His dad’s stint as president may have resulted in a series of record-low approval ratings, but this has not deterred the eldest Trump scion from wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Raising the terrifying prospect of yet another family political tradition, Donald Trump Jr. has reportedly told members of an elite gun club that he has set his sights on becoming governor or mayor of New York.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been a vocal opponent of Trump, is up for re-election in 2018.
According to Page Six, Trump Jr. told members of New York State’s F6 Labs gun club in Long Island’s Hicksville, which bills itself as “a private, indoor, state-of-the-art law-enforcement training facility” that he was “bored” of working in business and had been “bit” by the “politics bug.”
Donald Jr. and his brother Eric are officially running the Trump Organization while their father is in office, although Trump retained his financial interest in the company, a structure that has drawn the ire of ethics officials.
Trump Jr. has said that he doesn’t speak to his father anymore after he became president and gave control of his business to him and his brother.
“I basically have zero contact with him at this point,” Trump Jr. said last month.
A source told Page Six that “Don Jr. said he is interested in running for office, such as governor of New York, but the position of mayor of New York would be less interesting to him.”
Trump allegedly said: “Do I want to be behind the scenes and be a mouthpiece and fight back against crazy liberal media? Maybe.” He allegedly added: “Going back to doing deals is boring after 18 months. The politics bug bit me.”
Gov. Cuomo has been one of Trump’s most high-profile critics.
Responding to President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban from some Muslim-majority countries, Cuomo said that New York was the “laboratory of American democracy” and that his state “has no tolerance for intolerance.”
He said: “Is [the travel ban] what this country represents to me? No... this is New York, this is the Statue of Liberty… we open our arms to people all across the country… it’s what makes us special… [the executive order instituting the ban] is the exact opposite of what I believe.”
Cuomo has previously characterized “extreme conservatives” as “right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay” and said he has “no tolerance for intolerance.”
Trump Jr., who once posed with a dead leopard in a controversial Twitter post, seems to be laying the groundwork with the gun lobby.
Speaking at a GOP fundraiser in Dallas last month, Trump Jr. said, “I thought I was out of politics after Election Day and [would] get back to my regular life and my family, but I couldn’t.”
A Trump source denied the rumors, saying, “Don [Jr.] has no intentions of running for political office at this time... [He] is totally focused on running the Trump Organization with his brother.”