The President’s eldest son released a book on Tuesday, predictably titled to own the libs, and embarked on a media tour that could be seen as a PR tour for his father during one of the most devastating weeks for the President since the impeachment inquiry launched last month.
It didn’t go well.
There was speculation among media types that the press tour was part of an underground effort to gauge Donald Trump Jr.’s likability for possible future political endeavors, but the President’s son was largely plagued with unfriendly questions about his father, nepotism and his own efforts to out the whistleblower whose complaint was the catalyst of the House’s impeachment inquiry. The media tour was further tainted by President Trump’s efforts to promote his son’s book — entitled “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us” — on Twitter and reports that the Trump campaign may have bulk-bought copies of the book to be signed and resold to supporters.
Trump Jr. did make a few appearances on Fox News, where he was met with friendly questioning, but the action that spurred the most grilling from other networks was his decision to tweet out a name that’s been circulated in conservative media as the potential whistleblower.
Trump Jr. was most notably dressed down by the co-hosts of ABC’s “The View,” who accused him of trying to threaten the individual and behaving like a dictator. Trump Jr. tried to defend himself by arguing the name was “already out there in the media.”
“It’s different when the President’s son does it,” co-host Sunny Hostin said.
Trump Jr. responded by comparing his release of a possible identity of the whistleblower to his family receiving “white powder” in the mail.
“There was no outrage when, you know, my family got an exploding letter of, you know, with a white powder substance in it,” he argued.
During that appearance, Trump Jr. was accompanied by his girlfriend, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, who said she didn’t get the chance to caution her boyfriend against the decision. She also offered another cringe-worthy retort.
Earlier in the week, Trump Jr. appeared on “CBS This Morning” and admitted that he was fine with allowing the impeachment inquiry to play itself out because he thinks the Democrats’ process for carrying out the inquiry will eventually “vindicate” his father.
.@DonaldJTrumpJr believes that the impeachment process will “vindicate” his father.
“I think it’s going to hurt people in the middle. There are still reasonable people in the middle.” https://t.co/4ShsMZ2ejD pic.twitter.com/VXPjSH6Gk3
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) November 5, 2019
Trump Jr. also made some absurd claims about Democrats during an interview on Fox News — suggesting that Democrats today would consider President John F. Kennedy an “alt-right, neo-Nazi terrorist” — and admitted that he doesn’t listen to his father’s advice about his social media rants.
“Every once while, I’ll get that call like, ‘Hey, you’re getting a little hot on social,'” Trump Jr. said, recalling conversations President Trump. “I go, ‘Wait a minute.’ I will take your advice. I will take your advice on anything. … But I was like, ‘this may be the one place where I’m just going to say I’m on my own and maybe, you know, you don’t have the authority to start talking about this.'”
The President’s son also attempted to paint the crucial loss of the governorship in Kentucky as a win for his father.
To top the week off, Trump Jr. earned notable criticism from a demographic that President Trump heavily relies on for support: Veterans. In an excerpt of his book, obtained by Newsweek, Trump Jr. compares the attacks his family received during the 2016 election to … military members dying in combat.
“Yet as we drove past the rows of white grave markers, in the gravity of the moment, I had a deep sense of the importance of the presidency and a love of our country,” he wrote.
“In that moment, I also thought of all the attacks we’d already suffered as a family, and about all the sacrifices we’d have to make to help my father succeed—voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals to avoid the appearance that we were ‘profiting off of the office.’ … Frankly, it was a big sacrifice, costing us millions and millions of dollars annually. Of course, we didn’t get any credit whatsoever from the mainstream media, which now does not surprise me at all.”
