The number of American soldiers in Afghanistan fell dramatically during Obama's second term, though U.S. Obama also presided over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and other legislation passed in his first term, and he negotiated rapprochements with Iran and Cuba. In his second term, Obama took steps to combat climate change, signing a major international climate agreement and an executive order to limit carbon emissions. The Obama administration orchestrated the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011. The Obama administration's policy against terrorism downplayed Bush's counterinsurgency model, expanding air strikes and making extensive use of special forces, and encouraging greater reliance on host-government militaries. Following the elections, Obama and Congressional Republicans engaged in a protracted stand-off over government spending levels and the debt ceiling. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress until Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections. Obama also appointed Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the latter of whom became the first Hispanic American on the Supreme Court. Obama's first-term actions addressed the global financial crisis and included a major stimulus package, a partial extension of the Bush tax cuts, legislation to reform health care, a major financial regulation reform bill, and the end of a major US military presence in Iraq. He was the first African American president, the first multiracial president, the first non-white president, and the first president to have been born in Hawaii. Obama was succeeded by Republican Donald Trump, who won the 2016 presidential election. Four years later, in the 2012 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney to win re-election. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office following a decisive victory over Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017.