Donald Trump Jr. emerges as a political force of his own as he helps his father launch a second term

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — When Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. circled up aboard the president-elect’s plane over some McDonalds burgers and fries recently, Donald Trump Jr. was seated in the center of that power foursome.

The central spot occupied by Trump’s eldest son, as captured in a photo widely shared online, reflects how Trump Jr. has become a prominent player in his father’s political orbit and a potential heir to his Make America Great Again movement.

For the son of a president-elect, Trump has already had an outsized impact on the next White House. He lobbied hard for the former president to choose his good friend, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, to be his running mate.

“I exerted 10,000% of my political capital,” Trump Jr. said of his effort in an interview with Tucker Carlson on the night of the election. “I may get a favor from my father in like, 2076. I used it all.”

As an honorary chair of the Republican president-elect’s transition team, Trump Jr. is part of a core group of people deciding who will fill top jobs in the next White House, and his imprint is clear.

Trump Jr. pushed in particular for roles for former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, whom the president-elect has chosen to be director of national intelligence, and Kennedy, who is in line to lead Health and Human Services.

Another close ally, Sergio Gor, will be running the personnel office. He and Trump Jr. run a publishing company, Winning Team Publishing, which has published two of the former president’s books.

The younger Trump has said he has no plans to join his father’s administration in the way his younger sister Ivanka Trump did during the first Trump term. His brother Eric is also an honorary chair of the transition but hasn’t been as much of a political player. Eric’s wife Lara has been more involved, serving as co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

Trump Jr. is expected to continue to be a vocal supporter of his father and his agenda and has made it clear he wants to be an influential voice from the outside, according to a person familiar with his thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

The president-elect’s style — brash, indelicate and pugilistic — is distilled in his son. Donald Trump Jr. often takes a more aggressive tack than his father, in his calls for disrupting government as usual, in the way he dives into the culture wars with gusto and in his enthusiasm for trolling.

“He’s probably the best embodiment of the take-no-crap attitude of the Republican Party,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican political strategist.

Trump Jr.’s attitude and the way he communicates don’t make him sound like a regular political figure, Jennings said, and that’s part of the appeal.

“I think that’s one thing about the Trumps that is probably broadly true but certainly for him: They just don’t participate in the normal political pablum that sort of pre-Trump politicians were schooled in or trained to do.”

The 46-year-old is fluent in the online world of conservative politics and attuned to cultural issues that catch on with the MAGA faithful.

The posts on Trump’s X account, where he has more than 13 million followers, are often peppered with exclamation points and emojis. On Instagram, he is a prolific poster of conservative memes.

He flexes between interviews on established media outlets like Fox News and an array of podcasts influential among young conservatives, and he hosts his own twice a week, “Triggered With Don Jr.” During the campaign, he pushed for the former president to make appearances on podcasts as part of an effort to reach young men, including the popular Joe Rogan podcast.

Trump Jr.’s aggressive style has particular appeal with younger men.

“I think that’s one of the reasons a lot of these young men like it because that’s how they talk,” Jennings said.

Trump Jr. has said he has no plans to run for office himself, but he’s been working to cultivate the next generation of his father’s movement, boosting like-minded, communication-savvy Republicans.

Beyond his political activity, the father of five also serves as executive vice president at the Trump organization’s main family business, has launched a new crypto platform and recently announced he’s joining a venture capital firm that invests in conservative-focused businesses.

In an earlier time, Trump Jr. appeared with his father on “The Apprentice,” the reality show that helped propel the billionaire’s first presidential campaign. When Donald Trump launched his White House bid in 2015 and faced skepticism from swaths of the Republican Party, Trump Jr.’s outreach helped his father win more support, especially among conservatives who saw someone who espoused their views and as an avid hunter and fisherman who is a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

He’s been increasingly visible in Republican politics since then, campaigning not just for his father but for like-minded candidates. He was a backer of Vance in his 2022 Ohio Senate race, nudging his father to do the same, and this year threw his support heavily behind successful Republican Senate candidates Jim Banks in Indiana, Bernie Moreno in Ohio and Tim Sheehy in Montana.

Trump Jr. helped broker a relationship with Kennedy as the Democrat-turned-independent suspended his presidential campaign, working to bring him into the MAGA fold and endorse his father. He floated the idea of Kennedy joining the administration early, saying in an interview with conservative host Glenn Beck that “I loved the idea,” of Kennedy joining a Trump White House.

“I love the idea of giving him some sort of role in some sort of major three-letter entity or whatever it may be and let him blow it up,” Trump Jr. said, a reference to the many initials for government agencies.

The two hit it off, and Trump Jr., an avid outdoorsman, shared images on social media in October of a day he spent with Kennedy enjoying the latter’s favored hobby: falconry.

The choice of anti-vaccine activist Kennedy to run the nation’s public health agencies is sure to draw tough scrutiny during confirmation proceedings in the Senate, even with a Republican majority,

Trump Jr., in a recent interview on Fox News, acknowledged some of his father’s choices will face pushback.

“They are going to be actual disrupters,” he said. “That’s what the American people want.”