Donald Trump is the second U.S. President to be elected to non-consecutive terms, and the grandson of the first has something to say about it.
There’s no bitterness from George Cleveland about Donald Trump changing history following Tuesday’s election.
"After all, who remembers who was the second man on the moon?" Cleveland told Ideastream Public Media.
George Cleveland, 72, a New Hampshire resident with an uncanny resemblance of his grandfather, Grover Cleveland, the country's 22nd and 24th President, said Trump is “not exactly my favorite candidate”
But the families will now forever have a connection.
Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, served as President from 1885 to 1889. He lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888 but was elected again serving from 1893 to 1897.
Until Tuesday, he was the only President to be elected to two non-consecutive terms. Trump is the second.
Grover Cleveland died in 1908. Clearly, he never met his grandson, George, who explained the generational gap.
“It’s a matter of sex and math because Grover was almost 25 years older than my grandmother when they were married,” said Cleveland. “It's ridiculous to have somebody who's still alive whose grandfather was born in 1837. You know, my father was born in 1897. And then he met and married my mother in 1943 when she was teaching his children from his first marriage. So we basically dropped two whole generations.”
Presidential history is now forever changed. But the Trump and Cleveland brands appear to be very different.
“He (Grover) believed that you shouldn't benefit from public service,” said Cleveland of his grandfather. “And as a result, when he got out of office there were a lot of companies that wanted him to come on their boards… but he turned all those offers down because a public office is a public trust. "
It always intrigued Cleveland, who was likely raised much differently than families of modern presidents.
"Gee, how might my life be different today if I had come into the world while the family was still balancing thousands of shares of a steel company or a railroad company from 1902,” Cleveland said.
