Donald Trump Jr is revered by the right
Le fils aîné du président américain, prêt à prendre la relève ?
Donald Trump Jr, fils ainé du président des Etats-Unis, à la tête de la Trump Organization, a plus d’une corde à son arc. Amis puissants, charisme et connivence avec d’influents lobbies politiques, rien ne lui fait défaut, et beaucoup pensent qu’il est promis à une brillante carrière politique. Seule ombre au tableau ? L’enquête du FBI qui s’intéresse à lui à propos de la possible collusion entre la campagne de son père et la Russie... Alors, la relève est-elle vraiment assurée ?
Donald Trump Jr is a man under pressure, but also in fierce demand. To sworn enemies of Trump World he is at the centre of everything objectionable – from alleged election campaign collusion with Russia and the Trump Organization’s pursuit of global wealth to aggressive trolling of liberals on social media.
2. But, in a parallel political universe, there are the millions of Americans who love him. And, away from the firestorm that is the ongoing Robert Mueller Russia investigation, the president’s eldest son is building a considerable conservative fanbase. This constituency sees him as an authentic figure with a political future – assuming he can get out from under the Mueller investigation. He is also becoming an effective political fundraiser with the support of wealthy loyalist friends like fellow son of a billionaire Tommy Hicks Jr. And America’s millions of hunters and shooters adore him on social media and regularly exhort him to run in 2024.
BUILDING HIS PROFILE
3. Now he is preparing to step out as a star turn for Republicans who have shown fealty to the Trump agenda as they fight for their political lives in November’s crucial midterm elections. He is busy building his own profile.
4. Trump Jr will headline an August fundraiser in a private Long Island mansion for New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who has been a vocal critic of the Mueller investigation and who has joined a group of House Republicans in calling for a rival special counsel inquiry into the Department of Justice and the FBI. Boyd Matheson, Republican strategist and a former congressional chief of staff, said of Trump Jr: “From the Republican party standpoint, he very much is the guy. He can be the face, he can go out with the hunters.”
QUESTION MARKS
5. But it is not all plain sailing. Many conservative groups are wary of getting too close not because of the question marks over Trump Jr, Matheson said. “Some of them are waiting for the next shoe to drop. Has he done something that’s beyond unethical or moral, has he broken laws, done things that are gonna be big issues?” 6. While he has been de facto head of the family firm since “the big guy”, as he calls his father, became president, Trump Jr seems to more commonly have his next outdoor adventure in his sights. As his 1.1 million Instagram followers know, Trump Jr was up a mountain in Utah spending “quality time in the woods” with a group of friends, when the latest wave of scrutiny hit his complicated life amid revelations of a previously unknown meeting with people seeking access to his father. His Instagram pictures show him dressed in full camouflage Kuiu mountain gear at 10,000ft, then meeting Robert J O’Neill, the former US Navy Seal who fired the shot that killed Osama bin Laden (prompting social media fans to bill them as a 2024 election dream team). Trump may have been in a shirt monogrammed with his initials for that one but he is authentically rugged.
HUNTERS AND NRA MEMBERS
7. There are 11.5 million hunters in the United States and Trump Jr treats them as his constituency, along with the National Rifle Association supporters of the second amendment right to bear arms. Mike Siaperas, who has known Trump Jr since election year, hosted him at his ranch in south-eastern Utah this month, where his company 106 Reforestation pioneers techniques for clearing and regrowing Aspen trees at high altitude, to encourage wildlife and prevent catastrophic wildfires.
8. “My whole work has been based on conservation the past five to 10 years, and Don Jr was gracious enough to come and see the work I have done,” he said. “And as far as I am concerned, Don Jr is probably the best thing that has ever happened to conservation and wildlife in the past 100 years.” Asked if he thought Trump Jr wanted to run for office himself, Siaperis said: “Yeah, that’s his goal. I don’t have those conversations with him, but from my standpoint, if he ever decided to do that, that would be the most important vote
I ever cast in my lifetime.”
THE NEXT IN LINE?
9. Trump Jr has laughed off earlier suggestions he might run to become governor of New York. But for some observers, he has given the impression ever since he gave an antagonistic speech at the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland, that he thought he might be the next in line in a great political dynasty. Black hair slicked back, cries of “Trump, Trump, Trump” ringing in his ears, he seemed like a more controlled version of his father – just as pugnacious, but more packaged.
10. For now, however, special counsel Mueller is still circling, investigating his role in possible collusion between Russia and the Trump election campaign. Trump Jr brokered that Trump Tower meeting with Russians who had promised to deliver damaging dirt on Hillary Clinton, emailing a fixer: “If it’s what you say, I love it.” Further emails showed that when the meeting eventually came to light, the Trump Organization coordinated with the Russians involved on what to tell the public. But Trump Jr drives on, full of #Maga #winning bravado, slaying the haters and losers as his father’s greatest online cheerleader.
Black hair slicked back, cries of “Trump, Trump” ringing in his ears, he seemed like a more controlled version of his father.