The two men had had a difficult relationship for years. Trump’s ex-wife Ivana tells in her 2017 book, “Raising Trump,” that when she suggested the name of her newborn Donald Jr., Trump protested, “You can not do that! What if he’s a loser?” After his parents divorced, a 12-year-old Trump Jr. refused to speak to his father for a year, and later seemed to escape the shadow and reputation of the famous businessman at the Fiji Brotherhood at the University. of Pennsylvania was the nickname of Trump Jr. Ron Rump, and his fraternity brothers called him Ron. “He liked it, perhaps because it gave him an extra level of anonymity,” one of them recalls. working directly after college for the Trump organization, Trump jr. spent a year and a half in Aspen, Colo., night skiing, hunting, fishing, and continuing bar.
In 2001, he moved back to New York City and took his place at the company. But his biggest contribution to the family business came on the set of “The Apprentice,” in which he appeared as an occasional judge in the chamber during the show’s 2006 season. He was appreciated by the producers as a stabilizing presence, running interference between the cast and crew and the fleeting star, his father. When Trump advised crew members of a mistake, one Apprentice producer, Trump Jr., speaking from a good personal experience, reminded her, “It’s not your fault; it’s your turn.”
People who worked on the show often remembered him trying to lighten the mood. “He provided the comic relief because his father had no sense of humor and Ivanka was not one to make jokes,” said Clay Aiken, the “American Idol” winner who appeared on ‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ in 2012. ‘He was perfectly fine taking the piss out of himself, but sometimes he would make a joke about his father – and then you could tell he was really nervous that his father would not like it. His self-control was in the trunk. ‘
Much of Trump Jr.’s popular image, especially among liberals, seems to emerge from those years: “uselessly trying to impress a man who can only be impressed under himself” (GQ); “A Recurring Liability and a Chronic Headache” (The Daily Beast); the ‘Fredo’ of the Trump family (Twitter). In the early days of Trump’s presidency, he seems to be in for more of the same. After the election, while Ivanka and Kushner went to Washington, Trump jr. Back in New York, apparently to run the Trump Organization with Eric. But he did not have much to do. He was manager of the company’s international portfolio, and although he was able to continue working on overseas projects predating his father’s election, he was unable to start anew.
For a time, he tried to play a role in shaping the administration’s public land policy and other issues related to his outdoor activities, which earned him the name of the Secret Service Code Mountaineer. Senator Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana, used a short story trip with Trump Jr. in November 2016 to lobby for the incoming board to elect an interior secretary from Mountain West. “I wanted a Westerner,” says Daines, “and Westerner does not mean West Virginia. It does not mean it is Oklahoma.” Trump Jr. recommended Ryan Zinke, then a Montana congressman and a friend of Daines’s, for the job of ‘ the Department of Interior.Zinke got the nod but was fired in December 2018 after a scandal-plagued term.
Trump Jr.’s relative low public profile ended on July 8, 2017, when The New York Times revealed its role in the arrangement of the Trump Tower meeting last summer between Trump campaign officials and the Russian lawyer and her staff. Although not much seems to come out of the meeting, a report released this month by the House of Representatives for Intelligence found that the Russians “had important links with the Russian government, including the Russian intelligence services.” “
A few days after the Times article ran, Trump Jr. went on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to defend himself in a softball interview. “There was nothing to tell,” he said of the meeting. “I would not even remember it until you started rubbing through this game.” His share among conservatives went up as he continued with an ongoing campaign against the news media, Mueller and congressional investigators pursuing their own Russian poll. (It was reported this month that in 2019 the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House of Representatives made a criminal referral of Trump Jr. and several other Trump employees to the Justice Department for lying as providing contradictory testimony to the panel.) He became a frequent guest on Fox News and an enthusiastic participant in the political battles of the moment. “Don’s favorite part of politics gets a slap in the face and reacts with a hook,” says one person close to him.
