THE BOYS TAKE CHARGE
Trumps ready to open tower
The boys are back in town — this time with Secret Service protection.
The two eldest sons of U.S. President Donald Trump are coming back to Vancouver next Tuesday to help open the Trump International Hotel and Tower. The $360-million property is owned by Malaysian-financed Holborn Properties, but the Trump Organization — of which Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are executive vice-presidents — has a contract to run the operation. It is the first Trump-branded property to open since their father took office.
Eric, 33, and Donald Jr., 39, have both previously visited Vancouver in connection with the project, but not under the media glare expected for this visit. Here’s a quick snapshot of the bros. (their 35-yearold sister Ivanka is the middle of three children of Donald Trump and his first wife Ivana. Trump also has two younger children with two subsequent wives.)
DONALD JR.
Donald Jr. has five children with his wife Vanessa, a former model and actress whom he married in 2005. He has overseen a number of building projects, including the renovation and leasing of a New York office tower, and the construction and sale of units in a Chicago hotel.
Raised mainly by their mother Ivana and their maternal grandparents after their parents’ divorce in 1991, Donald Jr. and brother Eric attended the Hill School, a Pennsylvania boarding school. Donald Jr. got a business degree at the University of Pennsylvania, but moved to Aspen, Colo., afterwards to spend time living in a truck while skiing, hunting, and fishing.
He came back to New York in 2001 to join the family business. In addition to the real estate end, both brothers had roles in The Apprentice, Trump’s reality TV series.
The brothers and Ivanka were part of their father’s campaign, speaking to crowds and doing interviews on his behalf. After his father’s much-criticized campaign pledge to ban Syrian refugees, Donald Jr. added to the furor with a tweet comparing refugees to poisoned Skittles. The makers of Skittles did not approve.
When Donald Jr. last visited the under-construction Vancouver hotel in May 2016, his father was the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Donald Jr. stayed in B.C. afterwards for some downtime with friends. “I have spent a lot of time here and the Yukon. I’m a big outdoorsman, big fisherman,” he told Postmedia.
His past outdoor activities have also sparked controversy, specifically with photos of a 2011 hunting trip to Zimbabwe posing alongside brother Eric with a dead cheetah and the severed tail of an elephant.
ERIC
Eric married Lara Yunaska, a producer for CBS’s Inside Edition, in 2014 and they have no children. Within the Trump Organization, Eric is in charge of the company’s 18 golf courses and the Trump Winery in Virginia.
Eric has been quoted as saying his older brother helped raise him after their parents’ divorce. He graduated from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. with a degree in finance and management, and after that went to work at the family firm in 2006.
Also that year, he started a foundation to benefit children with cancer, which has since raised about $12 million through events held at various Trump properties.
After Trump senior was elected president, their Mar-a-lago private Florida beach club doubled its entry fees to $200,000. When it was suggested that the family was profiting by charging club members for exclusive access to the president, Eric took umbrage: “It assumes the worst of us and everyone, and that is unfair.”
The Washington Post has reported that when Eric flew to Uruguay last month for a Trump Organization promotional trip, U.S. taxpayers footed a bill of nearly $100,000 in hotel rooms for Secret Service and embassy staff. Eric’s last visit to Vancouver was in June, 2013, with his father and siblings Ivanka and Donald Jr. to promote the planned Vancouver project.
“I can’t wait to go up to Whistler,” Eric told Postmedia. “My mom was on the Czech national ski team, so she had us on skis before we could really walk.”
After his father’s inauguration, Eric told the New York Post the brothers had resolved to finish overseas projects they were already contracted to do, but they cancelled 30 pending foreign deals.