-Four years ago
when Donald Trump Jr.
came on the stage at the
Republican National Convention
in Cleveland,
he was somebody who had been
on the trail for his father,
but he was not remotely
as high profile as,
for example,
his sister, Ivanka.
-Good evening.
I'm Donald Trump Jr.
[cheers and applause]
I'm the -- Thank you.
-For years, a lot of what
Donald Trump Jr.
was doing was appearing
alongside his father
on "The Apprentice,"
some infomercial-style
interviews,
on "The Howard Stern Show."
-Wharton School of Business?
-Yes.
-What's 17 times 6?
Come on.
-Uh.
-And he just started to give
this very rousing,
somewhat surprising speech
for him, and by the end,
it had developed into
this sort of call and response
where he was giving a line,
and the audience was yelling
"Trump" after each line.
-A president who will unleash
the greatness in our nation
and in all of us, who will give
the hard-working men and women
who built this great country
a voice once again.
-Trump!
-That president can only be.
-Trump!
-It became this very successful
speech
that the political class
was really raving about
after he had finished it.
And it sort of put him
on the scene.
After his father was elected,
the plan was for
Donald Trump Jr.
and his brother to stay back
in New York, run Trump Org,
and not really be
that involved in politics.
But he ended up getting pulled
into the political discussion.
-Donald Trump Jr.
met with a Russian lawyer
after being promised damaging
information on Hillary Clinton.
-The Mueller probe really
pulled him into a media cycle
where he was being written
about a lot and not positively.
And the impression
from his allies
and people in conservative media
was that he was being attacked
and becoming a symbol
of media persecution.
-Someone sent me an e-mail.
I can't help
what someone sends me.
In retrospect, I probably would
have done things
a little differently.
Again, this is before
the Russia-mania.
This is before they were
building it up in the press.
-And so it just turned him
into almost a symbol
of the culture war.
His allies talk about
how once that happened,
he really felt like,
"I'm getting pulled into this
political discussion anyway.
I might as well dive in."
And he adopted
a more aggressive posture.
One of the things that Don Jr.
is really good at is
putting things out
on social media that are viral.
-It's a white
nationalist symbol.
-Skittles to symbolize Syrians.
-Suggesting Joseph.
R.
Biden Jr.
was a pedophile.
-In this election cycle,
Trump Jr.
has become a more and more
prominent person
on the campaign trail.
And when people are looking
at what's going
to come with this election,
what's going to come after,
Don Jr.
has really become someone
that you can look
to as a very easy way
to understand what is Trumpism
and what is that going to mean
going forward.
