Ivanka and Jared left the White House behind for a life in Miami. Eric is running the family business. Tiffany got married. Barron is a budding strategist at NYU.
Of all the Trump children, no one has stuck closer to their father’s side than Donald Jr., the president-elect’s eldest son.
The 46-year-old Mr. Trump has found political power and personal fortune in stoking the flame of the Make America Great Again movement his father started. He has an array of conservative-focused businesses, from a publishing company to a seven-figure annual podcasting deal. Forbes recently estimated Mr. Trump’s worth — largely built in the wake of his father’s political career after Jan. 6, 2021 — to be around $50 million.
For that reason, his associates say, he has no plans to join the administration. But he also understands what his siblings and several first-term administration officials learned the hard way: Trying to serve as a gatekeeper for his father is a politically perilous exercise.
In recent weeks, as the president-elect builds out his administration, his son has served as something of a loyalty scanner. As they review candidates at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, the president-elect is concerned with who looks good and who can deliver a message, people around them say. His son is focused on whether they mean what they are saying, and if they present a threat to the MAGA order.
Donald J. Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in 2022. In recent appearances, the president-elect’s son has made it clear that he believes that everything that has happened since the fallout from the attack on the Capitol happened because true loyalists dug in and kept on believing.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
