His CPAC talk on Friday suggested he’s likely to double down on that role ahead of his father’s reelection race in 2020. Wearing a navy suit and pink tie of appropriate length, he seemed quite comfortable on stage, bouncing easily between the kinds of topics that translate as candy to the president’s base—abortion, transgender rights, and socialism, to name a few. For nearly every riff, there was applause; for every quip, laughter. He presented himself as a man who has fully embraced his role as his father’s defender, and is having fun with it, too—meaning voters can probably expect much more of Don Jr. as 2020 draws nearer, and perhaps even beyond the next election.
Don Jr. kicked off his event at CPAC with an excoriation of the Green New Deal, the proposal from Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to transition the U.S. to using 100 percent renewable-energy sources. “Every mainstream, leading democratic-socialist candidate for the presidency of the United States is buying into this, saying, ‘Oh, it’s a great investment, it’s wonderful,’” he said. “It’s just insanity, and it goes to show you that no one here making trillion-dollar decisions … has any understanding of finance … They’re all just preaching some sort of leftist crazy theory.”
And those were some of his more tempered remarks.
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