92 OCTOBER 2019 THE ATLANTIC6,000,” says Tommy Hicks Jr., a co-chair of the Repub-
lican National Committee and a friend of Don’s.
But the stump was where Don really shined. Taking
the stage to wild applause from riled-up MAGA-heads,
he riffed and ranted and cracked jokes about gender
identity. To watch Don in these settings was to see a
man morphing into his father—the vocal inflec tion,
the puckered half-smirk,
the staccato “Who knows?”
punctuating key sentences.
It was as though he had
studied his dad’s deliv-
ery, practicing each tic in
the mirror.
By November 2018, Don
had appeared at more than
70 campaign events across
17 states—and powerful
Republicans were abuzz. “I
could very easily see him
entering politics,” Senator
Kevin Cramer told me. “I
think his future is bright,”
said House Minori ty Leader
Kevin McCarthy. News-
max’s CEO, Chris Ruddy,
told me he’d personally
encouraged Don to run for office; Sean Hannity called
him “a born natural leader.” Senator Rand Paul went
so far as to say that Don was one of the best Republican
campaigners in the country. “If you can’t get the presi-
dent,” Paul told me, “he’s a close second.”
Notably, many of these Republicans seemed less
enthusiastic about his sister. Cramer, for example,
spent 15 minutes in a phone interview gushing to me
about Don’s “accessibility” and “irreverence” and
gift for “connecting” with voters. But when I asked
him about Ivanka, he paused. “She’s a little bit harder
to get,” he replied, politely. “Her faith prevents her
from traveling on the Sabbath.” Charlie Kirk was
similarly careful when we spoke. While all of Trump’s
adult children were helpful to the cause, he told me,
“I can honestly say that outside of his father, Don is
the No. 1 most requested speaker, and he brings the
most energy to the conservative base.”
None of this newfound excitement about Don
seemed to rub off on the president, however. People
close to Trump told me he remained enchanted by
the idea of Ivanka as the inheritor of his political
legacy. During trips to Mar-a-Lago, he was often
heard rhapsodizing about her potential to be the
first female president. Don’s political prospects, if
they came up at all, were treated as an afterthought.
If there was any doubt about which child Trump
favored, his Twitter feed told the story: In the first
two years of his presidency, he tweeted about Ivanka
16 times, while Don received just four mentions—all
of them about the Trump Tower scandal.
Trump floated Ivanka for various prestigious jobs,
including United Nations ambassador and head of
the World Bank. When Washington snickered, she
settled for a more amorphous role that let her travelas airheads,” one aide said. Now she was gallivanting across the gossip pages
with his son, and posing for photos on the South Lawn.
The family was friendly to Guilfoyle in person, but there were signs of
disapproval. One source told me that after her attendance at a White House
Fourth of July party sparked a round of fawning press coverage— upstaging
Jared and Ivanka—Don was contacted by an official informing him that he
would need to clear his guests the next time he visited. And as Thanksgiv-
ing approached, the president made it known that
Guilfoyle wasn’t welcome to join the family at Mar-
a-Lago, two Trump associates told me. (Spokes-
people for the White House and Don denied this.)
Some suspected that the president was simply
fed up with the distraction the relationship posed.
But according to one longtime Trump adviser,
there may have been another reason for his dis-
pleasure. Over the years, Trump had frequently
made suggestive comments about Guilfoyle’s
attractive ness, the adviser told me, and more than
once inquired about whom she was dating.
But while Trump may have been less than
thrilled about the relationship, among rank-and-
file right-wingers “Donberly”—as the couple nick-
named themselves—was a hit. Appearing side by
side at Republican rallies, they bantered about
each other’s pet names—she was “Pooh Bear,” he
was “Junior Mint”—and railed against Democrats.
They went on hunting trips and posted selfies with
rifles on social media. Fans on Twitter began referring to Guilfoyle as the
“future first lady,” and she made little effort to tamp down the speculation.
When an interviewer on Breitbart News’s radio show made a comment
about Don’s political potential, Guilfoyle didn’t hesitate: “I think he’s the
No. 1 up-and-coming political figure, for sure, on the right.”
VI.
As the 2018 midterm elections approached, Don decided to get serious about
politics. He hired the Republican strategist Andrew Surabian to help shape
his press coverage, and began fielding requests to join candidates on the
campaign trail.
Crisscrossing the country with Guilfoyle in the year that followed, Don
emerged as a veritable right-wing phenom. At the University of Georgia, more
than 2,000 young Repub licans lined up to hear him speak. At the Conservative
Political Action Conference in Maryland, he was swarmed by fans clamoring
for selfies and autographs. Charlie Kirk, the founder of the student organiza-
tion Turning Point USA, recalled a summit in West Palm Beach that featured
conservative A-listers such as Tucker Carlson, Greg Gutfeld, and Jordan Peter-
son. Don drew a bigger crowd than any of them.
To the surprise of many in elite GOP circles, he also excelled at schmooz-
ing wealthy donors, raising millions of dollars for conservatives in closed-
door fundraisers. “He’s as good in a room of six people as he is in a room ofTo watch Don on the
stump was to see a man
morphing into his father—ʰˑʁ ȉɫɔɷζ ʰɔʁɷूʰ
ʹ ɦȉɫʦɔɦूʰstaccato “Who knows?”