Donald Trump Jr. plays Republican kingmaker

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Before J.D. Vance delivers his prime-time address to America on Wednesday night, the country will hear a speech from the Republican Party's next-generation kingmaker: Donald Trump Jr.

The former president's eponymous son was a staunch defender of the Ohio senator, battling Rupert Murdoch and other establishment conservatives who preferred more experienced and perhaps more business-friendly politicians than the 39-year-old political neophyte.

At an event hosted by the Axios news site on Tuesday, Trump Jr. said the sun had set on Murdoch, 93, who attended the convention despite retiring last year.

There was a time when if you wanted to survive in the Republican Party, you had to bend the knee to him or to others, Trump Jr. said. I don't think that's the case today.

He then twisted the knife in the wound by saying there was a very good chance Vance would be elected the 48th president of the United States in 2028. A Murdoch spokesperson declined to comment.

Vice presidential candidate JD Vance, right, at the convention this week with Trump Jr. AP

If power in the Republican Party rests on proximity to Donald Trump, there may be no one more powerful than Donald Trump Jr., a 46-year-old non-politician.

While his sister Ivanka Trump and brother-in-law Jared Kushner have yet to attend the convention, Trump Jr. has been a mainstay, sitting behind his father and appearing to cry as the former president entered the arena on the first night wearing a bandage over one ear.

He spoke Tuesday about trying to find a moment of levity with his father after the assassination attempt.

Trump Jr. recalled, I asked him, more importantly, how is his hair?

The son is not only promoting alternative forms of media, appearing this week with Dan Bongino and Tucker Carlson, two former Fox conservative media stars, on the Rumble platform, but also with the next generation of Republican officials.

Trump Jr. is trying to replace the Senate's old guard by promoting Gen X candidates like Jim Banks in Indiana and Bernie Moreno in Ohio. He has said there are maybe four good senators and joked that half of Congress are idiots.

Donald Trump is welcomed at the convention by, from left, Donald Jr, JD Vance and Eric Trump AFP via Getty Images

In 2023, Trump Jr. endorsed his ally Matt Gaetz for governor of Florida in 2026, though Gaetz has not launched a campaign. The 42-year-old is one of the most controversial members of Congress, having ousted House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy from power last year with a small group of conspirators.

“Donald Trump Jr. is truly one of the most dynamic forces in our party,” Gaetz told the Financial Times. “He’s one of the most sought-after spokespeople. He’s a force on the fundraising trail. And he’s going to play a significant role in the campaign going forward.”

“I was grateful to have had his support from the beginning,” Gaetz said with a smile.

Matt Gaetz: Donald Trump Jr. is truly one of the most dynamic forces in our party Getty Images

Trump and his son agree on policy priorities: closing the U.S.-Mexico border, withdrawing aid to Ukraine and imposing massive tariffs.

Trump Jr., executive vice chairman of the Trump Organization, has also been a vocal defender of his father, who faces a civil fraud conviction in New York that could force the former president to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in court penalties.

Don Junior acts as a protector of his father and also as an ideological check on his father's decision-making, said former Trump campaign adviser Steve Cortes.

The son also continues to promote his father's conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump Jr. said Tuesday that if his father loses, it will be because of cheating by the Democratic opposition.

Trump Jr. said Tuesday that the least Trump thing about him is that he doesn’t play golf. But he also talks about hunting and fishing and tries to shift the Republican Party’s focus to working-class Americans who might identify with Vance’s upbringing as he described it in his 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy.

Democrats and unions say the billionaire Trump family presents itself as pro-worker, pointing out that Trump's 2017 tax bill gave the most relief to corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

But Trump Jr. fans within the party say his version of his father's “America First” message is in perfect sync with the broader shift within the Republican Party.

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“The party has changed,” said Ed McMullen, a Trump donor and former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland who spent time with Trump Jr. in South Carolina talking fishing gear and raising money for the Trump campaign in London. “It’s not the old country club Republican Party that I grew up in with my grandparents.”

We are a populist party, rooted in conservative principles, added US Congressman Jim Jordan.

Trump Jr. boasted Tuesday that Republican primary polls from two years ago showed him as a likely candidate for the 2024 presidential election. But he appears reluctant to join a second Trump administration, saying he only wants to keep bad actors out.

I just want to be the veto, he said.

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