Family values: why Trump's children are key to his re-election campaign | US news | The... - 0 views
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It begins with dramatic music and slick graphics – skyscrapers, clouds, big screens, the roar of a helicopter and chants of “Four more years!” Then come clips of Donald Trump Jr mocking Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and hurling red “Keep America Great” caps into a crowd at a rally. A fireball darts across the screen, trailing the word “Triggered”.
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Welcome to the virtual Trump campaign starring his three children, Don Jr, Eric and Ivanka, and their partners, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump and Jared Kushner. The six are among the president’s most important surrogates and strategists, constantly pushing his cause, rallying his base, trashing his opponents and earning a reputation as a modern political mafia.
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“And guess what?” he said on Fox News. “After 3 November [election day], coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen. They’re trying to deprive him of his greatest asset.”
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“The kids are completely aligned with this complete distortion and disregard for the truth, whether it’s a conspiracy theory with ‘Obamagate’ or this paedophile comment or the most ridiculous one, that this pandemic is a hoax.
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rump’s children have been ever present since he announced his wildly improbable run for the presidency at Trump Tower in New York in June 2015. A year later, Don Jr and Ivanka’s husband, Kushner, were present at a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. It came to nought but raised questions about the methods of both men.
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The children clocked up thousands of air miles campaigning while, behind the scenes, Kushner helped shape a crucial digital strategy. The family gathered with Trump on stage in New York when he stunned the world by winning. Since then, their influence has only grown.
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‘I learned it by watching you’ Don Jr and Eric stepped in to run the Trump Organization, the family business, where they have been forced to deny persistent allegations they are exploiting the presidency for profit. Both have also come into their own as bomb-throwers on their father’s behalf.
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Two years ago, Don Jr separated from his wife, Vanessa, and began dating Guilfoyle, a lawyer, Fox News host and, incongruously, the ex-wife of Gavin Newsom, then the liberal Democratic mayor of San Francisco, now the governor of California. She joined the Trump campaign last year and has proved every bit as zealous as her boyfriend.
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In the coronavirus pandemic, the children have hit the ground running in ways Trump and Biden have not. Trump’s re-election team broadcasts live programming online seven nights a week. This week it launched The Right View, including Guilfoyle and Lara Trump, as a riposte to the popular daytime show The View, which has an all-female panel.
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“I’m an outdoorsman, shooter, hunter, and not just, ‘I do one weekend a year to talk about it at a cocktail party for the next two years,’” said Don Jr, who has frequently admitted the irony of the son of a New York billionaire speaking on behalf of blue-collar Americans. “This is the way I choose to live my life when I’m not doing my day job.”
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Democrats such as Vela, the former Biden adviser, find the Trump children and their partners as offensive as the president himself. “You’ve got to sell your soul if you’re gonna be a part of it,” he said. “It’s almost like a mafioso operation, the mafia of hate. There is so much hate and hatred filled in their bones and in their hearts. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
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“It’s very disturbing, the extent to which they’re willing to go, and I guess the most chilling example was where Eric said that after the election we’ll find out that the whole Covid pandemic was cooked up by the Democrats. That’s the extent to which they’re willing to bend reality to stand up for their father. It’s also the tragedy of the Republican party that a lot of politicians are in this same position where in order to stay aligned with Trump, they have to bend reality.”
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Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “There’s a lot of talk about that but I think the stark political reality that will hit them all, whether Donald Trump wins re-election or not, is that there are a whole lot of Republicans waiting in the wings for this administration’s transition to lame duck and they are not going to go quietly into that good night.