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Before JD Vance delivered his primetime address to America on Wednesday night, the country heard a speech from the Republican party’s next-generation kingmaker: Donald Trump Jr.
The former president’s eponymous son was a forceful booster of the Ohio senator, battling Rupert Murdoch and other establishment conservative figures, who preferred more seasoned — and perhaps more corporate-friendly — politicians than the 39-year-old political neophyte.
At an event held by news site Axios on Tuesday, Trump Jr said the sun had set on the 93-year-old Murdoch, who attended the convention despite retiring last year.
“There was a time where if you wanted to survive in the Republican party, you had to bend the knee to him or to others,” said Trump Jr. “I don’t think that’s the case any more.”
He then twisted the knife, saying there was “a very high chance” that Vance would be elected the 48th US president in 2028. A spokesperson for Murdoch declined to comment.
If power within the Republican party is based on proximity to Donald Trump, there is perhaps no one more powerful than 46-year-old non-politician Donald Trump Jr.
While his sister Ivanka Trump and brother-in-law Jared Kushner have yet to appear at the convention, Trump Jr has been a mainstay, sitting behind his father and appearing to well up when the former president entered the arena on the first night sporting a bandage on one ear.
He spoke on Tuesday about trying to find a moment of levity with his father after the assassination attempt.
Trump Jr recalled: “I asked him, most importantly, ‘How’s the hair?’”
The son is not only pushing alternative forms of media — appearing this week with Dan Bongino and Tucker Carlson, two former Fox conservative media stars, on the platform Rumble — but also the next crop of Republican officials.
Trump Jr is trying to change the old guard of the Senate, promoting Generation X candidates such as Jim Banks in Indiana and Bernie Moreno in Ohio. He said there were maybe four “good” senators and joked that half of Congress consisted of “morons.”
In 2023, Trump Jr backed his ally Matt Gaetz for governor of Florida in 2026 — even though Gaetz has not launched a campaign. The 42-year-old is one of the most controversial members of Congress, driving House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy out of power last year with a small band of fellow rabble rousers.
“Donald Trump Jr is really one of the most dynamic forces in our party,” Gaetz told the Financial Times. “He is one of the most sought-after surrogates. He is a powerhouse on the fundraising trail. And he’ll be a big part of the campaign going forward.
“I was grateful to have his early endorsement,” said Gaetz with a smile.
Trump and his son are in alignment on policy priorities — shut down the US-Mexico border, pull aid from Ukraine and slap on massive tariffs.
Trump Jr, the executive vice-president of The Trump Organization, is also a fierce defender of his father, who faces a civil fraud conviction in New York that could force the former president to pay hundreds of millions in legal penalties.
“Don Junior serves as a protector of his father and also an ideological check on his father’s decision process,” 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 on Tuesday that if his dad lost, it would be because of “cheating” by the Democratic opposition.
Trump Jr said on Tuesday that the least Trump-like thing about him was that he did not play golf. But he also talks about hunting and fishing and has tried to shift the Republican party’s appeal towards working-class Americans who might relate to Vance’s upbringing as he described it in his 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy.
Democrats and unions say the billionaire Trump family postures as pro-worker, pointing out that Trump’s 2017 tax bill gave companies and the richest Americans the most relief.
But Trump Jr’s fans within the party say his version of his father’s “America First” message is in perfect alignment with the broader shift within the Republican party.
“The party’s changed,” said Ed McMullen, a Trump donor and former US ambassador to Switzerland, who has spent time with Trump Jr in South Carolina talking about fishing tackle 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’re a populist party, rooted in conservative principles,” said US congressman Jim Jordan.
Trump Jr bragged on Tuesday that Republican primary polls two years ago showed he was in the pack of potential 2024 presidential candidates. But he appears to have little appetite for joining a second Trump administration, saying he only wanted to block “bad actors” from entering it.
“I just want to be the veto,” he said.
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