The President’s son became a best-selling author shortly after the release of his first book–and he can at least partially thank his dad’s well-funded political allies for that.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Republican groups allied with President Donald Trump have been making mass purchases of Donald Trump Jr.’s book, “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us,” which touts itself as a repudiation of the left’s supposed over-sensitivity.
Establishment GOP groups, such as the National Republican Congressional Committee and Republican National Committee, have shelled out over $100,000 altogether to put in bulk orders of the book and offer copies as gifts to donors.
A spokesperson for the NRCC told the Times that the GOP fundraising arm bought $75,000 worth of Trump’s books in November, while the RNC alone spent nearly $100,000 last month on the books, per F.E.C. records discovered by the Times.
Additionally, the National Republican Senatorial Committee reportedly bought approximately 2,500 copies.
Turning Point USA, a youth-oriented conservative group whose leader worked with Trump during the 2016 elections, has also been purchasing copies en masse. Though a spokesperson for Turning Point wouldn’t give a precise number, the Times reported that the group’s headquarters stored its orders of approximately 2,000 books “in an underused second-floor office,” in the Times’ words, under a poster that read “Capitalism Not Cronyism.”
Though it’s unclear exactly how big a role these groups played in the book’s placement as #1 on the New York Times’ Best Seller list, the book was marked with a dagger symbol on the list, confirming that it had been purchased through bulk orders.
Andy Surabian, a spokesperson for Trump, told the Times that the book “clearly would have been number one” on the New York Times’ Best Sellers list “without the copies sold thru the R.N.C. and other G.O.P.-aligned organizations.”
“Don is proud of the fact that the demand for ‘Triggered’ has been so high that it has allowed groups like the R.N.C., N.R.S.C. and the N.R.C.C. to net hundreds of thousands of dollars through their marketing of the book,” Surabian said.
