President-elect Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, has reportedly emerged as the most influential figure in his transition team, encouraging his father to nominate often controversial personnel to top cabinet posts regardless of their qualifications or experience relevant to the role.
The incoming 47th president is known to value loyalty above all else and prefers to keep matters within the family, although which of his children hold the biggest sway tends to vary.
While his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner were prominent advisers during his first term, Don Jr is currently the most commanding voice in his father’s ear at Mar-a-Lago this time around, Reuters reported.
It was Don Jr who urged the former president to pick Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate during this year’s presidential campaign. Despite Vance’s past comments about “childless cat ladies” sparking controversy during the election campaign, the two candidates together beat the Democrats to clinch victory on election night.
Now, Don Jr is understood to have flexed his muscles most recently by blocking Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from rejoining his second administration, having taken exception to the latter since his father’s first term.
“The reality this time is we actually know what we’re doing,” Don Jr told Fox News earlier this month when asked about the transition process.
“And it’s about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal.”
In addition to ensuring candidates are willing to bend the knee, Don Jr is seeking out contenders who embrace an anti-establishment worldview, including protectionist economic policies, and who believe in cutting down military interventions and overseas aid.
Not all of his recommendations have been taken up, however, with Trump preferring Florida Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state over Richard Grenell, who was previously his ambassador to Germany and a firm favorite of his son.
And at least two of Don Jr’s personal picks for the cabinet, health secretary nominee Robert F Kennedy Jr and national intelligence director nominee Tulsi Gabbard, are expected to endure rocky confirmation hearings in the Senate and be grilled over past controversies.
Kennedy is an environmental activist who has spread misinformation on vaccines while Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, has implied that Russian President Vladimir Putin had valid grounds for invading Ukraine and raised eyebrows when she met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the midst of his bloody crackdown on dissidents in 2017.
Should either or both be blocked from taking office, Don Jr could find his standing diminished accordingly, although he recently hinted to Fox Business that Trump’s transition team has “back-up plans” in place should that occur.
The rise of Susie Wiles from Trump campaign manager to White House chief of staff has also meant that the former president is no longer quite so dependent on his family for counsel as he once was, Wiles having managed to instil a greater degree of order and discipline within his operation than was evident prior to her arrival.
“Stuff is really buttoned down,” a member of Trump’s current team told Reuters of her impact.
“He may not need the family this time like he used to.”
Rather than join the administration in an official capacity himself, Don Jr is due to join conservative venture capital fund 1789 Capital once his father is sworn into the Oval Office on January 20.
But he will reportedly continue to host his politics-themed podcast, popular with the MAGA movement, and advise his father on an informal basis.
