Donald Trump has billions to spend on political ads and top-notch staffers, but perhaps his biggest asset are his children. While the Republican presidential hopeful was elsewhere on the campaign trail Monday, his son was fielding questions from Nevada voters who wanted to know more about his father’s politics.
“I’ve only been in politics for three weeks so I’m learning as I go myself,” Donald “Don” Trump Jr. told an audience of voters at a town hall in Elko, Nev. “I build buildings. If you want to ask about foundations, if you want to ask about construction, I can talk about that.”
“I might be the only son of a billionaire that’s more comfortable in a D10 Caterpillar than I am on a golf cart,” he quipped, channeling some of his father’s charm. “So perhaps I can be more helpful in the minds than I can on the details of medical reform. But I like to say I try either way.”
For nearly an hour, Trump’s son answered questions about the budget, Social Security, education reform, the sudden vacancy on the Supreme Court and a host of other issues. At times, his answers were more detailed than the vague and rambling responses his father has been known to give.
“If you do any research on me, you’ll know where I stand on the Second Amendment,” he told one voter who asked about his father’s opposition to gun control. “I’m a commutative high-power shooter. I shoot competitive F-class, long-range, all of that stuff. I load myself for over 100 different calibers. The Second Amendment means something to me …
“It wasn’t like it was some crazy afterthought 100 years later. It’s No. 2 after the pretty basic right of Freedom of Speech.”
Trump also borrowed right out of his father’s playbook, telling voters “we’re going to look into it” when he couldn’t immediately provide an answer or bragging about his degree from “the Wharton School of Finance.”
While his father has come under attack repeatedly on the campaign trail for discussing policies that would grow the size of government, his son assured voters that a Trump Administration would lead to smaller government.
“The government’s going to be a lot smaller,” he said, drawing applause. “It’s been growing and when you talk about the Republicans being a party of small government — there’s a lot of talk, but how much action as their been?”
“No, seriously, they’ll tell you everything you want to hear …” Trump continued, “but how many times have they acted on those principles? Exactly zero.”
“I think it’s time to let a businessman in there,” he said in his closing pitch for his father. “Someone who’s actually done these things and done it when his own money was on the line.”
Don Jr. will likely join Trump at his campaign rally Monday evening in Las Vegas. The billionaire GOP candidate is poised to do well in Nevada’s Republican caucuses on Tuesday after his back-to-back victories in the South Carolina and New Hampshire primaries.
