Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump Jr. nets big payday for speech
Texas university pays $100K for 1-hour commitment
Donald Trump Jr. is being paid $100,000 to participate in a Texas public university speaking series sponsored by the company of a major Republican donor — a fee that is as much as double what President Donald Trump’s eldest son appeared to have sought on the lecture circuit before this year.
In July, Trump Jr. signed a contract with the University of North Texas agreeing to give a halfhour speech and participate in a 30-minute questionand-answer session on Oct. 24 in exchange for a $100,000 stipend, according to documents first obtained by the North Texas Daily, the student newspaper. The university provided a copy of the contract to The Washington Post.
Trump Jr. was invited by organizers of the UNT Kuehne Speaker Series, whose top sponsor this year is a corporate tax services firm headed by G. Brint Ryan, a UNT alum and well-connected GOP donor in Dallas who advised President Trump on tax policy during the campaign.
In an interview, Ryan said the series is paid for by private donations, not public funds, adding that Trump Jr.’s appearance will help raise money for National Merit Scholarships for UNT students.
“I don’t think we’ve paid that much before,” Ryan said of Trump Jr.’s stipend. But he said he did not have any qualms about the amount .
“This is not a deal to sponsor Donald Trump Jr. This is an effort to raise as much money as possible for scholarships,” he said.
“If Chelsea Clinton wants to come next time, that’s great,” Ryan added.
Trump Jr. did not respond to requests for comment.
The fee for Trump Jr.’s UNT speech appears to be twice as much as he charged to give paid speeches before his father ascended to the Oval Office, according to his past speaker bureau listings.
In January, the website for BigSpeak listed his fee as more than $40,000 per appearance, according to a Huffington Post report. A listing on the website of All American Speakers that does not appear to have been updated since the election says that the fee to hire Trump Jr. to speak begins at $50,001.
During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump Jr. tweeted critically about paid speeches given by former President Bill Clinton, in one case describing a six-figure fee Clinton received as “#paytoplay.”
The invitation from UNT has drawn criticism from students and alumni. In an editorial last month, the student newspaper noted that Trump Jr. is under federal scrutiny for meeting during the campaign with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin connections. The editorial called the invitation “a tone deaf and utterly irresponsible decision.”
UNT spokeswoman Kelley Reese said that “UNT welcomes speakers who represent all viewpoints, including conservative, liberal and progressive political ideology as well as all positions in between.”