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The presidential campaign has thrust Donald Trump Jr. into the spotlight as his father vies for the Republican nomination. Trump has used the opportunity to promote hunting and the outdoors, something he has been passionate about since his youth. But how does the son of a billionaire who lives in New York City become so involved in hunting? Trump recently spoke to the Times Leader to explain how his love for the sport began, his roots in Pennsylvania’s outdoors, discusses his plans to aid and protect hunting and the importance of hunting issues and outdoors to his entire family, the elder Trump included.
Being from New York City people may not associate you with hunting and the outdoors, but you’ve made it a point to bring up the topics while on the campaign. How did you grow to love the outdoors and hunting? “I got into the outdoors from my grandfather, who was a blue collar electrician from then-communist Czechoslovakia. He understood the good fortune we had with my family in New York, but between him and my father they said ‘OK it’s great, but there are also downfalls to that.’ My grandfather would take me to Czechoslovakia every summer. He would say ‘There’s the woods, go play.’ He taught me how to shoot a bow, shoot an airgun and how to fish. He got me into the outdoors. Now, over there hunting is an elitist sport. It wasn’t for regular people so I couldn’t do much of that.
When I went to the Hill School in Pottstown, we had a rifle range, trap range, skeet field. The head of students, Gordon McAlpine, saw my passion for it. One day he said ‘meet at the parking lot on Saturday at 6 a.m. and dress warm.’ He took me on my first upland bird shoot in PA. I just fell in love with it and haven’t been able to get enough of it since.”
You have a pretty strong connection to hunting in Pennsylvania. Do you look forward to coming back here during the campaign? “I know Pennsylvania hunting very well. I lived there for nine years. I went to boarding school in Pottstown for five years and I went to college at Penn. My first hunt ever was in PA. My original hunter’s safety certificate I got when I was in 8th grade back in boarding school in PA. I still have it from back in the early 1990s.
It will be really cool to get back there. I’m so close to it on the weekends, eastern PA, and I’m looking forward to getting back to most of the state. I used to fish Spring Creek a lot when I was in college in central PA by Carlisle. I know the state really well and it will be exciting to get back there.”
How does it feel to be a voice for hunters on a national scale? “I love it. It sort of happened by chance a few years ago. Someone got ahold of some pictures of mine from a hunt in Africa. They did the usual guilt and shame move that the anti-hunting groups do. Rather than doing the usual ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again. I’ll become a vegan,’ I stood up for hunting and said listen, here’s how conservation works. Those 900,000 (resident) hunting licenses and those 800,000 licenses in PA for fishing, that goes to fund all the programs that help not only deer and fish in the state, but everything else, including the habitat that helps everything. I want to make sure others know that hunters are the people that allow those programs to exist that make our public lands so special.”
You have five children. How important is it to you to get them involved in the outdoors? “It’s incredible. We live in New York City during the week but we haven’t spent a weekend here in probably over a decade. Come Friday afternoon we leave the city and we’re not back until Sunday night or Monday morning. It’s just what we do. It’s part of our life. It’s a lifestyle choice that we make.
I took my son when he was 5 years old for a 10-day trip to Alaska fishing for my brother’s bachelor party. Rather than doing the usual party where people are going to act like idiots, I said let’s take 10 friends, rent a lodge in Alaska and just go. My little guy was so passionate about wanting to go. Getting off the plane in the middle of nowhere the guys looked like ‘Uh, there’s a baby here.’ That little kid, he just so rose to the occasion. He was one of the guys for 10 days. He was made hikes that others couldn’t make. To be able to share that with him, totally disconnected from everything, it was amazing.
Hunting and fishing and all the outdoor stuff have kept me out of so much other trouble growing up, and I want my kids to have that same opportunity. There’s some good stuff in the city, but I want them to be able to ride ATVs on the weekend, roam around in the woods with me. I’ve been on the campaign trail so much, last Friday I just took off and my daughter didn’t have school so I took her on a daddy-daughter day. We shot .22s, hiked, drove ATVs, and we had an incredible time. Just a good bonding experience.”
When you’re at deer camp or in a small town during a hunting trip, do people treat you differently when they learn who you are? “When you’re at hunting camp, the cultural differences and where you’re from, all that stuff goes away and everyone’s the same. It’s a great, great experience. I have so many friends from all walks of life because of hunting. Regular, blue-collar friends. I have a cabin right near the PA border in upstate New York near the Catskills. I do a lot of fishing up there in the summer. I have friends that they only knew me as Don. ‘That guy Don, he lives in the city. He’s a good guy.’ They find out what my last name is and they’re like “I had no idea.’ You see them the next time and they’re trying to treat you differently and you’re like ‘what happened.’ Why should that make any difference? They’ll say, ‘You’re right.’ It’s a great equalizer.”
Is your time in the woods even more meaningful now as a break from the grind of the campaign? “That’s how I decompress. That’s how I get that stress out of there. It’s been huge. I’m a competitive shooter and I reload for probably over 100 calibers. I tie my own flies. I fletch my own arrows. I do a lot of bowhunting with compounds and traditional bows. I’m always doing something.
I was out in Utah and I took three hours to go fish the Provo (River) for a little while. I’m looking now at May for turkey season to kick in so I can get away and do that. I hope to make it up to the Yukon this summer if I can get away for a week or so.
That’s how I decompress. It’s incredibly important if I can get a day or even half a day in the woods. That’s how I relax.”
What does your dad think about your love for hunting and did you ever get him to go along on a hunt with you? “My father’s an amazing golfer. He likes to win and he’s pretty much a two-or-three handicap in golf. He’s more into golf than he is hunting. His thing is he’s always working. I haven’t done much hunting with him. Much like I attribute so much of the way I am today to hunting, he gets that. He’s knows what it means to me and my brother growing up. He’s like ‘I know where those guys are on Saturday morning. If they’re out in a duck blind they won’t be causing trouble.’ He knew that. While it hasn’t always been something he pursued, he understands it. We talk about it a lot. He knows how passionate we are about it and once we explained it to him, he fully gets it. He’d be listening to us and talking to us about those issues in his presidency.”
What’s it like to go from New York City one day to a treestand in the middle of the woods the next day? Those are two different worlds. “I don’t necessarily think about it anymore. It’s my day-to-day life. I don’t think about it as unusual. Come Friday afternoon I get out of a suit and I’m in Carhartts and a flannel. That’s what I am.
Now that I hear you ask the question, I guess there is a really interesting juxtaposition there between the two worlds, but I don’t really think about it anymore because it’s just the way I am. I’m probably more comfortable in camo than I am a suit.
I joke that I’m the first person to graduate from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania to move out west to be a bartender for a year-and-a-half so I could flyfish and hunt out west. I worked in a bar so my days were free to hunt and fish. On the weekends, I’m hunting, fishing or shooting. I can’t name a weekend where I wasn’t doing at least one of those things. It’s just the way I’ve chose to live my life.
It’s a pretty big part of my life. Not just a soundbite.”
