Is Donald Trump the oldest U.S. President?

WASHINGTON — From the oldest person to become president to the first vice president with a beard. Here are some of the historic firsts that the Trump administration will bring with it to the White House on day one. 

At 78 years and seven months, Trump will be the oldest person to ever become president. The previous record-holder was Joe Biden, who had been a few months younger, 78 years and two months when he was sworn in as president in 2021.

Trump had also been the oldest person to become president when he was first sworn into office at 70 in January 2017. 

At 40 years old, JD Vance will become the youngest person to become vice president since 1953, when Richard Nixon became vice president. Born in 1984, Vance is also the first millennial vice president. He will become the third-youngest vice president in U.S. history. The youngest was John C. Breckinridge who was 36 when he became James Buchanan’s vice president in 1857. 

JD Vance will be the first vice president to have a beard since 1909, when Charles W. Fairbanks served as Theodore Roosevelt’s vice president. He is the first vice president to regularly sport facial hair since Charles Curtis in 1933, who was Herbert Hoover’s vice president and had a mustache. 

No U.S. President has had facial hair since William Howard Taft, who had a mustache and was president from 1909 to 1913. No U.S. President has had a beard since Benjamin Harrison, who was president from 1889 to 1893. 

Trump is the first president since Grover Cleveland to be reelected to a nonconsecutive term, meaning he lost reelection then was reelected president, again. Cleveland, who was previously the governor of New York, was first elected president in 1884 but then was defeated by Republican Benjamin Harrison in 1888, although Harrison had lost the popular vote. Cleveland then defeated Harrison in the presidential election of 1892.  

Trump is the first president to be elected after getting a felony conviction. He was found guilty by a jury in New York City on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up $130,000 of hush money payment to an adult film star. On Jan. 10, a New York judge sentenced Trump to an unconditional discharge, a criminal sentence that carries with it no jail time or probation. 

Trump is not the first president to have been arrested though. In 1976, George W. Bush was arrested for driving drunk in Maine. However, this arrest was 25 years before he became president. The 30-year-old Bush paid a $150 fine and had his driver’s license briefly suspended. 

Eighteenth president Ulysses S Grant was also arrested. In 1872, while serving his first term as president, Grant was stopped by a Washington, D.C. policeman for speeding in his horse and buggy. 

While both Grant and Bush were arrested, Trump is the only president with a felony conviction. Trump is also the first president to be reelected after being impeached by the House of Representatives – which happened twice during Trump’s first term.

This election was only the second time in the 21st century that a Republican candidate for president won the popular vote. The last time was George W. Bush’s successful reelection campaign in 2004. Bush’s victory in 2000 and Trump’s first win in 2016 were both instances in which the Republican candidate won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. 

Trump is also the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state of Nevada since Bush won that state in 2004. The Trump-Vance ticket was the most successful G.O.P. ticket ever in two U.S. States – Kentucky and West Virginia – where the Republican ticket won 65% and 70% of the vote; respectively. 

2024 was the first time a presidential candidate whose primary residence was listed as Florida won an election. Trump has owned the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Fla., since 1985. He has designated the resort as his primary residence since 2019. 

In 2016, when Trump was first elected, his residence had been listed as Trump Tower in New York. 

Vance will be only the second Catholic vice president. Joe Biden, who served as V.P. under Barack Obama, before becoming president, was the first. Vance was raised a Protestant but was baptized and confirmed into the Catholic Church in 2019. 

Usha Vance, JD Vance’s wife, will become the first person raised a Hindu to serve as second lady. Usha Vance has declined in recent years to comment on whether she is still a practicing Hindu. 

Usha Vance become the first Asian American Second Lady. Born in San Diego, Usha Vance’s parents were immigrants from India. 

Melania Trump remains only the second foreign-born First Lady. Before Melania Trump became first lady in 2017, the only foreign-born first lady had been Louisa Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams, who served as president from 1825 to 1829. Louisa Adams was born in London to an American father and a British mother and raised in France. 

Melania Trump is the first naturalized citizen to become first lady, meaning she is the first who went through the process to become a U.S. citizen. 

Melania Trump was born Melanja Knavs in the Slovenian city of Novo Mesto in 1970 to a car-part dealer and children’s clothing maker. Melania had changed the spelling of her name when she became a fashion model at 16. A Southern European country along the Mediterranean, Slovenia gained its independence in 1991. Slovenia had been part of Yugoslavia when Melania Trump was born.