Having recently turned 72, Donald Trump, Jr. announced last week that he will be writing his memoir that he says will focus on his father’s fourteen years as the country’s last elected president. In a free-wheeling interview he gave to the press, he revealed some of the highlights of the planned book, which will be released next year, in the fall of 2051. What follows are excerpts of his comments.
“The turning point for my dad and the country was the 2018 election. That was the year when everything came to a head with the Mueller report released in late summer. My father was so brilliant in anticipating that report, which was, of course, a hit job from start to finish. The report, as you’ll recall, claimed that mountains of evidence existed to show that I and my brother-in-law and my father, along with a half-dozen others, had all conspired with the Russians to rig the election. And there was a serious charge of obstruction of justice against my father as well. It could have been a disaster had my dad not effectively created the impression that Mueller and his team, together with the mainstream media, had been on a witch hunt. Dad had been hammering that point for over six months before the report came out, and all of us were pushing the same talking points. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, was especially good at throwing out the lies. The media didn’t think the public would take him seriously, but he was actually very persuasive and believable to many in my dad’s base.
“The other thing my dad did so effectively was turn the public against the press. He literally created the idea of fake news and pinned it on the New York Times and Washington Post, along with CNN and the other culprits. And he just kept saying it from the time he started running. His base loved it, and he just kept playing to that base with the same message, which some have called racist appeals, but we had lots of support from blacks and Jews, and even some of the Hispanics were with us. And so he was able to outflank the press by making them the bad guys. And, of course, he hit hard on illegal immigration. He never really expected to have a wall built. That whole thing was metaphoric: keep out the rapists and the terrorists and keep America pure and safe. That was his message, and the base loved it, especially when he talked about jobs that weren’t going to go to foreigners anymore and companies that wouldn’t be leaving the country anymore. That line—“Make America Great Again”—it was a real winner. It made working stiffs with traditional attitudes feel respected again. It worked great against the multi-cultural crap that the Democrats kept pushing.
“But my dad’s safety play was his ability to intimidate the Republicans in Congress. He kept the pressure on them through his base. Those elected types were really pathetic. They just went along with whatever my dad pushed because they knew they couldn’t afford to oppose him lest they get whipped in a primary. If you sounded anti-Trump in those early years, you put your career at risk, and they all knew it. Mostly though, they just caved because they thought they could get some of their pet programs signed into law. Remember Obamacare? My dad made a real boogeyman out of that one. And the far-right—the Tea Party types—wanted to get rid of that program more than anything. So my dad kept pushing it along with a bunch of other nutty right-wing economic things—like the massive tax cuts for the super-rich and the big corporations (like they really needed the cuts, ha!)—and the Republicans in Congress just sucked it up.
“So, anyway, when the Mueller report did come out, we were ready for it. We had the right-wing media all lined up. Fox News gave us consistent support, with Sean Hannity leading the charge. My dad could get Hannity to say anything, and Hannity was great. He just lied, mostly, and the viewers bought it because they wanted to believe in my dad. And so the Mueller report never got any traction with the voters, and with the economy humming along that year (this was before the big inflation spike killed it several years later) and my dad pretending he was making peace with North Korea and Russia, the base just kept growing. By the time of the election that November, we had 94 percent approval from registered Republicans and 72 percent approval from independents.
“The election wasn’t really that close. We lost a few seats in the House, but we kept a solid majority, and we added enough seats in the Senate to build a filibuster-proof majority. And that was really it. With complete control of the Congress and with the Supreme Court also under my dad’s control (especially when he got to pick the sixth right-wing justice), it wasn’t that hard to push through the Constitutional amendment that did away with presidential term limits. That one passed in 2022 during his second term. That was when he decided to dump Mike Pence and pick Ivanka as his running mate. It made sense. She would then be in line to take over when he died, and that’s what happened in ’31, of course. And it was during her terms that the Congress just kind of became irrelevant so that it was easy to get the 30th Amendment passed, doing away with Congress and the presidency. Ivanka became the first Premier and she and Jared were a great team in those early years. And then Barron got involved, and he turned out to be a real whiz-kid – tremendous talent and energy, and great instincts, just like our dad. I’m really proud of my brother. I was really delighted last year when, having decided not to continue after 18 years, Ivanka chose Barron to replace her. Barron will be a great Premier. I see so much of my dad in him.
“It’s funny how easy it is to get things done now. With no Congress and with the courts all controlled by the Premier, it’s just a matter of convincing the cabinet members, and the Premier chooses all of them. I don’t know what the argument is against the kind of government we have now. It works so well. Elections were a messy and often ugly scene, with everyone lying about everyone else, and with groups constantly protesting and claiming elections had been stolen or whatever.
“Now we have a simple system with the Premier choosing his or her team, and the people know what to expect. If you’re poor, you know you’re going to have a job and be able to feed your family. And if you’re a little better off, you know that if you keep working real hard, you’ll be able to stay at that level. And if you’re wealthy, the system supports your wealth, so long as you follow the rules. Everyone gets what the Premier thinks is fair, and no one has any reason to complain. We don’t have protests, and no one speaks negatively about the Premier or the country. And everyone knows their place.
“It’s a great country, just like my dad said it could become, and that election in 2018 was the real turning point.”