46-year-old Donald Trump Jr, popularly known as Don Jr, is President-elect Donald Trump’s favorite child this time as he is on the cusp of entering the White House again. In 2016, it was Ivanka and her husband Jared. But this time they don’t want a part in Trump’s administration and are apparently happy in Miami; Eric Trump is running the family businesses; Tiffany is married and Barron is a social media strategist studying business at NYU.
Trump’s eldest son is now his favorite as he stuck to him closer pulling several strings like dropping friend JD Vance’s name to father to consider him as the running mate, advising father to get Kennedy Jr on board etc — and all these paid off well.
Don Jr has an array of businesses, a publishing company, a podcasting deal all contributing to his net worth of $50 million.
Will Don Jr join the administration like Ivanka and Jared did in 2016?
Don Jr will not join the administration as his hands are already full and he gets to exercise enough power even from outside the administration. An NYT report said he took a leaf out of Ivanka and Jared and already knows that trying to serve as a gatekeeper for his father is a politically perilous exercise.
Don Jr a loyalty scanner
In several podcasts, Don Jr said the administration will only have loyal people and he is the loyalty scanner at Mar-a-Lago who went through all the picks of Trump and scanned whether they meant what they were saying or whether they were a potential threat to the MAFA order.
The NYT deep-dive said it as Don Jr who saw RFK Jr as an early threat and started brainstorming ways to bring him into the MAGA fold. Don Jr also know how to rile up people a little on social media. It was Don Jr who got RFK jr taste some McDonald’s to just have fun.
Conservative commentator, Charlie Kirk told the NYT that Don Jr does not weigh in on everything — only where he has something to offer extra or when he feels something would not be serving his father’s best interest.
When the father-son did not speak for a year
Don Jr and Donald Trump did not speak for a year after Trump divorced his mother Ivana following an affair with Marla Maples. Don Jr was brought up mostly under the influence of his maternal grandfather and loves to hunt and fishing. The father-son clash resurfaced in 2017 when he was the central figure in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.