After putting their father over the threshold to become Republicans’ presidential nominee, two of Donald Trump’s children took the stage at Republicans’ convention Tuesday and sought to humanize a man known to many voters from his reality TV persona and the hard-edged GOP campaign.
Daughter Tiffany Trump, a recent college gradutate, recalled her father’s praising notes written on her report cards, and described him as a “strong, protective, kind, endearing man” quick with encouragement.
Minutes later son Donald Trump Jr., who’s been intimately involved with Mr. Trump’s business empire, said the mogul’s success is a testament to his perseverance and his refusal to be defeated — even when competing in the cutthroat world of Manhattan real estate.
“Rather than give up, he changed the skyline of New York,” the younger Mr. Trump said.
He said his father took the same approach a year ago, when pundits said he couldn’t succeed as a novice politician in a bruising presidential primary.
Now, Mr. Trump will accept the GOP nomination on Thursday.
The son said his father bucked the trend of other tycoons by recruiting from all backgrounds, shunning the tendency among his competitors to hire from the Ivy Leagues.
“He’s spent his career with regular Americans. He hung out with the guys on construction sites, pouring concrete, hanging sheetrock. He listened to them, and he valued their opinion as much, and often more, than the guys from Harvard and Wharton,” the younger Mr. Trump said. “To this day many of the top executives in our company are individuals who started out in positions that were blue collar. But he saw something in them and he pushed them to succeed. His true gift as a leader is that he sees the potential in people that they don’t even see in themselves.”
And he contrasted his father to likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, saying Mr. Trump “doesn’t have to run a focus group or use data analytics to be able to form a simple opinion, who says what needs to be said, and not just what you want to hear.”
Still to speak later this week are son Eric Trump and daughter Ivanka Trump, who will introduce her father when he accepts the nomination on Thursday.
On Monday Mr. Trump’s third wife, Melania, spoke — and ignited controversy when a significant chunk of her speech echoed remarks by first lady Michelle Obama from a 2008 speech.
The Trump campaign insisted Mrs. Trump didn’t copy the first lady, and said suggestions otherwise were an attempt to attack a strong woman.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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