Willy Kurniawan/Reuters
Executive Vice President of The Trump Organization, Donald J. Trump Jr., looks on during a news conference with Chairman of MNC Group, Hary Tanoesoedibjo (not pictured) following pre-launch ceremony of the Trump Residences in Jakarta, Indonesia, August 13, 2019.
- Donald Trump Jr.'s new book is portrayed as a takedown of a culture of victimization that has permeated the political left, but throughout it he portrays himself as the victim.
- The book is largely a denunciation of the Trump family's real and perceived opponents, and takes a conspiratorial tone at times.
- Trump Jr. contends his family has not gotten enough credit for the purported financial sacrifices it's made with his father in the White House, glossing over President Donald Trump's continued ownership of his business empire.
- The book also compares Trump's experiences as president to the FBI's campaign of harassment against Martin Luther King Jr.
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Donald Trump Jr.'s new book, "Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us," is primarily a lengthy list of grievances against both real and perceived rivals of President Donald Trump and his family.
"A victimhood complex has taken root in the American left," Trump Jr. writes in a book that is focused on how the Trump family has been victimized as a result of his father's presidency.
In one chapter, "Election Night," Trump Jr. spends a significant amount of time discussing how his family has purportedly taken a financial toll from his father's ascendance to the highest office in the land.
Writing about a visit to Arlington National Cemetery the day before his father's inauguration, Trump Jr. said: "I rarely get emotional, if ever. I guess you'd call me hyper-rational, stoic. Yet as we drove past the rows of white grave markers, in the gravity of the moment, I had a deep sense of the importance of the presidency and a love of our country... In that moment, I also thought of all the attacks we'd already suffered as a family, and about all the sacrifices we'd have to make to help my father succeed - voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals to avoid the appearance that we were 'profiting of of the office.'"
He goes on to say: "Frankly, it was a big sacrifice, costing us millions and millions of dollars annually... Of course, we didn't get any credit whatsoever from the mainstream media, which now does not surprise me at all."
Trump Jr. does not mention, however, that President Donald Trump has broken from decades of precedent by maintaining ownership of his business empire and refusing to place his assets in a blind trust.
And contrary to what Trump Jr. wrote, The Trump Organization has continued to profit from international deals. According to the president's financial disclosure forms and an analysis from the the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the president owns more than $130 million in assets in 30 countries and earned over $100 million in income from them in 2017 and 2018 combined.
The Trump Organization, of which Trump Jr. is the executive vice president, recently received approval to expand a golf course in Scotland - including building 550 homes and a second 18-hole golf course on the site.
Trump made at least $434 million in 2018, according to his annual financial disclosure, including $40.8 million from his hotel located less than a mile from the White House.
When Trump Jr. is not attacking his father's political opponents in the book, he speaks at length about his foray into politics and natural ability as a campaigner. The president's eldest son has emerged as one of the Trump campaign's most effective surrogates, and he's found ways to profit from this. Trump Jr. was paid $50,000 for a 15-minute speech at the University of Florida on October 10, for example.
In short, there are reasons to be skeptical of Trump Jr.'s lamentations over business lost as a result of his father's transition from real estate and reality TV into the political arena.
John Minchillo/AP Images
Donald Trump Jr.
Trump Jr.'s book is filled with falsehoods as he decries critics
Trump Jr.'s book often fluctuates between personal anecdotes to reflections on social and political issues he's concerned with, such as transgender athletes and violence against Christians.
But one of the most common themes is that people on the political left are intolerant and too focused on identity politics. He accused Trump's critics of using the term "racist" to describe anything they don't like and wrote that the left has "gone crazy with its newfound powers of censorship."
In that vein, Trump Jr. in one section defended his controversial tweet that compared Syrian refugees to a bowl of Skittles containing a few that "would kill you." The president's son felt the critical response to him comparing people fleeing a war to a poisoned bowl of candy was unjustified.
"As metaphors go, I didn't think it was so terrible... I was immediately labeled a soulless monster and, of course, a white supremacist (the left's go-to)," Trump Jr. said. "You would have thought by the response from the left that I had murdered the Easter Bunny. It was an analogy that put our problem into perspective. Just numbers, folks."
Despite Trump Jr.'s claims, the vast majority of jihadist terrorists in the US have been American citizens or legal residents, according to research from the New America think tank.
Carlos Barria/Reuters
White House senior advisor Ivanka Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr., react as U.S. President Donald Trump formally kicks off his re-election bid with a campaign rally in Orlando, Florida.
Trump Jr.'s new book takes on a conspiratorial tone at times as well, writing, "Even now, there are forces deep inside our government trying to bury evidence of wrongdoing against my father."
As he pushed conspiracy theories about the intelligence community and the president, Trump Jr. compared his father's experiences to the FBI's harassment of Martin Luther King Jr.
"If you don't think something like that could ever happen, consider this: it's happened before - to, of all people, Martin Luther King Jr.," Trump Jr. wrote. The president's son equated the investigation into Russian election interference with the federal government's efforts to attack and discredit the civil rights icon during his lifetime. Trump wrote: "After living through the past three years, can you honestly say that anything has really changed? Or is it more of the same?"
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