel Prize and claims that this has led him to no longer feel an "obligation to think purely in terms of peace."[10]

The article mentions the capture of Maduro, but that is small potatoes in comparison, especially since it didn't involve any meaningful regime change, and no comparable international crisis. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 16:37, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Lets wait to see what the legacy actauly is (WW3, a US pandemic), any number of things might happen to eclipse this, this is only his latest crisis. Slatersteven (talk) 16:51, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's not "his latest crisis", it's the largest international crisis in decades.[11] --Bjerrebæk (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ukraine might like a word (as might Gaza). Slatersteven (talk) 16:56, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. For realz. "largest internation crisis in decades" is hyperbole. Maybe largest international crisis of the past 3 or 4 weeks..... maybe.... NickCT (talk) 19:17, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My suspicion is you are right about its long term importance. But Wikipedia is a lagging indicator of notability. See WP:NSUSTAINED. When this gets written about in more than contemporary and primary reporting, then it will have its place in the article. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:59, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree with @Slatersteven that we should wait to see what unfolds. WP:NOTNEWS is something to keep in mind if we are just updating for the sake of updating. ^🥑GUACPOCALYPSE^🥑 23:59, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The U.S. wasn't at war with Venezuela, a sovereign country, when U.S. military forces entered it, seized its leader and his wife, and carried them off to the U.S. That's a violation of international law (Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter), not small potatoes. The "Greenland crisis" has replaced the Epstein files, Trump's invasion of Minnesota, and the killing of Renée Good in headline news, but how long will that last? It's not the first, second, or third time that Trump has announced tariffs, then retracted, then announced other tariffs, etc. Space4TCatHerder🖖 16:57, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Minnesota wasn't "invaded". Federal law applies in the states, and the feds have lawful authority to enforce it. This is rightfully addressed in the relevant article; just as the recent dispute over Greenland should be addressed in its respective article. As others have said, we need to wait and see before it gets added into this article. See WP:TRUMPOTA Jcgaylor (talk) 21:08, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I gave it a shot here. We don't need a lot of detail until something actually happens; for example, the 2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico has wound up being fairly meaningless due to all of the loopholes in the tariffs imposed. satkara❈talk 17:05, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted.[12] ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 17:11, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Exaclty, its just the latest crisis, and may also blow over. Slatersteven (talk) 17:18, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Editors need to stop running to this article with the latest headlines, Greenland being only the latest example. A longer perspective is required here. It's a biography of Trump, not a running account of his administration's actions. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 17:26, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think moves toward expanding America's territory for the first time in about 100 years would be very notable to include, but I'm not very motivated until something actually happens. satkara❈talk 17:52, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The Greenland crisis is not about any realistic prospect of expanding US territory, but about the largest crisis in NATO history and about fundamentally breaking the transatlantic alliance and destroying trust in the US among its closest allies for at least a generation, the largest geopolitical event in decades[13]. It has become a defining event in the political life of Donald Trump, who yesterday said he no longer feels an obligation to think "purely of Peace"[14]. This is not something that might happen in the future, this is something that has already happened. It is the single and by far most important thing he has done in foreign policy ever. The fact that it isn't mentioned in his biography is embarrassing for Wikipedia.

With regard to Venezuela, as Michael McFaul said, what Trump did was allowing the Maduro regime to continue minus one person. McFaul also emphasized that Maduro was not the legitimate leader of Venezuela.[15] Now Trump is working closely with Maduro's deputy, with talk about the removal of Maduro being supported by elements of the regime. That incident is absolutely important to Venezuela, but nowhere near the global crisis and defining foreign policy event that the Greenland crisis is, which – despite the name – is primarily a confrontation between the US and Europe/EU/NATO and the rules-based international order and the world as we know it, rather than about Greenland in a narrow sense. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 18:24, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The greatest consequence Trump has threatened so far is a 25% tariff in June, which already happened in April with the Liberation Day tariffs. The EU made retaliatory threats, but none of them were implemented. The 25% tariff was eventually negotiated down. This time around, the Supreme Court may restrict his authority to impose tariffs before he can even try (a decision in Learning Resources v Trump is expected as soon).

I think there is merit to including a sentence about Trump's expansionist interests under the foreign policy section, but for now Greenland is on par with his threats to acquire Canada. satkara❈talk 18:43, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Very important current story. But DJT changes course so often, who knows what the story will be next month. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:44, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Support Satkara's addition. This isn't really "his administration's actions" since he appears to be the prime mover for this crisis. Einsof (talk) 18:54, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A longer perspective is required here—regardless of editors' crystal ball evaluations of circumstances (on both sides, in this case). Editors do love to play news analyst. Too much in my view. For this article, look at things that happened ~5–10 years ago and assess lasting significance based on coverage in reliable sources. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 19:19, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Did the Maduro incident happen 5–10 years ago? In fact, he wasn't even president 10 years ago. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 19:54, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The article includes tons of material that violates this principle. That is a terrible reason to add even more. Good stuff attracts more good stuff. Bad stuff attracts more bad stuff, when editors cause/allow that to happen. Reckon you could give us more time before you start citing existing content as precedent? ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 19:59, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "don't cover the past 5–10 years" is a widely recognised principle on Wikipedia. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 20:10, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We're trying to trim the length of this BLP. Add the Greenland info to the Trump Administration article. GoodDay (talk) 19:46, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Very much agree with what Bjerrebæk wrote and strongly support an addition of content about the Greenland crisis and I think this should already go into the lead and certainly into the Foreign policy (2025–present) section.

Re satkara's comments: Regarding Canada, that may be worth considering adding there too but afaik there hasn't been nearly as much actions/developments behind that so this is not a good argument against inclusion of this. Regarding expansionism, it may be best to link this alongside it. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:50, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with most users that this is probably undue in the lead at this moment. Yes, it is uncomfortable that the world once again has a choleric authoritarian leader who wants more Lebensraum and feels he has the right to take it, but as other editors have also said, WP is not news. This could become a defining moment, but as per WP:CRYSTAL we leave that for the future to see. Nobody can yet know the consequences, so not (yet) suitable for the lead. Jeppiz (talk) 20:19, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion isn't specifically about the lead. It's not mentioned in the article at all. 27 European countries sit in emergency meetings about a huge international crisis caused by Trump, and by Trump alone, while Trump sends weird letters around to foreign countries with copies to all the ambassadors in Washington declaring that he is from now on no longer a man of peace and linking his threats to invade Greenland to him not receiving the Peace Prize[16][17], and it's treated like it's not part of his biography. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 21:03, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Supporting Satkara on this edit by adding new sources. Trumps threats have now been expanded to scheduling the tariffs on the calendar with specific dates for enactment. Adding new sources and citations for the 8 nations involved. ErnestKrause (talk) 22:16, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted, process error.[18] Please familiarize yourself with accepted process at this article. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 22:23, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree with the language that has an overly narrow focus on tariffs within the US. It does not summarize the Greenland crisis and what it is about. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 22:27, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

ErnestKrause, you know better, as these edits show: edit 1, edit2. Space4TCatHerder🖖 22:33, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No hectoring please. There were at least 2 other editors supporting Satkara including GoodDay, Objective3000, Prototyperspective and myself. Mandruss looked like an isolated 'revert' edit and I supported the Satkara edit on that basis. If you are now joining with Mandruss then that's your choice now and it brings it back to 5 editors supporting inclusion, and you and Mandruss opposing. It looks like you will now plan to require yet another 30 days RfC to have this edit settled even though 8 nations are now involved in the dispute concerning Trump's actions on Greenland. I'm also noticing below that Jack Upland and Bjerrebæk are also supporting inclusion. It appears that this edit now has 7 editors supporting which is more than ample to add the edit to the article as being prominent and useful. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:16, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So there's no confusion. I oppose inclusion into this BLP. GoodDay (talk) 15:20, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Based on which evidence and reasons? Considering that the article Greenland crisis (now also featured on the main page) establishes that the crisis, caused by Trump, is considered the greatest transatlantic crisis in generations? --Bjerrebæk (talk) 15:24, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No hectoring please. When you're wrong, and especially when you're aggressively wrong, you will be corrected by other editors. That is not hectoring. It's how Wikipedia editing works. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 17:12, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No hectoring please. You appear to be edit warring with two reverts against multiple editors who are disagreeing with you. ErnestKrause (talk) 17:20, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The Greenland issue is a longrunning Trump concern, being mentioned in his first term, and has caused international concern and international media coverage. It dovetails with his longstanding opposition to NATO. I think it should definitely be mentioned in this article!Jack Upland (talk) 03:28, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My proposal is that we add a sentence in the "foreign policy" section of the second presidency section, right after the Maduro stuff, summarizing the Greenland crisis, for example: Trump started the 2025–26 Greenland crisis over his attempt to annex Greenland from Denmark, following a failed attempt to purchase the territory during his first presidency..

That captures his interest in Greenland over the past 6(!) years.

Now, if the trade war proceeds the way it looks now, we should probably also mention how he triggered the US–EU trade war that involves the tariffs that Trump has threatened and the EU response, which might include the unprecedented use of the Anti-Coercion Instrument against the US. There is also the possibility of US opposition. But, the trade war stuff can wait until we see what happens.

Still, the Greenland crisis as such has been ongoing for a full year, involving hybrid warfare inside Greenland, a breakdown in transatlantic relations and US adherence to international norms, Trump declaring himself no longer a man of peace[19], and the greatest transatlantic crisis in generations as the Washington Post described it[20]. The trade war is simply the most recent development in the Greenland crisis. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 11:55, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Survey: Greenland crisis

Please clarify your position here. If you have stated an argument in the preceding section, there is no need to repeat it here. If this shows a consensus to include something, we can then discuss the details. (Remember, there is no deadline. One month to inclusion would not be excessive.) Pinging participants to date: @Bjerrebæk, Slatersteven, Sirfurboy, Guacpocalypse, Space4Time3Continuum2x, Satkara, Objective3000, Einsof, GoodDay, Prototyperspective, Jeppiz, ErnestKrause, and Jack Upland:

Choose one:

• Omit.
• Include in body.
• Include in body and lead.

―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 18:05, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

---

• Omit. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 18:05, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Do you have any argument/evidence for why the greatest transatlantic crisis in generations does not merit even being mentioned anywhere in the article on the guy who started it and is its sole reason? While 27 countries are having emergency meetings and restructuring their entire security framework? (see von der Leyen's comments in Greenland crisis) --Bjerrebæk (talk) 18:11, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, and I stated it above. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 18:12, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I failed to see any evidence or argument there, beyond you stating your preference that we don't cover the past 5–10 years, but that appears to be a highly idiosyncratic belief and not a recognised principle on Wikipedia. That would also mean not covering Trump's presidency at all at this point. Trump's Greenland push started 6 years ago, for the record (not that it matters much). What I meant by argument and evidence is the application of policy and sources, not simply stating a personal opinion . --Bjerrebæk (talk) 18:16, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  It is not idiosyncratic that a good, quasi-professional biography should maintain a historical perspective. There are a number of alternative articles for the issues of the day in Trump's presidencies. His Greenland "push" to date has been mere bluster—unlike, say, Hitler's invasion of Poland Poland, at the cost of 85,000 lives. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 18:29, 20 January 2026 (UTC) Edited after reply 20:52, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  That is not an accurate description of the Greenland crisis at this point. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 18:31, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Include in body and lead. This is a no-brainer. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 18:12, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Omit - for now. Most likely to be added at some point. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:19, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Include in body - One sentence, in the section Foreign policy (2025–present). Definitely not for inclusion in the lead as a clear example of recentism and availability bias. To be honest, my inclination is to omit altogether as it is too soon to get the historical view, and we'd need to follow news sources to cover this. But although I'd happily not do that and just wait for historical sources (Wikipedia is a lagging indicator of notability), that is not in line with other information in this biography, which makes significant use of news sources. If we stood firm on this issue, we should also excise others too. Although it is all bluster and tendentious politicking at the moment, my feeling is that this will have to be covered in the histories. It is too consequential and the effects will clearly be far reaching in establishing (in fact or, at least, in widespread perception) that the US has become an unreliable partner, in retreat as a world power. Adding a sentence now is not out of line with how we treat other issues, and I doubt it will lack for support in the future. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:13, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  If we stood firm on this issue, we should also excise others too. I'm for that, but this can't be contingent on that. We can't fix the article in one discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 19:15, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Include in the body. Would be fine with a single sentence. Einsof (talk) 19:57, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Omit - Belongs in the Second presidency of Donald Trump article. GoodDay (talk) 20:49, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Omit for now. Space4TCatHerder🖖 21:12, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Include in body and lead. Agree with Bjerrebæk that at least the inclusion in the article body is a no-brainer. Maybe some users here aren't aware of the implications and already-caused effects. Are people here really calling to omit this even from Foreign policy (2025–present) section? If something else relating to his foreign policy actions is missing in the lead, maybe that should be added as well rather than this omitted there.
  It's a NATO-member state threatening another NATO member state, i.a. putting NATO into jeopardy, shaking up the overall post-WW2 order and severely disrupting the EU-US relationship to put it mildly among other things. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:21, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Just a note that I still stick to this vote and view despite the recent suggestions that no military force or tariffs would be used. Even if they stick to both of these promises, that doesn't mean the impact has been huge already and that this is very notable. However, when it comes to inclusion in the lead, I think some other eg broader foreign policy things should be briefly mentioned alongside (e.g. alienation of former partners & expansionism where the Greenland crisis is named as sth like an example). This is one of the most notable things but strangely not mentioned in the lead. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:13, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Include, body and lead This is naked, aggressive nationalism. The American president threatening to annex sovereign territory of another nation, a move which has provoked a major international crisis, is biographically relevant to the subject. Zaathras (talk) 22:36, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Omit Nothing has yet unfolded that I feel is noteworthy for this article. When there is something worth adding like we invade, an agreement is made, etc. then it is worth an inclusion. I also like the recommended above to add to his other article about second presidency. Guacpocalypse (talk) 22:47, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Include in body. This is front page news in Australia. NATO's existence is under threat. It is no small issue. --Jack Upland (talk) 00:22, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Omit. We can wait, we are not a news paper. Slatersteven (talk) 12:19, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Why though – the notability and importance are already well-established. There doesn't need to be a military invasion/conflict and end of NATO for this to be lead-worthy. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:20, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Already answered above, I do not intend to reapt myself. Slatersteven (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I've agreed above and would like to add that he has since said he doesn't intend to use force and they are working on more of an agreement so it's not at noteworthy and nothing has taken place yet officially so this could likely be put to rest. ^🥑GUACPOCALYPSE^🥑 22:34, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Include in the body. This should be obvious. It is the first time in history that a leader of NATO country harasses another NATO country to occupy parts it. Jeppiz (talk) 14:07, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• include both USA has not outright annexed sovereign territory since 1898. being the first president in 126 years to do so is slamdunk notable. ValarianB (talk) 15:45, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  @ValarianB: What sovereign territory has he outright annexed? Not Greenland. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 19:38, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Include in body but as evidence of his expansionist interest, which is an overall theme of his second term foreign policy. A sentence like "Trump advanced an expansionist policy in which he leveraged threats of tariffs, sanctions, and military force toward annexation targets including Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal." It could also be: "He sought a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, which he called the "Donroe Doctrine", and leveraged threats of tariffs, sanctions, and military force toward annexation targets including Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal." satkara❈talk 23:07, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  As of today, Trump has backed off his threats of tariffs, making them mere bluster as I've said. That's his M.O., talk a lot and follow through with relatively little. It impresses his base. That is why we wait to see what's real. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 00:02, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree, but that doesn't change my view. At the end of his term we can put in a sentence to say if he succeeded in gaining any territory. satkara❈talk 00:28, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  (The following is basically a summary of analysis in the Greenland crisis article and its sources): It has permanently damaged the U.S. standing and credibility in the world and is considered one of the most erratic episodes in U.S. presidential history, where a president threatened a NATO ally with invasion over his failure to win a Nobel prize and declared himself no longer a man "thinking purely of Peace," with EU and NATO members sending military forces to defend themselves against the U.S. and Greenland preparing for an attack by the U.S. and EU discussing use of its Anti-Coercion Instrument against the U.S., ending with a profoundly humiliating retreat after his own aides restrained him from invading the Kingdom of Denmark, and where the status quo was maintained and he achieved no meaningful gain. He has scared dozens of countries and millions and millions of people. Treating this simply as domestic policy, as though his actions on the international stage don't matter, is fundamentally misguided. It will be – and already is – a very big part of his foreign policy legacy, in all likelihood the most profound, longest-lasting part of it. The damage he has done to the perception of the US among its closest allies will take a generation to repair, as Kori Schake said. --Bjerrebæk (talk) 17:06, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Include in body. It is definitely worth mentioning in the body, because it has gotten a lot of coverage. It also prompted things like Mark Carney's now-famous speech, troop movements to Greenland, talks and analyses about "the end of NATO", etc. It has already had a (lasting) impact. It should be added into the lede only if something major comes off it, like Trump actually taking Greenland for America or starting WWIII over it. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 17:16, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

First vs second term

I notice that the article mentions that after his first term, he was rated lower half of all U.S. Presidents.

I wonder, why is there no mention of his second term? Surely that's more relevant. ~2026-43979-7 (talk) 02:21, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

25% of second term completed. A bit early for ratings of second term, no? ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 02:27, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Quote box: "... My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. ..."

Asked: Are there limits on your global power?

      Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.

—Donald Trump, January 7, 2026
(source: Sanger, David E.; Pager, Tyler; Rogers, Katie; Kanno-Youngs, Zolan (January 8, 2026). "Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by 'My Own Morality'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 8, 2026.

A quote box added to Donald_Trump#Foreign_policy_(2025–present) was deleted with the edit comment, "Yesterday's news". However, the quote has received huge coverage lasting weeks, and is one of the most pithy, unabashed and telling characterizations of his mindset, which is borne out in his actions. I think it should be included. (More generally, I think quotes are more valuable to readers than the various ~decorative images seen throughout.) —RCraig09 (talk) 05:53, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Include per my description above. —RCraig09 (talk) 05:53, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Omit. huge coverage lasting weeks does not (should not) qualify content for inclusion in a biography. That's called recentism—not only a way of editing, but a way of thinking. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 06:10, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Omit per MOS:BOXQUOTE. Placing that quote in that position in a box does indeed give it undue weight. The argument that it is a pithy characterisation of his mindset is not found in secondary sources, but is our OR based on how it has been reported. A charaterisation of his mindset needs to come from secondary sources, and not from editor curated and highlighted quotations. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:25, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree that we shouldn't put our own OR into an article itself; that's not what I'm proposing. But we editors make decisions every day about what Reliable Sources say, in order to decide what to include. Don't normalize or trivialize an explicit presidential statement that he "doesn't need international law"; such a statement is weighty, even historic. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:38, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree. And when we have a secondary source that analyses Trump and says something like "Trump demonstrated his contempt for values Americans had claimed to cherish, stating that he didn't need International law," or similar, we'll have something to write based on the analysis of historians and others. But until then, it is just you and me saying the statement is historic. We are not reliable secondary sources. Our synthesis of the source has no place in an encyclopaedia. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:46, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Well said. Stick around. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 21:15, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  It's not reliance on wiki-editors' OR. It doesn't take long to find sources expressing the gravity of this explicit expression of his perceived power:

  — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html : "Mr. Trump’s assessment of his own freedom to use any instrument of military, economic or political power to cement American supremacy was the most blunt acknowledgment yet of his worldview. At its core is the concept that national strength, rather than laws, treaties and conventions, should be the deciding factor as powers collide. ... he characterized the norms of the post-World War II order as unnecessary burdens on a superpower, ..."

  — https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-trump-relationship/ (title: "Trump’s Wild West doctrine freezes European brains"): "But international law needs Trump. His approach poses an existential threat not just to global agreements such as the Paris climate accord but to the European Union, the world’s biggest factory for international legislation."

  — https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-10/trump-power-venezuela-greenland-international-law-morality/106214406 (Australia): "But this week, Trump and his lieutenants have directly threatened both democratically and non-democratically elected governments." (goes on to recite the quote)

  Do these references meet your requirements? Don't normalize such pronouncements from a US president. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  It's a biography. BLPs are or should be a different animal from other Wikipedia articles. They should be retrospective. They should discuss the past, not the present and certainly not the future. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 22:01, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  (after edit conflict) It is retrospective. "His worldview" ... "pos[ing] an existential threat" to international agreements ... "directly threaten[ing] ...democratically elected governments". We don't need to wait years for these facts to be facts; they're facts now. They're central to his character, not only to the particular section in question: Donald_Trump#Foreign_policy_(2025–present). —RCraig09 (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Do these references meet your requirements? Clearly not. These are newspaper articles. Have a read of WP:BESTSOURCES and especially WP:PRIMARYNEWS - and if you are tempted to say "ah, but that's an essay", then make sure you click on the link that says (Defined as a primary source by policy.) Read that too. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I've got to go for hours, but, briefly, WP:PRIMARYNEWS explains "A newspaper article is a primary source if it reports events, but a secondary source if it analyses and comments on those events". I'm not following comment re 'essays'. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  To take the first one, it is a New York Times piece, bylined with 4 names, saying "The reporters are White House correspondents for The Times. They interviewed President Trump in the Oval Office." The piece is occasioned by the remarks themselves. They report, based on their interview with Trump, that "On topic after topic, President Trump made clear that he would be the arbiter of any limits to his authorities, not international law or treaties." So what we have is primary reporting of the interview. This is a discursive primary source. It is not an analysis of Trump, where Trumps words were selected because of their importance. The piece is occasioned by the words themselves. Read PRIMARYNEWS carefully. This cannot demonstrate the enduring notability of this latest pronouncement. The same goes for the others.

  Contemporary news accounts of an event (the event of his making the remark) are a type of primary source. A lot of Wikipedia pages ignore that and use them anyway (because, after all, it's the encylopaedia anyone can edit, and news articles are available). But this page is both a BLP, and a primary topic in summary style of a highly consequential subject. Let's stick to WP:BESTSOURCES. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:47, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I see the NY Times article as being both a primary and a secondary reference. It reports the content of the interview, but also interprets the quote in a larger context ("...the most blunt acknowledgment yet of his worldview"). But I can see including the quote box is against consensus and I won't pursue it here any further. —RCraig09 (talk) 06:57, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  I referred you to the "defined as primary per policy" link. You have an interview (not independent of the source) as the occasion for the reporting. You have the reporting (primary) and you have the discursive element (the primary opinion of the reporter). It is that last one that is primary per policy - and rightly so, as historians will treat this as a primary source (and very possibly use the opinion to understand how Trump's words were received at the time), even though you might argue that the reporter is synthesising knowledge to arrive at their reported opinion. In any case, the point remains: this is written about because they are reporting the interview, It is not an analysis that synthesises the quotation as a key example of something about Trump (which would thus demonstrate the notability of the event of the quotation). I imagine one day there will be a history of Trump where someone collates this quote as indicative of a mindset. When that happens, we will have our secondary source. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:14, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Omit per Mandruss. Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:52, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
• Omit - Box quotes aren't ideal. GoodDay (talk) 23:06, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  @GoodDay: Would you support the same quotation in open prose, without the box? ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 23:08, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Nope - Best put quote in Second presidency of Donald Trump article. GoodDay (talk) 23:27, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Omit as it becomes UNDUE. Comment: RCraig09, that is a nice looking box quote: great typography, color, contrast, quote and source well-presented. Your CSS could be rolled into Wikipedia standard issue markup for {{quote box}}. -SusanLesch (talk) 21:38, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"Battery theory"

In the Health section of the article, there is the sentence

"Trump considers exercise a waste of energy because he believes in the battery theory, a fringe belief that human beings are born with a finite amount of energy that is depleted by physical activity."

The sources in the linked article on "battery theory" appear to only be references to Trump's mentioning of the concept. If only one person (Trump) is documented as believing in it, it might make sense to have the wording be something like "Trump considers exercise a waste of energy because he believes that human beings are born with a finite amount of energy that is depleted by physical activity." rather than mentioning "battery theory". Onyxqk (talk) 03:25, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The refs in the Battery theory article are irrelevant here; verifiability is not transmitted by a wikilink. This article cites one WaPo article and a book. We don't know at this point what's in the book. Otherwise, I agree in principle. Wikipedia doesn't need to help Trump advertise his personal "theories" by including separate articles about them. Battery theory should be AfDed if the problem can't be corrected, but that's obviously outside our scope. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 03:35, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Jeffrey Epstein Friendship

The page includes a subheaded section dedicated to the subject above. It includes unsourced anecdotes about Trump and Epstein "competing about hitting on women." It makes no reference to Epstein being expelled from the Mar-a-Lago club. Also, the section itself is curious: How many other American political figures and celebrities call out a section about this scandal? E.g. Bill Clinton's page has no mention. ~2026-46972-5 (talk) 12:48, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Not a section, but it is mentioned there. But then, Clinton has not made the Espstine Files part of who he is. Nothing there is unsourced, or are you saying the source doesn't say it? Slatersteven (talk) 13:14, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Trump's ≈15-year friendship with Epstein is mentioned per current consensus, item 73. It's the result of the discussions you can read here and here. Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:03, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Uncontroversial cuts

One reason why most efforts to trim the article's size have stalled out is because they've generally focused on the most controversial sections of the article, which tend to have had the most time and effort put into them, with extended discussions behind each paragraph and sentence; those are naturally going to be the parts with the least "fat" to trim. While we can try to find more redundancy to remove and can tweak the phrasing to shrink them a bit without losing any content per the recent RFC, the easiest way to reduce the article's size is probably to focus on less controversial sections. In particular, the business section is just obviously less significant than the presidency and contains a lot of nitty-gritty that is of limited relevance in the context of his full biography and could stand to be condensed or trimmed. --Aquillion (talk) 21:16, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment appears to be addressed to the issue raised by GoodDay in his comments in the other Talk page section above; possibly you could put your comments in that section for him to respond. ErnestKrause (talk) 21:15, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Board of Peace Chairmanship in Infobox?

Should his position as Chairman of the Board of Peace be included in the infobox? AWESOMEDUDE0614 (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Re:[21][22]

No. ―Mandruss ☎ 2¢. IMO. 21:50, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. GoodDay (talk) 21:53, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Not close. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:19, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Lets wait and see if this lasts more than a month, and actually holds a meeting. Slatersteven (talk) 10:15, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Not yet. In the future? Perhaps, we will see how this will develop. Maxeto0910 (talk) 11:35, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@AWESOMEDUDE0614

A lot of people have answered "no" but very few have given an actual explanation. From the tones of the responses, it's hard not to assume it's merely because they dislike the role of Trump in the Board of Peace and that organisation's role in international affairs in general.

I would argue that once the Board's activities actually commence and Trump is actually exercising his authority as chairman, I don't see a good reason why it should be excluded from his list of offices.

Remember, even self-made titles and imagined offices are very frequently added to peoples' infoboxes. Look no further than Idi Amin for such a page.

NateNate60 (talk) 20:56, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In general, the infobox is for stuff that's written about in the article. Atm there is nothing, probably per WP:PROPORTION. This might change at some point, but the infobox is not the place to start. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:00, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If and when the Board's activities actually commence in any meaningful way there will, in all likelihood, be another discussion. Right now the Board of Peace consists of a draft, a self-appointed chairman of the board, and the leaders of a number of countries who may or may not cough up the $1 billion membership fee. Space4TCatHerder🖖 22:40, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Asking for a minor tweak to language

"attempted a failed peace process in Korea" "attempted" would mean it was unsuccessful, otherwise appropriate language would be "accomplished or "succeeded", this sentence makes it appear as if he attempted to fail. I'm not sure it's even warranted in the lead, though, that period of time will (in my view, anyway) likely be far more forgotten in history than the dramatic increase in child deaths and suffering from the cuts to USAID under his administration. ~2026-49288-9 (talk) 02:40, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

 Done: I hope "engaged in" works? Pr0m37h3u$ 15:43, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

His second term

"His second term marked a return to American Expansionism, as stipulated in the Donroe doctrine"

I was wondering, why wouldn't something like that be in the a ~2026-49760-3 (talk) 11:54, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Source? Slatersteven (talk) 11:56, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donroe_Doctrine ~2026-50276-3 (talk) 16:12, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That is not about the Monroe Doctrine. Slatersteven (talk) 16:18, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The first sentence of Foreign policy (2025–present) covers expansionism and imperialism: Trump's second term foreign policy was described as expansionist and imperialist. Donroe Doctrine is an attempt at branding, not widely used in RS and, when it is used, it's in scare quotes. Space4TCatHerder🖖 17:36, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]