Succession: a fresh family line up on Team Trump

There was a whole new cast of Trump family members surrounding  presidential nominee, Donald Trump, in the VIP box at the opening of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, indicating a shift to a more MAGA direction of play if Trump takes the White House in November.

While the front row included Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the family members behind were Trump’s oldest son Donald Trump Jr. and his fiancé Kimberly Guilfoyle, Eric Trump and his wife Lara, and Tiffany Trump, Trump’s only child with his second wife Marla Maples, and her husband, Michael Boulos.

Donald Trump relied heavily on his family during his first term in office and there is every reason to believe that the same will apply if he wins a second term. As his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, told The Washington Post in an interview earlier this year, “Sometimes the only people you can trust are family.”

Meanwhile, The Financial Times reports Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting White House chief of staff between 2019 and 2020, saying, “His kids will always be his senior advisers. Anybody who is surprised by Donald Trump putting his family members in key positions does not know Donald Trump."

Initially, there was no sign of the former first lady Melania Trump who gave the keynote speech at the convention in 2016 and virtually in 2020. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, both key aides in Trump’s 2016-2020 White House, are also now little more than extras in the show.

Assuming a task usually reserved for spouses, Lara Trump stepped into Melania’s shoes for the keynote speech while the prominent profile previously enjoyed by Ivanka on Team Trump has been bestowed upon Donald Jr., a close friend and confidant of J.D.Vance, with Eric also taking a big role.

It is widely recognized that Donald Trump Jr. was behind the decision to cast Vance as Trump’s running mate, indicating the influence he currently wields in the party, according to Axios news site.

Both Donald Jr. and Vance have bags of far-right populist appeal, reports The Financial Times, a departure from Ivanka who was accused by some in the Trump camp of being a globalist. Vance’s stance on globalization, according to a May report on CBS news is “We need to protect American industries from all of the competition.”

To be officially nominated the Republican presidential candidate this week, Donald Trump appeared pleased with Lara’s summing up of him as a family man and caring human being as she took the podium on Tuesday, July 16, even rising to his feet to give her a standing ovation as she told how he would “make America great once again.”

“When I look at Donald Trump, I see a wonderful father, father-in-law, and of course grandfather to my two children,” said the former TV producer and co-chair of the Republican National Committee to her Republican audience. “This is a man who has sacrificed for his family, and a man who has truly sacrificed for his country.”

Both Ivanka and Melania are expected to make an appearance at the Milwaukee convention towards the end of the week, though the Financial Times reports that Ivanka has made it clear her priorities now lie elsewhere.

In a statement after her father’s third bid for the White House, she said, “This time around I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. While I will always support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.”

Meanwhile, Melania’s low profile should not be understood as anything but her own decision, according to Mary Jordan, an associate editor at The Washington Post and the author of “The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump.” In political terms Melania is, she says in The Post, as “savvy” as her husband.

After the accusations that followed her 2016 speech at the RNC of plagiarizing Michelle Obama, the strategy appears to be less is more. Hence, her long silence following the attempt on her husband’s life on Saturday, July 13, finally broken with a post on X, assuring the public that she is still in the picture.

“A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to ring out Donald’s passion: his laughter, ingenuity, love of music and inspiration,” she posted. “The core facets of my husband’s life—his human side—were buried below the political machine. Donald, the generous and caring man with who I have been through the best of times and the worst of times.”

According to Jordan Washington Post article, Melania “doesn’t like public speaking. She is a loner. And she is savvy, fully aware that if she speaks rarely, people will listen more closely. And if she stays in the shadows, she will draw more attention when she steps into the spotlight.”

Jordan adds that the marriage has its own dynamic with Melania taking her cue from a phrase coined by her husband in his book “The Art of the Comeback,” published in the 1990s when they got together: “One thing I have learned: There is high maintenance. There is low maintenance. I want no maintenance.”

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