Transcript: Donald Trump Jr. on Keeping It Real Podcast w/ Jillian Michaels

I’m not really letting you off the hook but you are who you are and it’s so exciting to talk to you.

Living Between Hitler and Jesus

JILLIAN MICHAELS: So if you don’t mind, I want to start from the top. Your dad has been called the second coming of Hitler and Jesus. Now as a public figure I’ve experienced this in some small, infinitesimal way. People will come up to you and be like, “Oh, you saved my life.” And you’re thinking, I’ve never even met you before. I don’t know your name. I can’t take credit for this.

And then you’ll see somebody say, I can’t wait for you to be the next—referring to some of the horrible things that have happened to Charlie Kirk. I experienced this insanity on the smallest scale. What does it feel like for you and your family? And honestly, who are the Trumps in that continuum of Jesus to Hitler? Who are the Trumps?

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Well, I mean, I probably wouldn’t be a Trump if I didn’t at least slide closer to the Jesus side. Right?

No, listen, it’s hard. And you’ve experienced that. I imagine you also experienced the downside of that one so much more when you simply called out a couple things that would have otherwise been common sense. When you’re agnostic, you don’t take a stance, and so many people don’t for so long. But after a while, you start watching that, you’re like, we actually have to say something about this one.

So it’s not easy. But I had Democrats literally try to throw me in jail. They called my father every name in the book. They tried taking away his businesses. They tried throwing him in jail. They created so much rhetoric that multiple people tried to kill him. That’s not awesome.

And it’s hard sometimes because you get so used to functioning that way, it doesn’t even affect you that much, but it does certainly affect your response to something. My kids, they have a problem with something. I’m like, that’s not a problem. Look at what we’re dealing with over here. But to them, it’s everything. They’re little and they’re young, and it certainly messes with you a lot.

I guess I got enough of the Trump gene that it’s, well, I’m sort of backed in that corner. My instinct is just to sort of fight. And so it’s what I do. And I’ve gotten comfortable with it, but it’s definitely not fun.

But it is also when those same people come up to you and be like, “Hey, because of you guys, I’m building the wing to my store to expand. And you guys made that possible. And with the tax deduction or whatever it may be,” you see these guys, grown men sometimes, or women, coming up with literally tears in their eyes that they’re going to get to experience their American dream. That makes all of it worth it. But no, it’s certainly not been easy.

The Escalator Moment

DONALD TRUMP JR.: I think my father, the story I always tell on this one is my father recognized it really early when he ran, when he did that announcement. It was June 16, 2015. And I remember that because it was my daughter’s first birthday.

And we’re getting in the elevator out of Trump Tower at his office before the infamous escalator ride. And he just looked at me and he goes, “And now we find out who our real friends are.” And at the time I was like, cool. He understands this won’t be easy. And I think we probably grossly underestimated just how difficult it would all be.

But I think as I thought about it more in the future, and it describes him so well, it wasn’t just that he knew what would happen, it’s that he knew what would happen and he did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. And so that’s the true testament of the guy, who he is. He does the hard things that need to be done. He says the hard things that need to be said.

We saw that last July when they shot him in the face. And rather than just staying down and hiding, he came up and we got a fight. So it’s been a wild journey, but it’s been really fascinating to watch.

The Thomas Crooks Shooting

JILLIAN MICHAELS: There’s so much there and I have questions about all of it, but you bring up the guy who shot him in the face and of course now there’s new information circulating and everybody has been pretty frickin’ suspicious of what we’ve been told so far.

But you got a kid that somehow got on a roof that they had eyes on, but didn’t shoot until they got the okay, and he had three encrypted cell phones. And if we were to just put all of the politically correct aside, this is what it looks like to me. I know this game plan. Game plan one: smear. Make up insane, horrible, awful things. Discredit. That doesn’t work. Litigate into the ground. That doesn’t work. Debank. You’ve seen all of this, you’ve lived all of this. I’ve lived a fraction of it.

And if that doesn’t work, it seems like they tried to kill him. Who is “they”? Because I don’t think it’s Thomas Crooks. Do you?

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Well, again, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole on a lot of conspiracy theories. I was the first, I got canceled for calling out COVID when they’re like, “Of course it didn’t come from the lab that studies the exact virus in question in the exact town that studies it.” I was like, of course it was. They’re like, “Well done. You’re not a virologist.” I go, “No, I’m just not retarded.” It’s not that hard. You don’t have to be a virologist to know that it came from exactly that place.

It was very odd to me when this kid had no social footprint and that a guy with a rifle was allowed to get within 130 yards of the presumptive nominee of a party. And the excuse was, “Well, the roof was, it was a four-degree pitch slope.” I’m like, I don’t know, man. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist. The number one rule in all of these things? You never give up the high ground. So that seemed odd.

The problem I’ve seen, Jillian, and again, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole in most of these things, and I want it. And at the same time, once you get into some of the online bubble, it’s like some of the theories just get so insane that you’re like, well, maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. And I’d say your crazy conspiracy theorist uncle has been far more right than any of the narrative that’s been fed to you by the media.

I just don’t know enough about the details. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not, what’s being pushed and what’s not. There is a lot of nonsense out there.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: But to me, encrypted cell phones. Three encrypted cell phones. That’s insane. And there was a group out of Austin, I’m sure you know this, that shorted your stock. There’s only 12 million shares. And then the day—

DONALD TRUMP JR.: I haven’t seen that, I actually haven’t even seen that one yet. I haven’t been able to keep track.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Austin Private Wells.

Conspiracy Theories and Truth

DONALD TRUMP JR.: And I know a bunch of new stuff. I was telling you, I was literally in India at a friend’s wedding for the last week. So I’ve missed a little bit of some of the newer stuff that’s come out.

Well, I mean, I was saying it at the time, I was like, wait a minute, so a 20-year-old kid or a 19-year-old kid was so radicalized out of thin air with no social footprint, whatever it may be. But again, I don’t know what the comms were. I haven’t seen any of that.

But to me, I mean, listen, I think something was designed that there was a break in a chain of communications to allow that to happen. Because I know that would never, never feasibly happen to anyone other than Trump. They would never let that happen to Obama. They’d never let someone get into that kind of proximity. So the whole thing definitely feels odd to me.

But I also, Sean Curran, the guy that’s running the Secret Service right now, was literally the guy on that stage. He’s a patriot, he’s an American. He was the guy pulling my dad off that stage. He’s running the Secret Service now. Whatever they come up with and whatever they finalize, that’s a guy I trust.

There’s plenty in the bureaucracy and in federal law enforcement. I saw the FBI’s HRT team raid Mar-a-Lago. I’m like, why would you need the hostage rescue team to raid Mar-a-Lago when they’re dealing with lawyers and work? That’s an intimidation tactic.

So I’m skeptical of a lot. I haven’t seen what they’ve come up with recently. So I don’t know. And again, I don’t know how a 20-year-old kid gets that radicalized with zero digital footprint. That doesn’t seem like that would happen. I just don’t know. And I hope we get an answer to it, but sometimes you go down those rabbit holes. I also want to make sure we actually get to the truth. That’s what I actually want.

The 2026 Midterms and What’s at Stake

JILLIAN MICHAELS: I was talking to Victor Davis Hanson the other day and we were discussing your family. It’s like you guys are fearless, but there’s a quote in Latin, “That which nourishes me also destroys me.” And I think the fearlessness has gotten all of you this far.

But there is legitimate concern that if the Democrats win the midterms, they’re going to do—hey, impeached, indicted, a life in prison. Are you guys worried about this? Does it not stop you? Is there any way to prevent that should it happen? Because a lot of people think it’s going to be a life and death moment at the midterms.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Yeah, no, listen, I think they have shown they’ll do anything. And if you see the stuff now when you have these guys clearly breaking rules, clearly doing that, and you go through the regular legal process. “How dare you weaponize this against aides?”

What did you do to—Russia, Russia, Russia was clearly a hoax. Impeachment one was clearly a hoax. Everyone knows that now. I mean, they still talk about Russia, Russia, Russia. I’m like, you guys spent $75 million on investigation. There’s nothing there. But you still run with it.

So it’s rules for me, but not for thee with them. And so the Democrats have shown there’s nothing they won’t do. That’s pretty clear.

I’m sure before you picked a side or were even vocal about some of these issues that are probably 90-10 issues, it wasn’t conservatives that were attacking you for something. It was always the left. You can agree with them on 99% of something, but if you’re not that one percent, you’re literally out. You’re out of the inner sanctum, you’re persona non grata. They’ll feed you to the wolves. They’ve just always played a very different game than we’ve been playing.

And so I say, I don’t care if we decide to play tee ball or hardball. We have to be playing the same game as the other side. And yeah, they’re going to start it again. I’ve sort of just gotten used to that at this point. Like I said, we’re probably built a little differently. My dad doesn’t really lose sleep over these kinds of things. He just keeps going.

Trump’s Foreign Policy: Peace Deals and Ending Endless Wars

JILLIAN MICHAELS: That’s insane. And I say it’s insane because, again, when you get a small taste of something and it is absolutely grueling to imagine eating a bucket of it, of litigation and this, that, the other, I just sometimes I’m like, I don’t know how they continue.

But I want to talk a little bit about, let’s give your dad his flowers for a moment here, right? The man has, according to him, squashed roughly eight conflicts around the world: India, Pakistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, DRC, Rwanda, Cambodia, Thailand, Serbia, Kosovo, Egypt, Ethiopia. You get a tenuous Gaza ceasefire and now there are talks going on with Russia and Ukraine. The markets are at an all-time high, gas is slowly coming down, and inflation is moderately stable.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: And yet it’s actually lower than they even predicted as of today.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: And so, yeah, okay, but yet you see criticisms that are endless. When I engage somebody, let’s say on the left, well, he said it was going to be more, everything was going to go down day one. But we all know that’s not possible. And you can hear criticisms on the right. None of this is based in reality.

So let’s start with, of all the things your dad has accomplished, closing the border, like, lay it out for people right now. Let’s give them a little dose of reality. Because I feel like everyone is acting like a petulant child. Whether it’s MAGA, “Oh, I wanted the whole COVID shot gone.” I’m like, but you got it off of the schedule that mandated it for kids. But it’s not good enough. It’s not good enough.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Yeah, but you haven’t deported 20 million people who the prior administration for four years sent to every state around the country in planes. “How did you not find 20 million people yet?” It’s like, well, they’re working on it. You got to shut down the border. And you’re right, you can’t undo four years of disastrous policies overnight.

He’s ending wars that no one wanted ended because there’s no money in peace, Jillian. And so the D.C. beltway, they make a lot of money. I even had Republicans call me when I was very vocal against the Ukraine stuff in the beginning and sending countless billions over there. And I got Republicans calling, “No, no, no, Don. But some of that money is coming back to American companies.” I said, “Yeah, to make missiles. I would rather make cars.” The whole game is insane.

I remember when my father during the primary did that CNN town hall and they asked about Russia, Ukraine. He’s like, “I just want the death to stop.” They’re like, “How dare?” I mean, isn’t that the answer? The whole audience clapped. But I think it was Kaitlan Collins. “No, no, no. But what about this?” It’s like, wait, a million young guys have died in both of those countries for what? No one in D.C. has even told me what victory looks like yet. We’re in for half a trillion dollars and no one knows what it is, but they’re getting their kickbacks.

The Corruption in Ukraine

You read about the corruption in Zelensky and I was actually in Monaco earlier this summer and I was there for two days. And every other car there was an Italian supercar, like a Pagani, a Bugatti, and they all had Ukraine plates. And I promise you, I went to Ukraine in the early 2000s. I visited. It’s not a rich place. They didn’t just all magically get $5 million supercars. They’re stealing that money and it’s just one big corrupt scandal.

And I guess as long as there’s a kickback to a couple people in America, we’ll keep it going forever. It’s absolutely insane. And so when he said, “I just want the death to stop,” of course that’s the right answer, but it’s not the answer anyone wants to hear.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: No. And they’re going to set him up. And so it’s like, well, there’s a 28-point peace plan now, and talks are going on with Russia and Ukraine, but it’s favorable to Putin. And I’m thinking, well, because he’s winning.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Yeah. By the way, Zelensky’s own deputy last week was like, “We’re bleeding out.” They can’t keep it going forever. So they’re like, “Well, America should just spend another few trillion.” Hey, Jillian, why don’t we mortgage our children and our grandchildren’s future away for a war we don’t even know what we’re fighting? There’s nothing in America’s interest to do this.

So we’re going to destroy our middle class to keep funding a war so that Zelensky can hold on for a little bit? “No, but we’re doing it to save democracy.” Well, you didn’t, because they suspended democracy in Ukraine, because in war they were never going to have elections. Because he wasn’t winning those elections, he became incredibly unpopular.

People don’t talk about the inconvenient fact that eastern Ukraine is basically ethnic Russian. They don’t even want to fight each other. Half those, more than half of those people would probably find being part of Russia to end this nonsense and not have their children slaughtered on a battlefield by drones that are dropping hand grenades. It’s freaking insane. And so, yeah, that’s the problem with war. If you’re not winning, you don’t get to dictate the terms all the time.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: It’s called, what does success look like here? Because there were off-ramps, and the Biden administration certainly didn’t take them.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: They didn’t even try. They didn’t even speak to the people. And then, I remember this is sort of a funny moment in the White House. All the memes that came out of J.D. Vance with my father, with Zelensky, and he’s like, “Well, you were supposed to sign this deal, I guess, at Munich, and then you were supposed to sign it in Paris. And then you came to the United States and you made what we call one of the great blunders of all time, which was trying to renegotiate a deal with Donald Trump on national television.”

I’m like, I don’t know, probably not the best move. Maybe not the greatest tactician in the history of the world. And people are like, “How dare he?” I was like, they literally had a plan. This thing was supposed to be signed twice. And then he wanted to do a show and he tried renegotiating on TV. That’s not going to go over well. And so how many hundreds of thousands more lives got lost so they could drag it out for a few more months since that moment? And it’s sick. It’s sick.

What Does Success Look Like?

JILLIAN MICHAELS: It does feel like, what does success look like? I think is the perfect question. And the reason is because it looks different for everybody. Every American has a different idea of what this means to win, what it means to win in Gaza, what it means to win in the economy, what it means to win in Russia, Ukraine.

I don’t see how the President can win this. So he’s established, “I want people to stop dying.” The left is going to be like, “Look, he’s a Putin puppet. He gave Putin everything.” The right, they obviously wanted to continue for the reasons arguably suggested that it’s profitable. What is the administration’s North Star? Is that it? “I just want people to stop dying.” Because what happens in Gaza, Hamas is now not going to disarm, maybe.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Yeah, listen, I think it’s stopping the death. Ideally, you’re trying to normalize relations, create some prosperity in these places so that everyone can succeed on an economic level. But you’re right. I mean, as the saying goes, if Donald Trump cured cancer tomorrow, they’d be like, “But he didn’t cure this. He didn’t cure something else.” They can’t ever win.

The reality is this would have just been a perpetual, never-ending war. And I think that’s the one thing I think everyone probably agrees. No one wants the never-ending wars. I remember back during the transition, I was there, I was talking with Elon a lot, and obviously Starlink was sort of the use of what they were doing to kind of communicate in Ukraine because they took out all the other systems.

And he was like, “So how are they doing?” “Well, we could tell where the terminals are, and they’re moving back every day.” Ukraine wasn’t making advances. I think they did a great job holding it down against a pretty sizable force, obviously, because we spent half a trillion dollars there giving them missiles. And what wasn’t stolen was probably used on the battlefield. But they were never actually winning.

So this notion that a deal that gave Putin one inch of Ukrainian territory is a major failure, I’m like, I don’t know, man. I think if you ask the people whose kids are actually dying on the front lines, they’d probably say we’re fine with some of these things. No different than business. You don’t get everything that you want in a negotiation. That’s not how it works.

If America stopped funding any of this stuff, this thing would be over in two weeks. If it wasn’t for my father basically making Europe actually pay their fair share because this is actually in their backyard, that would be, it would also be over even faster.

Fighting Fentanyl: Venezuela and the Drug War

And then they get mad because, “Well, you’re taking U.S. military forces and you’re using them to shoot drug boats in the Caribbean.” I’m like, well, fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year. That’s two Vietnams a year. And we’re just supposed to let that go so we could focus on Ukraine? I don’t know, guys. I don’t think that’s in America’s best interest.

I think the biggest, the most clear and present danger to the United States is 100,000 Americans dying a year through the scourge of fentanyl that everyone was just, I mean, they could be fishermen. I’m like, yeah, fishermen in Venezuela aren’t running 50-foot go-fast boats with quad 450s on the back. That’s not a Venezuelan fishing boat. Maybe in Miami, not in Venezuela. And the Democrats are grossly against that. It’s like, man, what side are they on? It’s pretty wild.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: I think part of it, and I wonder about this, is sometimes the way the messaging comes across. So, for example, with something like Tylenol, and I’m shifting for a second, but I promise I’m going to tie it back to Venezuela. Your dad will get caught in a moment and he’ll say, “Yeah, we uncovered this with Tylenol and you don’t want to take Tylenol when you’re pregnant.” And then he gets attacked and lambasted, “Oh my God, fevers will kill people too.”

And then this is my little part where I go on the news and I explain that’s not actually what was said by the administration and that this was discovered by the dean of public health at Harvard and there are 20-plus studies.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: And by the way, there’s a warning label on a bottle of Tylenol. “Don’t take it while you’re pregnant.” It’s not, you know.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: They crucify him for every single thing he says. And I wonder if it was just like, “Listen, yeah, fentanyl kills all these people. Yeah, we’re going after them here. What about also Maduro’s kind of a problem?” Because I think a lot of us are thinking that. And then everyone’s kind of wondering that behind the scenes of like, “Well, is this regime change? What are we doing here? That’s why we’re blowing up these boats.”

And Maduro is kind of a problem. What if it was just kind of out there in the open? “We’re applying pressure. This guy’s a psycho. The regime is deadly. Hopefully.”

The Cost of Action vs. Inaction

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Well, he’s a narco terrorist and we’re shooting his source of income out of the water in the Caribbean rather than killing Americans. I don’t know. That actually feels a lot better to me than lying to the American public about weapons of mass destruction and embroiling us in a 25-year conflict in the Middle East for $7 trillion. I don’t know, seems like an effective way to do that.

And so, yeah, it does. Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. There’s nothing that he can do that’s right. But these are things that make sense. One plane shooting a boat out of the water doesn’t cost America a trillion dollars. It’s very effective. If we could save a couple hundred thousand lives a year, that’s a lot. That’s probably pretty good. And we actually have to focus on our own hemisphere and not allow these things to happen.

So you take away the source of income from a dictatorial leader that’s basically been working essentially as a narco terrorist without invading a country. You can actually do some of these things.

The Problem with Binary Thinking

That’s the problem I’ve seen with everything, Jillian. I saw this a lot. I talk about it a little bit when they killed Charlie Kirk, and it became Israel or Palestine, and it was like, well, Charlie was… I spoke to Charlie every day for 10 years. You can be pro-Israel, but not entirely for the actions of the government that rules it right now. It’s not binary.

And it felt like online, it was like it was this or that. And there was no nuance. There was no middle ground. And you realize that basically everyone, all of the pundits on Twitter were probably on someone’s payroll. You were either on that payroll or you were on that payroll, but because you were on the payroll, you had to go with one of the binaries. And it’s not how life works.

There is a middle ground. There is nuance. There are things that my father does that he’s like, “Hey, man, I know that my people may not love this, but it’s actually the right thing to do for the long term. And here’s the 15 reasons why.” And you could see he’s able to be effective because he’s not just a career bureaucrat. He’s actually run businesses. He knows you don’t get everything. He knows you can take incremental wins and use that as a leverage point to get to the next thing, but none of it happens overnight.

The Instant Gratification Problem

Your point? I remember it was literally like, 12:03 on the day they swore him in is like, “Egg prices haven’t come down yet.” And then two weeks later, they were down like 40% or whatever the number was. But it was like, he literally hasn’t even left the podium yet. He’s giving a speech. You’re mad that egg prices are down. You can’t unscrew something that’s been screwed up for four years in one second and have it kick in.

You look at the inward investment that he’s creating. They’re like, “He’s spending too much time abroad.” It’s like, well, I don’t know. But he’s got like $8 trillion of committed investment into America. Now that’s going to pan out over a decade. That’s really good for America and jobs and all of this. You take that out and you straight line it. It’s like $1 trillion a year into our GDP. That’s like a point of GDP a year. If you can go from three to four points, four to five, two to three, you know how big that is.

But it takes a while for this stuff to set in. And everyone wants instant gratification because we live in an instant gratification world. I can go on Twitter and I can do this in two seconds. But that’s not how it actually works in the real world. It takes a while for these things to manifest. It takes a long time to undo those policies.

The Immigration Reality

We talked about the immigration thing. How is it that by January 21st, you didn’t deport 20 million people? It’s like, well, they very deliberately sent them to all over America. They gave them IDs. They did… You can’t just find 20… We don’t have enough law enforcement in America. If we tripled it to find that now you have negative net migration for the first time in modern history where they’re actually leaving. You’re cutting people off of programs. So they’re deporting themselves because for years they were like, “Well, come to America. We’re going to give you free education, free health care, free phones. Here’s $10,000 a month to come to start.”

We put out the greatest calling card in the world for people who probably weren’t productive in their own countries. They’re not going to be here. They’re not going to assimilate. They’re not likely to add value. But they will be reliable Democrat voters because they will be dependent on big government to continue to support them.

And so you can’t undo that overnight. I wish you could. I wish you could. But we also have to play in the real world, not in some sort of fake reality. This isn’t Oz.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Okay, so I want to talk about how long this stuff takes and I think part of the problem, if I could, if you’ll permit me to suggest a criticism here. It’s when he gives them the bat to smack him over the head with. “Prices are going to come down overnight.” But the reality, when you speak to somebody who understands the economy, they explained kind of the way you did. This is a 50-year mess. This is free trade versus fair trade.

I mean, when they get into the weeds on this stuff and how this has been growing and China has been dominating everything, I mean, it is so intense and so complicated. And I don’t think your dad messages that well. I think he’s like, “I’m fixing it overnight.” And I’m like, no, just tell him you’re going to suffer, it’s going to suck. And you probably will not see any benefit for at least a decade.

You know, I’m trying to thread a very fine needle, but hopefully there’ll be an America left for your kids. What would happen if we just said that? What would happen? I mean, I don’t know because they just voted for Mamdani who promised them free everything. They can’t deliver any of it. But I feel like he’s been set up to fail. I know for a fact after having spoken to probably, I don’t know, six different experts on this, it’s going to take at least a decade, like you just said.

The Long Game vs. Short-Term Wins

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Well, I think a lot of this stuff can start, right? The jobs being a number one thing, you start getting shovels in the ground. That can happen more immediately. To realize the full effect of this, you’re right. That’s a ten-year thing. There are things that are happening in real time. I mean, you look at the inflation numbers. I mean, they put up a chart this week. It was like, here’s inflation: Trump, Biden, Trump. I mean, it came down drastically, but you’re not going to get it back overnight. Now it’s a lot better than it was already. And we’re not even a year into this thing. But it does take time.

So some of the things are going to be incremental gains that take a little bit of time, other things are going to take a lot longer. But the reality is we have to put ourselves on a long-term path for success, right? That’s where we’re different. Politicians in this country, they make terrible decisions to win an election in two weeks. But now you’re saddled with that. And our children, our grandchildren are saddled with that stuff for literally generations. And then it’s like, “Oh, that was kind of a mistake, but I needed to get elected.” And then they do it again and every two years we repeat this problem.

So he’s the one guy that’s actually willing to do some of the things that may not always be popular right away because you don’t get that instant gratification, even if it’s 100% the right thing to do. So we do have to get into that mindset, right? We’ve gotten a little too accustomed to that was like, “Well, we can just print more money, but it’s going to scrub the deficit. We got it.” It’s like, yeah, but I get a little bit now.

The tariff thing, I mean, you see what’s going on with that. I mean, $400 billion in less than a year. I mean, and with every judge trying to stop it from happening, I mean, that could be a half a point of GDP just from the tariff revenues. That’s a really big deal. That’s someone being able to expand their business and then hiring the people and there’s a trickle down, but again, none of that happens overnight.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: That is so true. And I just feel like somebody needs to give a little tough love to the country. Just like, hey, yeah, that’s right.

The Disciplinarian Parent America Needs

DONALD TRUMP JR.: My dad is the disciplinarian parent. We all need it at some stage in our lives, okay? We needed that at some stage. My mom was kind of that with me because, you know, sort of Eastern European Olympic athletes a little different. She was tough. But you know, when she got mad, by today’s standards it’d be considered, you wouldn’t be able to do that anymore. But I was like, it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I needed that. I needed to get my a kicked every once in a while. And I learned a lot more from that than I did from getting coddled or pretending that everything’s fine.

And so he’s the disciplinarian parent we all need. But people don’t often understand how much you need it because, well, yeah, I can get a little bit more. Now it’s like we’re just making the problem worse. I mean, I think he’s thinking generationally, not instantly. And that’s hard because he’s the only guy in D.C. actually willing to do that.

And more importantly, he’s the only guy in D.C. that actually understands how that real world works. Because he came from the real world. He actually did deals. He actually signed the front of a paycheck, not just the back. He had people, not just when he took office, but for his entire career that were literally dependent on his success each and every day for their well-being, for their family’s well-being and livelihoods. He’s done that and he’s done it really well for a long period of time.

The Mamdani Master Class

JILLIAN MICHAELS: I want to jump to Mamdani for a second. I got to tell you, when I saw your dad in the Oval with him, I actually thought that was a master class. That’s what I had been wanting him to do with these far woke leftists from go. Don’t take the bait. You see Newsom doing it constantly. It’s like, “Oh, please don’t throw me in the briar patch. Come arrest me.” This is what they want. They want him to take the bait. And I see him sometimes take it. It’s like, oh, these… You know, he goes to Truth Social.

The Power of Persuasion and Building Relationships

DONALD TRUMP JR.: I see it a lot. I say, hey, there was a tweet that went out at 3:00 a.m. like, oh, God, whatever. Now I got it. You know, so listen, he’s a fighter, but honestly, you don’t even have to agree with him on everything. But if you’re reasonable with him and fair, he could still work with everyone. I mean, he’s done that for a long time.

Like I said, the business world that he comes from, you don’t get everything that you want at all times, but you can use it as a base. You build a relationship, and then there are going to be differences, and there’s going to be people you’re never going to get along with or agree with. But the way he turned that around, it didn’t let it, well, he’s going to come in, he’s going to say all these things to your face. He sort of made it almost impossible for the guy to do anything.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: He neutralized him.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: I think Scott Adams did a whole clip on that. That was pretty epic in terms of just the power of the persuasion. In what, in all of that. And yeah, I mean, even me, I was like, man, no one’s better than DJT at that stuff. I was like, yeah, that could be an interesting and risky one. And I watched it. I was like, wow, that was really cool.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: I thought it was freaking brilliant. I really did. And then they’re like, do you think he’s a fascist? And your dad’s like, it’s okay. Go ahead, go ahead.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: And it was just, get it out of your system. Yeah, it’s fine.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: In that moment, you saw how absurd it was, because you could never tell a fascist that there are fascists in the Oval Office.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: I was like, Donald Trump is by far the worst fascist in the history of fascism. He allows other people who disagree with him to actually come see him and disagree with him publicly. If he’s a fascist, he’s doing a really bad job of it. It may be the only thing he’s ever failed at.

Finding Common Ground Beyond Partisanship

JILLIAN MICHAELS: And then he showed what you want. What I have wanted so desperately is like, let’s forget it. I don’t care what party you are. Let’s just do what’s right for the country. Of course he’s not going to like Mamdani. Of course socialism is going to be a concern in New York. He’s like, I just want what’s best for New York. So let’s see if we can figure this out, which is what you would hope the Democrats would do.

Where can we find common ground? I don’t know. Maybe it’s Maha, maybe it’s closing the border at the very least, maybe it’s, surely we could find some common ground on non-partisan things, but instead their whole position is just resist.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Everything’s partisan at this point. I mean, you saw, I mean, this week, a man won the world’s strongest woman competition, and finally now women, rather than sitting on the podium being like, oh, this is so brave. It’s not brave, it’s ridiculous.

I mean, I think, I guess this is probably, I think this is one of the topics, I think that maybe got you in a little bit of trouble because you said what everyone was thinking about men and women’s sports. I started talking about this in like 2015 or 2016 and I was like, this is ridiculous. I have daughters that are great athletes. And I see how hard they work and I’m like, of course they’re not going to beat the men.

The Trans Debate and Cancel Culture

And when I knew it was a fake issue was even back in 2015, 2016, whenever I started talking about it, it was really early. Even then, like Twitter 1.0, like 95% leftists were like, oh, I hate Donald Jr. with such a passion. But he’s right about this. Oh, I can’t believe I agree with Don Jr. on anything. I can’t, ah, it’s so terrible. But, and I’m like, oh my God, it’s all fake. It’s all bullshit. No one actually believed that this is real.

But you got to a point where the trans mafia, they were beyond reproach. They didn’t want equality. They wanted far more than equality. And if you said anything about it, you’re also a Nazi. And but there was enough of a cabal, that trans mafia that they somehow garnered. I was like, how did a group that’s probably comprised of like 0.01% of a population, how did they get to the point where they could do nothing wrong. They could say anything they wanted. Anyone else would be totally canceled.

I mean, they even went after some of the great LGBT activists of all time. I remember only because, pretty leftist. I don’t agree with much on her, but she was friends with my mom because they both were athletes from what was then Czechoslovakia. And Martina Navratilova, who was like the great tennis player who’s been an out lesbian since the 80s, like, way before it was cool. When it was actually hard to do that. And she was like, yeah, men shouldn’t play women’s sports.

And I mean, they canceled her from the LG community. Like, once you got to the T, then you were, she was out. But I mean, a life of work, 40 years fighting for a cause, actually moving a needle, making a difference, and you’re out, you’re out. I mean, she then had to come back and grovel. And they’re like, okay, well now, now that you’ve accepted this insanity, maybe we’ll let you back in slowly, but we’re going to make sure you feel this pain if you ever step out of line again.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: It was nuts. As a person who’s gay having a memory of when friggin Obama ran on stopping gay marriage, which somehow everybody on the left forgets. I’m like, do you need video? This is how Trump was the first guy.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: First guy to run for office that was fine with gay marriage before they got into office. And by the way, with a Republican base or an evangelical sort of right base, that’s not the easy thing to do, but it was the right thing to do. She was like, I don’t care. You don’t have to like it, but live and let live. Who cares?

I’ve gotten myself in trouble even on the trans thing, which is like, honestly, if you’re an adult, you want to chop off your thing or do whatever it is, it’s fine. I don’t want to hear about it. You’re not special. I don’t have to adhere to your nonsense. Stay the hell away from my kids. After that, do whatever the hell you want. If I’m not paying for it, if I’m not hearing about it endlessly, if you’re not getting some sort of special rights and you leave my four-year-old alone, I’m totally like, do your thing. I don’t really care.

And I got in trouble for that with our people, but I don’t care. Do your thing, but stop indoctrinating and manipulating children. Stop saying that a three-year-old should be able to make this decision without parental consent because they’ve been manipulated and indoctrinated by some crazy teacher or whatever it may be. I don’t know, it feels like a reasonable position that probably the vast majority of the country agrees with. But again, you’re always dealing with the binaries in a lot of politics because those, the extreme ends on both sides tend to be the most loud.

A More Open Republican Party

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Your dad, in my opinion, has actually made the right far more open. And what I mean by that is I can now with the vast majority of people who are conservatives, not all, obviously, there’s Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro that are against gay marriage, Tucker Carlson, but I’ve sat with the vast majority and they’re all like, hey, live your life, do you. I don’t want to see you lose your rights that protect your family.

That’s not the Republican Party I grew up with. And again, this is where I, I got to tell you, I don’t care about the conservatives who want to see the end of gay marriage. I’m glad they’re losing that fight. This is where I say your father and your family has built a far bigger and more accepting tent than the left. And I just, I don’t think you guys get the credit for that. And I personally want to say thank you.

I had a complete misconception about who your dad was going to be in his presidency. And I have to say, I was wrong. I’m clearly wrong. I’m married, my family’s intact, and no one’s threatened it.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: And if anything, you haven’t been thrown in the gulags yet, Jillian, because I told, I was told you’re going to the gulags. After we’re done with this, I’m going to call someone and, you may get a knock on the door later. Maybe I don’t want them to see that. But you’re going to the Gulags, Julian.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Oh God. I was worried that after this conversation that could happen. But up until now, I pretty much enjoyed all the same freedoms as other Americans. And where, the things that you’re talking about, the things that are more radical with regard to trans and kids or having biological males play against biological females, that was never a Democratic position. That was never a, yeah, we’re for sex changes for six-year-olds. It was during the Biden administration.

And another thing that I have to bring up constantly with Maha, like, ah, are you happy? I’m like, yeah, we’ve made a lot of progress. A lot of things have gotten accomplished. No, we’re not going to get everything we want. It would collapse the economy if we did. Having said that, the former administration, Xavier Becerra, who headed HHS, wanted to remove all age limits for sex changes on kids. Can we celebrate the win?

The Reality of Transitioning Minors

DONALD TRUMP JR.: How about the fact that no one talks about the recidivism rate for any of these minors who undergo these procedures is like 93%. In time, people realize they were indoctrinated, they realized they’re now on these hormones. If a trans kid shoots up a school of Christian school kids, it’s like, we have no idea what could have caused it. But really, I don’t think it could have been the hormones they’ve been injecting since three that no one has studied, no one’s looked at.

There’s a reason the suicide rates through the roof. There’s a reason the recidivism rates through the roof. Maybe it’s not this cure that doctors, I mean, what should really happen is there should be liability for the people that have been pushing these things. And they’re telling parents that if you don’t do this, your child is literally going to die. Because there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that. There seems to be a lot of evidence that the suicide rate goes through the roof for the kids that do do these things and come to regret it.

That’s why for me it was like, hey, when you’re adult, 18, 21, whatever it may be, you can make your own decision. You got to live with it. I don’t want to have to pay for it. I don’t want to have to hear about it. And don’t even think about bringing that crap to my kids. But they do on a daily basis.

The Alt-Right Fringe and the Future of the Republican Party

JILLIAN MICHAELS: I mentioned the fact that I think your father has made the Republican Party more open. Obviously, I think it’s for the better. Now you’re starting to see some of the things in the alt-right fringe of the Nick Fuentes and the Young Republican group chat. That is racist and that is scary and sexist to an alarming degree, someone like Nick Fuentes.

And I’m wondering, you’re seeing this kind of fracture the left. I’m seeing people who are more moderate become alarmed. And people on the right are like, yeah, yeah, whatever, not a big deal. I’m here to tell you it’s a big deal. And I think it’s a big deal because all of those people that your dad invited in, Tulsi, Kennedy, myself, inadvertently, right, all of these more Rogan, all of these more moderate people who flee the crazy on the left are alarmed if the right doesn’t disavow the Nick Fuentes’.

And it doesn’t mean, I’m not saying cancel Tucker Carlson. That is not what I’m saying. I wish Tucker had handled him differently. I have no problem saying that. But I do think it’s going to be a problem. And I’m wondering if you see it as a problem for the right in the midterms and in 2028. Because I think if this continues without it being fully condemned aggressively, I think you get Gavin Newsom for president. And I know what that looks like. And it’s scary.

The Internal GOP War and Cancel Culture

DONALD TRUMP JR.: I’m a little torn on the issue. I think sometimes having been canceled and having, you know, for even common sense things, you know, I’m not about cancel culture, but I think sometimes, you know, I don’t know, you have to platform everyone, but, you know, let them sort of speak. And I think some of those radicals, they sort of give themselves up in many cases in their own things.

And I’m good friends with Tucker, and I actually don’t think he’s really all that radical at all. I think I do see a lot of stuff that sort of manufactured crises. I see a lot of sort of the neocon handles trying to create these conflicts to break it up because they want to go back to the old ways, not the America First ways.

I do think that sort of social media and the way those things have been manipulated and some of these, you know, the stuff you’re seeing even this week with, you know, well, oh, this account that’s, you know, America First is driven out of, you know, some country in the middle of nowhere. It’s like they’re actually trying to sow discord and create, you know, a fight that probably really doesn’t exist with the vast majority of people.

I think, you know, again, I’m sort of a free speech absolutist, but that doesn’t mean there’s not consequences to that speech. And if you hear some people speak and you don’t like, you know, like, man, I sort of feel like they almost cancel themselves and not with censorship, but by people being like, okay, that’s not even a reasonable position. We’re just not going to listen to this person anymore.

And so I do think that’s important because again, I’ve seen what they tried to do to so many people. I was one of the early guys calling out a lot of the censorship on Twitter and they’re like, well, how do you know? I was like, well, I know because yesterday I was getting 5,000 retweets to post. Today I’m getting three. Not 3,000. Three. Like single digits. Three. Like that’s something happened, something changed.

And so, you know, I think we have to have conversations, even conversations we don’t want to hear, or even conversations we think may be disgusting. And listen and then people will make up their own minds and they’ll sort of, you know, the way I look at it, you kind of vote with your wallet. You walk away from that and you figure it out on your own.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: I’m just deeply concerned that if there’s a guy who says, “women want to be r*ped” and somebody does not say, “this is not who we are as a party. This is not conservatism. We find him repulsive.” It’s I’m telling you.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Yeah, but I also think sometimes even acknowledging what you do, if you’re going to acknowledge every person that says something ridiculous, all of a sudden you’re just making them bigger in a way. Sometimes you just got to let the idiocy just go out there in the ether and you can’t respond to everything, right, because it just becomes like clickbait, troll worthy stuff. And everyone starts doing it and everyone then starts taking the own bait.

And you know, and that’s sort of what I was alluding to earlier with like some of the stuff, you know, going on right now, it’s like everyone’s just trying to like out radicalize themselves for clicks and this and it’s yeah, you know, it’s a bit nuts.

And I don’t think we do that as well as the left. The left sort of has their talking points and they generally speaking, stick to them. Even if I disagree with them vehemently. You know, we’re a little different in that we are a lot more open. We do have a lot more different, you know, viewpoints. We don’t just say, okay, well the party says this, so we’re going to go with this.

You know, we still have that discourse, we have those disagreements and we move on. And I do think a lot of that fracture that, you know, you’re talking about is also, I think a lot of it’s just being created to actually try to break up that movement. I don’t know that it’s as real as it is, but it doesn’t matter if millions of people are talking about it online because they think it’s real or they think it’s coming from a good place and they think that, you know, this is an organic thing, that’s not a pay to play campaign. You know, that is a little scary. And I think people have to wake up to some of that.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Will you run?

Don Jr. on a Potential Political Future

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Oh, God. You know, listen, right now I’m outside. I’m a business guy. I do what I can, you know, politically, to try to help my father be successful getting these done. Because I, you know, I sort of have that same, you know, long term vision for America that he has.

I understand that, you know, maybe one day. But I do think it’s also the first time we’ve ever had a bench of people that could actually take that mantle, you know, after the first term, it’s like, well, who is really that successor? And it was like, there’s no one. We just sort of go back to the old ways. And I think, you know, that was very much by design.

I think that was very much, you know, so much of what he was trying to get done was actually stopped and screwed up by Republicans who just, okay, we’re just going to kick the can down the road. We’re going to wait this guy out. We’re going to go back to the good old ways. You know, the people are not there. There’s no appetite for that.

And now we actually have a bunch of people that could probably step in and do that and continue. I think my father’s a uniquely, you know, he’s a generational talent in terms of that. You know, I don’t think you ever replaced Trump, but I think, you know, he can be that wrecking ball to break so much of these things that really need to be torn down and start over. And, you know, there’s guys that can come in and fix that.

You never know. One day maybe that happens. But, you know, my singular focus, you know, at least on the political side, is just trying to make sure that his agenda gets done, accomplish that. People understand, you know, again, the nuance that you and I seem to understand, but not everyone does because, you know, I get it. It’s, you know, it’s complicated. It’s not that simple. They want that instant gratification.

So, you know, that’s my primary focus right now. I’m working to help see his vision through with what I do in politics, frankly, even what I do in business. Trying to create jobs in America, try to, you know, make us first, make sure we don’t lose the AI race to China. Because I think we all know how that ends. If you’ve watched the Terminator, it’s probably pretty much the same thing.

And so, you know, that’s my focus. But you never know. One day, one day maybe you don’t have a choice because if no one’s willing to step up, you sort of have to. And that’s sort of what my dad did. I mean, he’s honestly watching him do that. He was kind of complaining about it from the 80s back then. It was also still trade.

He was very like, he’s got to be the most consistent guy in the history of politics. People don’t like to see it that way. But like, you could see him on like Oprah in like 1986 being like, “we’re getting our lunch eaten. They’re destroying our jobs. We’re exporting our American dream so that a couple billionaires at the top can save a half a cent on a widget.” Back then it was Japan, not China. Now it’s China.

So, I mean, he gets that. He’s been remarkably consistent, but he’s also the kind of guy that says, you know, you can’t just bitch and throw stones from the sidelines eventually, like, if no one else is going to do it, someone has to get in the game. And so you never know.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Okay, it’s three more years from now. What is your dad hoping to have left behind? What does the geopolitical landscape look like? What is America? How does America fit into that? What’s the long term vision? We know it’s a peace prize and I hope he gets it.

Trump’s Long-Term Vision for America

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Like, I mean, I think he deserves it. Without question. He would much rather have the success in terms of geopolitics or the Nobel Peace Prize. He would much rather save a few hundred thousand lives than get an award. He’s gotten plenty of awards. You know, it’s not a driving force. Like, he’s not doing this to get an award. He could care less. Like, he wants to stop the senseless death, you know, on the geopolitical stand. You know, he wants that to happen.

You know, on the home front and some of its geopolitics. He wants a prosperous America. I’ve said for years it’s like, feels like our only export as a country for the last few decades has been like our American dream where we’ve allowed others to live it, you know, at the expense of our middle class. He wants to bring that back. That’s not easy. There’s a lot of people that don’t want to do that. There are some certainly short term costs to doing that. You know, that’s not easy. But I think he’s the one guy that can actually effectuate real change in that.

So he wants to do that. He wants to bring the prosperity that, you know, America really was based on and dominated for 250 years. He wants to bring that back because it was largely gone and going away.

I think we’ve all realized, Jillian, you know, especially in the last four years and as much as they said about Trump and you know, ironically, the guy that was going to start World War 3 is the guy that seems to be the only one trying to prevent it. You know, a weak America with feckless leadership is not just bad for America, it’s actually bad for the entire world.

We saw the chaos and the devolution into chaos over the four years of Biden, where not only was it bad for America, but the rest of the world was, you know, breaking on wars, economies were going down, it was a disaster. The only person that wins that game is China. And I think we’ve all understand that that’s not good for the world either. I think the rest of the world slowly starting to understand that as well. I don’t think that’s an outcome that everyone wants.

So I think he wants to bring back the prosperity that America really had such a great benefit of that our politicians have destroyed over years and, you know, a lot of our ruling class and everything. You know, he wants to bring that back. He wants everyone to be able to live their American dream. He wants them to be able to have successful children that aren’t stuck in their basements forever, to be able to buy their dream home, to start a family. He wants that.

But it’s hard to believe that in America today that is hard. That doesn’t happen overnight. But in my opinion, he’s the singular guy that can start and do the necessary things to get that back on track. And so, you know, it’s definitely a longer term game, but I think he’s doing it.

I think you see that again you talk about the deals coming in from, you know, countries that weren’t that we weren’t even talking to. It’s like, “fine, we will invest in America. You help us out on this.” It’s like, oh, my God, you did something for it. It’s like, well, they’re going to put it in, you know, Japan, like, $550 billion into America in the next couple years. Like, that’s a really big deal. That’s a win for America.

They have to get something out of this trade, too. It can benefit them. And if we do that with our allied nations that are actually our friends, like, that’s good for us, because China’s not going to play that same game.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: You know, I was just talking to Mike Baker about Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and, like, I don’t really understand Qatar funds terror and but they did. And he goes, “Jillian,” he’s like, “so we have to be talking to them. We have to be doing deals with them. This is real life.”

DONALD TRUMP JR.: And by the way, like, I’ve been to Doha, you know, speak at business conferences there. And, like, you go there and you’re like, man, I feel I feel safer there than I do in the streets of New York these days or or Chicago.

And, you know, and, you know, again, I know I would rather actually work out deals with countries and say, “fine, you have oil that we need for energy, we can work together. Or you can send it to China and make an ally with them.” Like, I don’t know. Doesn’t seem brilliant, you know, and so and again, I think a lot of those things, you know, also probably get blown up and overstated.

But you see what’s going on. You know, I went to Saudi for a business conference. Reason I’m like, I would much rather be allies with these nations than sort of artificial enemies driving them into the hands of our actual enemies. The places that are actually threats. Like, you know, there’s ways that this can be really good and beneficial for America, for American jobs, for, you know, lowering prices for Americans.

Like, we should be doing that, because if we don’t, someone else will. And I have a feeling those people will not have our interests at heart. And so everyone say, again, it’s the binary. Is this or, like, give me a break, guys. It’s not how the world works.

Iran and the Middle East

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Works. Two more questions. This one I should have asked you earlier, but I don’t want to forget. What the heck are we going to do about Iran? And this is one where, again, it’s like, the one side, “They’re already restocking that uranium, and we should have shut them down, and we didn’t.” And then the other side of, “Oh, thank God. It was going to be a forever war. And if we hadn’t had a tantrum on social media, it would have been Iraq all over again.”

So me, the powerful prophet YouTuber, having complained about a forever war, stopped that with Iran. The reality is Iran’s a big problem. Your dad has said this since all the way back, I remember, in 2016, took out Soleimani, bankrupted the country. I’ve watched him try different things. And now he’s expanding the Abraham Accords. He’s got this ceasefire thing. It’s tenuous. Hamas doesn’t want to disarm. And the number one fly in that ointment seems like Iran.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Yeah, he’s the guy that recognized Iran as a threat far more than anyone. He did almost have them bankrupt with the sanctions. And then Joe Biden came in and they sent them pallets of cash. Like, we saw the pictures. It’s like, well, why would you revive these? Like, they’re literally the world’s leading state sponsor of terror.

And by the way, when all that was starting to go down, I was like, “Hey, man, like, no one wants to be another forever war.” And he got that, too. But, you know, so what he did is, you know, at night, he had a B-2 fly in. They took out the plants, and they understand what America can and will do.

And again, if we create stronger alliances with their actual neighbors, who have, frankly, a much more vested interest in keeping them in check, you work together, you build those up, let them also deal with part of the problem. So America’s not just the rich schmuck that’s always just paying the check.

His response was actually the perfect one. And honestly, even I was like, “Oh, man, are we going to…” Well, you can’t let them get to the point of no return. So they sort of handle it perfectly. Guess what? It was over in 20 minutes.

And, you know, they may start doing these things again, and I’m sure they will and whatever it is, but, you know, in the meantime, they create stronger alliances with their allies in the region. You know, let them do some of that work, let them give us some of the information, let other people deal with some of those problems, because America does not have to do all of these things.

And again, it was over in 20 minutes. There were no boots on the ground. We didn’t lose any lives. Didn’t cost us trillions of dollars. I’m like, and they still had to deal with the problem. That’s a very real problem. I’m like, I don’t know, seems like it actually sort of felt perfect.

And you know, and I’m certainly one of those guys that is definitely not for getting America stuck in another forever war. So, you know, he doesn’t get enough credit for really understanding how the world actually works, what actually gets results.

And then if the Democrats don’t go in and say, “Well, we got to give them a couple hundred billion dollars because it’s going to be designated for food.” Oh, yeah, because money is not fungible. Right? Fine. They buy food with this and the money that they were spending on food, they’re going to now build nuclear programs with.

Like, he gets their whole messaging. It doesn’t make any sense. They’re talking to people like they’re idiots and trying to sell something that makes no sense. But no one ever reads past the media narrative will be like, “It’s just for food.” It’s like, well, yeah, no, that’s what they’re saying. But of course it’s not for food.

So, you know, as someone that was really, you know, pretty personally stressed in that because I’ve been so vocal against, again, whether it was Afghanistan or Iraq or everything else before that, I was like, we cannot start another one of those. I got it now, 20 minutes later. Done. Okay, next. And again, doesn’t mean they don’t start coming back, but, you know, we bought a few years.

What Americans Can Do

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Got it. Last question. For the adults in the room that are watching, whether they love your dad or they hate him, what would you ask Americans to do? Literally, what can they do? Give them the Kennedy “ask what you can do for your country” to help your dad with his agenda, or let’s just say forget his agenda, to make the country a better place. What can they do instead of just resisting everything? How would you like the adults in the room to behave on a day to day basis in order to facilitate some of the good things your dad’s trying to accomplish?

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Yeah, I’d say turn off your televisions, stop listening to the mainstream media, have a conversation. And this was the thing that, you know, and I spoke a lot about, you know, Charlie Kirk is one of my closest friends in the world and I watched, you know, have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you. You can do that respectfully. You don’t have to, you know, go, but be willing to have that conversation.

It was interesting when I started hanging out with Charlie. But 2015, 2016, it’s like, “Hey, we’re going to go do a thing on a college campus.” I’m like, “Wait, what?” Like, no, no, we just have… And you get there and you realize really quickly. It’s like when people like, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” I’m like, you know, here’s the… Like, here. It’s like, “Really, why? I heard this.” I was like, “Yeah, well, just because you heard on CNN doesn’t mean it’s real or true.”

You know, hear both sides of a conversation. Look at what he’s actually doing, understand that it doesn’t happen overnight, and ask yourself, like, hey, if you give him even a little bit of the benefit of the doubt, is this going to be good for your country in the long term? And what is the plan on the other side other than simply resist and having tantrums?

And, you know, if the Democrats, you know, again, if they’re against taking out drug cartel boats with fentanyl, who do they represent? You know, if you can do that, you know, with a helicopter for a couple of bucks, rather than getting into a regime change war that’s going to cost us trillions for years.

I mean, you brought up the Abraham Accords. Wasn’t a peace plan in the Middle East, prior to the age of Trump, the Holy Grail of geopolitics? Wasn’t it literally every expert saying, “This is what we got to do”? Well, but no one did anything for 50 years. You know, they talked about it. That was the Holy Grail, but no one actually moved the needle towards anything.

“Well, Trump is doing it all wrong.” Well, why do you say that? “Well, because I’ve been working on this for 50 years.” I go, but yeah, but what did you accomplish in those 50 years? Nothing. It’s like, well, you think maybe you should lose your expert status if you’re literally wrong about everything for 20 years? 50 years, 100 years? If you haven’t been right in decades, do you still deserve to be given credence as an expert? And we’re going to listen to you? What have you done? Nothing.

So, you know, I think people have to do that, you know, turn off some of that noise, you know, have an open mind, you know, understand what’s actually happening. Because it’s truly amazing the amount of people when they’re like, “No, no, but he did this.” I go, “No, he didn’t.” “How do you know?” It’s like, here’s literally… “No, no, no, but I saw this.” I go, “Of course. But I know you saw this, but…”

You know, be open to that. Have those conversations. That’s not always easy. You’ve been through it yourself, right? It’s not easy to be able to speak even basic truths, even to have an opinion that doesn’t follow the narrative. That’s hard. Start having some of those conversations.

You know, Charlie did that. He did it better than anyone, and they killed him simply because he was effective. He changed so much of that millennial vote because people were like, “Oh, once I realized what I was told and what I was indoctrinated with from kindergarten isn’t actually true, that there is another side, and it actually makes sense…” The margin shifted so much. That’s why he became a threat.

His ultimate threat wasn’t that he’s a Nazi or fascist or, you know, literally creating violence, as they would say out there every day. It was that he was effective at opening up people’s minds and having them have a different viewpoint. I think if we all had a little bit more of that, we all end up in a much better place, and we can make much more rational decisions that’s going to benefit our children and the next generation.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: That’s beautifully said. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it, and I’m excited to have met you, Cyberly. I look forward to the day when I can shake your hand in person.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: We’ll have to make that happen, Jillian. I really look forward to it.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed the podcast, please like, comment, subscribe, and share. And make sure to let me know what guests you want to see on in the future.

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