MILWAUKEE — Former President Donald Trump will be surrounded by his most valued set of advisers and surrogates — members of his own family — when he formally accepts the Republican presidential nomination here Thursday, less than a week after having survived an assassination attempt.
The roles of those relatives have shifted over Trump's nine years in the political arena, with more recent changes reflecting a tighter adherence to the political, policy and personality preferences of his Make America Great Again base.
Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner — criticized as symbols of nepotism run amok by the left and by Trump loyalists as too close to the establishment when they served as White House advisers — have kept their distance publicly since his 2020 defeat. Former first lady Melania Trump has been all but absent from her husband's third campaign for the Oval Office.
All three plan to be present at the Republican convention here Thursday, but it's a different troika — Donald Trump Jr., daughter-in-law Lara Trump and her husband, Eric Trump — that has emerged in this campaign as the most influential set inside the Trump family.
Their rise is evident in Lara Trump's appointment as a co-chair of the Republican National Committee this year and the sons' insistence, at the eleventh hour, that their father name Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate.
Even before the patriarch's close brush with death Saturday, he kept his family deeply engaged in their namesake businesses, his campaigns and his White House operations. But the failed attempt to kill him has made his family's support for his political ambitions all the more poignant.
"We almost witnessed the assassination of a former president and probably a future president on live TV," Eric Trump told MSNBC's Katy Tur on Tuesday. "And, you know, not only would it be devastating to me as a son — I mean, there’s no one in the world I love more — but think about how that’s devastating to a nation."
The family is "shaken — and rightfully so," said Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., who has spoken to at least one member of the family since the shooting.
Using similar language, Richard Grenell, a onetime acting director of the National Security Agency who is close to Melania Trump, said she was "really shook" by seeing her husband and the father of her child, Barron Trump, put in such peril.
"She is not a political person," he told reporters Monday at a roundtable hosted by Bloomberg News.
Three on the rise
Don Jr., Eric and Lara are serving as prominent surrogates for Trump this week in media interviews and speeches to the convention delegates.
As a co-chair of the RNC, Lara plays a key role in raising money, delivering Trump's message and promoting party unity. She was given prime placement to address the delegates from the convention floor Tuesday night.
But even before the convention began, Don Jr. and Eric lobbied their father on the most important decision a candidate makes.
Last week, when it looked like he was leaning toward choosing North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as his running mate, they balked, insisting that he choose Vance. On Monday, Trump announced the selection of Vance — a MAGA favorite — on the Truth Social media platform.
The episode is one of a series of signs of Don Jr.'s rising influence within his father's political orbit.
"Once we get into the fall, he'll be on the road nonstop," said a person who is close to Don Jr., Trump's eldest son, who has become a favorite of the Make America Great Again movement's base voters. If Trump wins, his eldest son's input may leave a major imprint on his administration. Both of them learned from his first term that personnel decisions can accelerate or hamstring a policy agenda.
Trump's platform includes a plan to reclassify so-called Schedule F employees, giving him far greater latitude to fire tens of thousands of civil servants. At the same time, Don Jr. is eyeing a larger role in picking political appointees during a prospective presidential transition. The person close to him said he wants to "make sure that good people will get into good places."
Don Jr.'s advocacy for gun rights and against U.S. involvement in foreign wars has made him an icon with certain segments of the Trump coalition. No one in Trump’s orbit seems more comfortable attacking his adversaries — be they Democrats or Republicans — than Don Jr.
“He’s irreverent, he’s got a lot of charisma, and the left doesn’t like him,” said a person close to the Trump family. “Those are all the same characteristics that his dad has. … You’re basically getting, you know, excuse the pun, but the junior version.”
Both Don Jr. and Lara have been widely mentioned in Republican circles as potential candidates in their own rights — an idea that doesn't sit well with everyone in the GOP if it means another Trump seeking the presidency.
Art Wittich, a Republican delegate from Montana and state legislator, said “no” when he was asked whether he would like to see any Trump family members ultimately run for president.
“We have such a deep and strong bench,” he said. “And you know, we’re different than a lot of other countries. Government [here] is not necessarily a family business.”
But Mike Elder, a GOP delegate from South Carolina, said he “absolutely” wants to see one of Trump’s kids run for president. He prefers Eric.
“I just think he’s got good energy, and maybe he’s not as expected to run," Elder said. "I think that’s good.”
Generation Z?
Last week, Barron Trump, 18, the former president's youngest child and Melania Trump's son, made his debut at a campaign rally in Miami. In May, the Florida Republican Party announced that he would be an at-large delegate to this week's convention — before the plan was scuttled. His mother's office said he declined the appointment because of a "prior commitment."
Trump’s trust in his family is evident to aides, who know that their own plans are more likely to carry weight with him if one of his children endorses them — and that objections raised by Trumps can sink an idea.
“As a staffer, you never will have the same buy-in from President Trump as you would with his family supporting your mission or program,” said a senior aide from his 2020 campaign.
As he and his family continue to process the assassination attempt — he has attributed his survival to "divine intervention," according to allies — Lara Trump predicted he would return to the area where it happened.
"We'll see how rallies pan out," she said at a Bloomberg roundtable Tuesday. "I don't really know after Saturday exactly what that looks like, but I can tell you there's no one who wants to get back out to a rally more than Donald Trump himself, and I can almost guess that he would probably choose to go back to Butler, Pennsylvania, because that's how he operates."
Noting that Ivanka Trump and Kushner have chosen to "step back" as they raise their children, she said the absence of any family members from campaign events shouldn’t be interpreted as a lack of support.
"We are 100% behind him as an entire family," she said.
So are the delegates to the Republican convention. When Trump entered Fiserv Forum on Monday, with a large bandage over his right ear serving as a stark reminder of the shooting, he did so to a raucous standing ovation.
At the same time, Eric Trump described the moment as "somber."
"It's emotional," he said. "I mean, he was millimeters from having [his] head blown off on national TV."
