The next Trump family business: 2020 reelection
Hours before President Donald Trump kicked off his reelection bid last month with a Florida rally, a handful of his adult children took the mics in a Ritz Carlton Orlando ballroom to pump up Republicans for a fundraising call day.
When a fundraiser scored a particularly high donation by phone, one of the Trump kids in the room — Donald Trump Jr. or Eric Trump, accompanied by Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump — would hop on the call to say thanks, or just make small talk. At one point, Don Jr. joked to the group of roughly 50 fundraisers and Republican National Committee staffers that whichever fundraising team scored the highest dollar figure for the day as part of a competition could take home the pregnant Lara Trump’s baby. The crowd laughed.
The Trump kids were on hand to motivate the volunteers and woo high-dollar donors. It paid off. The campaign announced the following day it had raised a jaw-dropping $24.8 million in less than 24 hours to support Trump’s reelection. One Trump adviser estimated between $8 and $10 million of that haul came from the three-hour phone-a-thon, with Don. Jr. helping to close roughly $3 million in donations.
The Ritz event highlighted the outsized role the Trump family will play in the 2020 campaign, from helping to run behind-the-scenes operations to promoting Trump policies on TV to headlining events, dinners and rallies. Even as the campaign staffs up with strategists, lawyers and communication operatives, Trump family members remain the people the president trusts the most and those he looks to for keeping spending in check. The same holds true in the White House, where the responsibilities of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner only seem to grow.
“The president obviously has the star power, but the second best to him is his next of kin,” said one Republican close to the White House. “The only person who can speak for Trump is a Trump.”
While the 2016 Trump campaign also enlisted family members, the candidate at the time had other trusted advisers like Corey Lewandowski, Hope Hicks, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway leading the charge. Now the heavyweights are the family members themselves — but this time they have more resources, organization and infrastructure to solidify their special status and eliminate the freewheeling, ragtag vibe from the last campaign.
This coming week will showcase the extent of the Trump children’s highly visible role in the 2020 campaign. Don Jr. and his girlfriend Guilfoyle are scheduled to headline two fundraisers for Trump Pence Victory on July 18-19 in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, Calif., according to invitations obtained by POLITICO. Ticket prices for the dinner and luncheon range from $15,000 to $35,000 per couple.
Across the country on July 19, Trump himself is slated to speak at a fundraiser at his golf course in Bedminster, N.J. according to a third invitation. This ability to raise money on the same day through events headlined by Trump and Don Jr. “allows the campaign to be on opposite coasts at the same time generating money,” one political adviser said. “It will also show the dollar value of putting Don. Jr. on the ground, even in a blue state.”
In addition to Don. Jr. headlining the California events, Lara Trump is expected to unveil on Tuesday a new campaign coalition called “Women for Trump” in Pennsylvania. The Trump campaign is in the process of rolling out a number of coalitions this summer to try to show the president’s support among women, Latinos and African Americans.
Leading the 2020 effort is Brad Parscale, the campaign manager who has maintained his power in the Trump orbit, in large part, by keeping up great relationships with the kids. Parscale and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner speak almost every day, according to campaign officials.
The family also has its preferred ally at the Republican National Committee in Tommy Hicks Jr., co-chair of the committee and an old friend of Don Jr.
Sprawling political families are not a new invention of the Trump era. The Bush dynasty produced two presidents and a governor, with the whole family pitching in on various campaigns. The Clintons put their daughter, Chelsea, on the stump when Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, and the large Romney brood, with five sons, often acted as surrogates on the campaign trail and helped to humanize their father for voters.
Trump advisers generally see the Trump children’s involvement as no different than the work of other large political families, dating back to the Kennedys or Bushes.
“The Trump kids are very good surrogates, and they like the role,” said Ed Rollins, a longtime Republican political consultant and chairman of the Great America PAC. “They may not bring any non-Trump supporters across the line, but they certainly have been great for the base over the past two years.”
While many of the president’s advisers appreciate the children’s presence, a few hinted at potential problems: mainly that it’s impossible to steer the Trump kids away from doing what they think is best. “No one will tell the kids they can’t do something,” said one political adviser. “Sometimes, they are out there doing it correctly. Sometimes they can be unguided missiles. The difference between them and the Bushes or Kennedys is that this whole group is inexperienced.”
As the Trump kids have adjusted to political life, they’ve made some major missteps. In 2016, for instance, Kushner and Don. Jr. took a meeting at Trump Tower with Russians who had promised dirt on Trump’s political opponent without notifying U.S. intelligence agencies — a moment still of interest to the congressional lawmakers worried about foreign interference in U.S. elections. Allies of Kushner and Don. Jr. did not comment when asked what either men had learned from that experience.
The Trump campaign, via a spokesman, said “members of the Trump family are valued advisors and integral parts of the campaign. Their input and involvement were key to victory in 2016 and will be so again in 2020.”
Behind the scenes, Kushner plays the largest role and has been intimately involved in high-level political and digital strategy as well as coordination between the campaign and the Republican National Committee, said a person familiar with the campaign. Kushner views himself as the middle man between Trump and the campaign operation based out of Arlington, Va., and roughly once every week or two Kushner, Parscale, and Trump speak over the phone or meet in person at the White House to go over the latest 2020 machinations.
“Jared is the guy who the president sees as a completely honest broker,” said a second Trump political adviser. “He doesn’t want to make money off the campaign or take a public-facing role. He just wants his father-in-law reelected. No one has more at stake at this than Jared.”
For the public-facing events and fundraising, Don Jr. is the star of the Trump kids. He doesn’t mind calling lists of donors to ask for money. He loves speaking to Trump’s base and college kids and thrives in this newfound political spotlight, according to political advisers and Republicans close to the campaign.
“He’s the namesake, and he has some of his dad’s outlandish mannerisms,” said one Republican close to the White House. “Donors like him, and they think he is intriguing.” He and Guilfoyle, his serious girlfriend who is a former Fox News personality, have become a draw at campaign events with lots of “wow factor,” said another Republican close to the White House.
Trump advisers dispute any notion that Don Jr. holds his own political ambitions, given his love of the stump. “He wants to be somebody who is a voice and kingmaker in the conservative movement, but he does not have much interest in running for office himself at this stage. He’s 100% focused on helping his dad get reelected,” said one political adviser close to the family.
While Ivanka Trump has raised her White House profile considerably in the last few weeks, she has no plans to leave the administration to join the campaign and remains focused on international women’s empowerment and workforce development, said several political advisers and sources familiar with the campaign. One former senior administration official said Ivanka dislikes retail campaigning “whereas Don Jr. will go to a Lincoln Day dinner.”
Eric Trump acts as a campaign surrogate when asked — and helps to keep an eye on the campaign finances. The role of his wife, Lara Trump, is to help appeal to Republican women, appear at events and spread the Trump message on TV. She also conducted a number of interviews with Trump officials and supporters for a streaming broadcast leading up to the president’s reelection rally in Orlando, drawing on her experience as a television producer.
Tiffany Trump is not expected to play any role in the campaign, apart from appearing at the occasional event.
For the Trump children, the 2020 campaign offers them another major public platform and a chance to bond with their hard-charging father. “I view it as the kids staying relevant. They are no longer on TV every week with the Apprentice, so instead of NBC, they are on Fox News or at campaign events and are way more visible,” said one Trump adviser.
The president gets trusted allies to watch over the campaign’s strategy and its heaps of money. Trump does not view them as the leaks of major stories, and they can push top officials like Parscale or RNC officials more aggressively without the conflict-averse president having to do it himself.
“It’s a way of bonding with their dad, and I think that drives the kids more than building their brands,” said one of the political advisers. “They want to make sure he understands how important they are to the whole cog of his political machine.”
