Donald Trump Jr. spoke briefly to The Daily Wire late on Monday night about his new book, “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us,” and about the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
CNN reported on Tuesday that the book was already ranked as number three on Amazon’s bestsellers list on the first day that it hit bookshelves.
Let’s send a loud message to the liberal elites. It would TRIGGER our haters coast to coast if we made the NYT list! This is the book that liberals don’t want you to read or share with others. Get your copy now! https://t.co/HKA9knF0Ko
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 3, 2019
In a brief interview with The Daily Wire, Trump revealed what inspired him to write the book, the future of the conservative movement, the future of the Republican Party, and talked about the media and political Left’s hypocrisy.
Question: What inspired you to write the book?
Trump:
For years, people would say, “Don, you should write a business book” and honestly, I think my dad sort of covered that ground, but for me, when you get to be the tip of the spear for the greatest political upset in history, to go through that, to see that, to have a front row seat for that part of American history, then to be attacked and maligned and the number two target of the Mueller hoax and the ongoing nonsense, it really was one of those things where I said there’s something here.
There’s a story to me here that is the story of an unlikely conservative being the son of a billionaire from New York City, but also my life experiences growing up with a mother who escaped communism. Seeing the hatred from the Left as we went in there and just tried to do the right thing and do this for the country. Being attacked and watching what they would be willing to do to try to get their way politically and just who they were willing to destroy along the way. I sort of got fed up and you sort of see some of that on Twitter or in five-minute interview here and there on TV, this was the real chance to do the long-form version of that with all the details.
Question: In one section of your book, you talked about the incident where an Elizabeth Warren donor had sent your wife a white powder that caused a pretty serious scare. Did Elizabeth Warren ever reach out to you and say anything after one of her donors sent powder to your wife?
Trump: No, I double checked, I think it was like a staffer or a volunteer on the campaign. No, but not a peep. But more importantly, it was barely a peep in the media. If a Trump supporter sent that to Elizabeth Warren it would be the end of the world, we would be hearing about it to this day. Three of the major 90 publications covered it for about one second on the back page somewhere and it was forgotten about the next day. I think it goes to speak about a big part of the book: The hypocrisy of the Left, the hypocrisy of the mainstream media, and their sort of unabashed willingness to just disregard the notion of fairness — the notion that they are there to report the news and just be a cheerleader for one side and that’s obviously what they are. They are the marketing wing of the DNC.
Question: In your book, you talk about the decision to give up drinking. When did you decide to do that and did your father’s decision not to drink impact your decision?
Trump: It was just about understanding myself. Some people can do it and some people can’t, I don’t have the genes for it. I just saw what it did to his brother and so luckily I’ve been able to avoid that for the most part and it’s been a good thing for me and for my life. [My father] spoke to us a lot about what his experience was like growing up with a brother who ultimately died of it and it was pretty clear that I probably have that trait [where] I don’t have an off-switch, and so it was an important decision in my life.
Question: In the book, you talk about your father’s work ethic and you specifically mentioned an instance where your father got mad at Steve Bannon and the campaign for trying to give him an afternoon off during the campaign. Has he always had an intense need to work hard non-stop and where do you think he got that work ethic from?
Trump: For him, work is his passion, it’s his vocation, he’s just a worker. It wasn’t just Bannon, it was Reince, it was everyone. It was a pretty big number, it was like 87 days or something like that and we’re there and I’m just looking at what’s going on as they are laying this out and you see [my father] getting more and more frustrated. My brother, my sister, and I just look at each other and we pulled back and just walked away and [my father] goes, “I don’t need any days off! It’s 90 days! I’ll have plenty of time to rest when it’s over.”
He thinks, we’ll lose or draw but we’re not anything on the field. We’re not going to miss a blown opportunity. If Hillary made an appearance every other day, it was a miracle, and he beat her for many other reasons, but he also just outworked the hell out of her and you could see that mentality. And you could also, more importantly, see that sort of mentality was so foreign to some of these sort of professional politicos, where [they’re] like, “we’ll work hard when we need to but obviously you need a nine-to-five job and once you’re done, you’re done.” Well for [my father] there is no “done.” There is no “it’s over.” That mentality has been there his whole life.
I talked about getting the call at five o’clock in the morning on a Saturday when I was in my 20s, probably still having some fun and [my father’s] like, “why aren’t you in the office?” Me, talking some smack back, asked, “why aren’t you in the office?” [My father responded] “I am, I’m standing in your office right now and you’re not here.” And I’m [thinking to myself] “that didn’t work out so well.” So he’s always had that mentality and that general attitude and I think you see it today.
Question: How important are young people, women, and minorities to the future of the Republican Party? How can Republicans win over those demographics when the media tells them that Republicans hate them?
Trump: They have to keep trying, they have to be out there and willing to do it. You see what I do with Charlie Kirk and hey I get it, I’m not going to be that welcome on college campuses, but man I do a lot of them. We go there anyway, we got to be heard. As it relates to the minority communities, it’s the same exact thing. The results should speak for themselves. It’s the economy, you look at what [my father’s] done. My father is doing criminal justice reform, he’s doing opportunity zones. All these things are not exactly GOP platform type of things, they’re just the right thing to do.
But again, it’s not easy to get the message down to the final consumer and ultimately that voter because the DNC does, and they’ve had a stranglehold, albeit artificially, but historically on a lot of those communities. And so to get that message down those filters is not that easy but you got to keep trying. They are an important part of this country. My father said in 2016 that he is going to be a president for all Americans, not just his base, not just the people who love him. I think he’s done that and I think the results speak for themselves. But you have to keep trying [to reach those voters], and you got to get back into those communities and make sure that you are making your efforts there, as well.
Question: You briefly mentioned Charlie Kirk. Who and what do you see as being the future of the conservative movement?
Trump: I mean obviously, from a youth perspective, I think he’s the best we have. He gets it. He started doing this when he was young, he does it intelligently. He’s working and he shows up, he puts in the time and the effort, so he’s one of the one of the rock stars there. Now whether he wants to have any specific political role in time or not is yet to be determined.
I think what Trump has shown conservatives is that it’s okay to fight back. You don’t just have to turn the other cheek and take the loss because the other side wants you to and that was their mentality forever, sort of the Mitt Romney mentality of “well, we have our principles and we’ll have our principles on the stump when we’re talking to our voters, but then when we get called out on it we would rather be loved by the mainstream media and the Left than fight for what we believe and what’s right.” That’s a sales concept, we’ve ceded ground for 50 years because of that mentality and that was the old Republican school of thought and that has failed miserably. It’s cost us dearly.
[President Trump’s mentality] has allowed for some of those Republicans who are willing to stand up, who are willing to fight back, there’s a bunch of them now — whether it’s the Mark Meadows and Jim Jordans of the world, whether it’s the Lee Zeldins of the world — guys have come out of the word work and become real fighters. There’s a bunch of them and they are doing good and honestly even some of the establishment guys have learned from that. I think Kevin McCarthy is doing a great job at that right now and recruiting candidates that can actually win, not just guys who have been there longer and I think that’s a huge aspect of our future. I think the future’s bright and I think Trump opened the window for these guys to see what it’s actually going to take to win when you’re competing with the insanity that is today’s Left.