Donald Trump shared his vision of what will happen when he “kicks the bucket,” and it doesn’t sound like he’s imagining a moving family reunion.
The 79-year-old president theorized that his eldest son Don Jr. would “rather be in the jungle” hunting animals than mourning at his graveside, admitting that it was “unfortunate.”
The comments came during Trump’s Christmas Reception at the White House on Sunday, which rambled through multiple disjointed—and not very festive—topics.
On Trump’s mind at that particular moment was the memoir Venom and Valor by James J. Jones, which covers the physician’s experience being bitten by a snake in the Amazon before his time in the White House. “Wildlife always wins,” he noted, aiming his words at his 47-year-old son.
“I’m saying this for my son by the way because I have a son who would rather be in the jungle than any place on earth,” he said of the hunter, who has often found himself in hot water over his favored pastime.
Trump added: “When I kick the bucket someday, I figure—I think he’ll be here for about two days. He’ll go and pay his respects and we’ll say, ‘Where’s Don?’ He’d rather be in some jungle, some—and he’s a really good hunter. But remember this. Wildlife always wins, unfortunately in this case.”
While the lure of shooting wildlife might win over the appeal of attending Trump’s memorial, it seems that at the end of Don Jr.’s gun, unarmed wildlife often loses.
Back in 2012, photos emerged of Don Jr. posing with various “trophies” from hunts two years prior. These included him holding a sawn-off elephant’s tail and embracing a dead leopard alongside his brother Eric.
“I’m not going to run and hide because the PETA crazies don’t like me,” he said in response to public outrage at the time.
Oddly, given his preference for hunting rather than observation, Don Jr. was reportedly once looking to become the new David Attenborough. The show would focus on shooting the animals he encounters rather than admiring them from afar.
The president is said to have had someone in his inner circle reach out to Warner Bros. Discovery about his son’s passion, Trump biographer Michael Wolff wrote for New York Magazine earlier this year.
Wolff claimed: “The reported message was to look at the example of Amazon and Jeff Bezos paying Melania Trump $40 million to participate in a documentary about herself. Don Jr. might like a hunting and fishing show on the Discovery Channel, they were told.”
