Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro slammed Donald Trump Jr. for “making bank” off the back of his father’s presidency.
Don Jr., who recently said he’s not ruling out a White House bid of his own, has been making headlines for his business moves since his father’s second term started in January. That has led to “awkward” questions about the ethics behind his deal-making, Shapiro said on his podcast The Ben Shapiro Show.
The MAGA ally, who recently criticized President Donald Trump for accepting a $400 million jet from Qatar, broke rank for a second time this month when he suggested something might be amiss with the eldest Trump son’s deal-making.
“Many of the organizations that Donald Trump Jr. is connected to are making an enormous amount of money during this period of time when his father is president. This raises awkward questions, certainly about Trump administration policy ranging from Trump memecoin to World Liberty Financial to gigantic real estate deals in Qatar,” he said.
“None of this is an amazingly good look,” Shapiro added.
Trump Jr. has joined at least eight corporate boards or advisory committees since his father won the election in November. He is also executive vice president of development acquisitions at The Trump Organization, the holding company for most of his father’s business ventures.
In addition, he is the trustee of a revocable trust of which his father is the sole donor and beneficiary.
The president and his family also control about 60 percent of World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance platform. Don Jr. and brother Eric Trump recently announced that they are partnering with an existing firm to create a crypto-mining company.
Even MAGA hall of famer and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson conceded that some deals struck with countries in the Middle East last month “seem like corruption.”
The Trump Organization signed a deal with a Qatari royal family-backed real estate company to construct a luxury golf course in the country. The company is also set to lease its brand to two real estate projects in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In Jeddah, a Trump Tower is slated for construction. The Trump Organization will be further enriched by a Trump International Hotel and luxury golf development in Oman.
Sean Spicer, the president‘s press secretary during his first term, told CBS News earlier this month that Don Jr. is his father’s righthand man.
He’s the “most prominent non-elected representative of the MAGA base hands-down, the No. 1 surrogate and power-player in the ecosystem outside of his father,” Spicer said.
The 47-year-old is a partner at the “anti-woke” investment firm 1789 Capital, where he helps invest in U.S.-based MAGA businesses. He joined the fund in November last year rather than join his father’s administration in an official capacity.
The group has since been granted investment access to major defense contractors. Before Don Jr. joined, the firm had raised less than $200 million in funding. In the three months since Trump Sr. took office, it has raised $500 million and is aiming to collect $1 billion by mid-2025, plus another $3 billion-plus next year.
Don. Jr.’s business dealings have led to comparisons with Hunter Biden, the former president’s son who was also accused of cashing in on his father’s position.
A Business Insider article published earlier this month, headlined “Don Jr. Is the New Hunter Biden,” triggered a furious response from the first son.
“The difference between me and Hunter Biden? I’ve been a businessman and serial investor my entire life. He became a ‘businessman’ after his dad got elected,” he wrote on X.
The story also rankled the White House, with a spokesperson accusing Axel Springer, the German owner of Business Insider, of “foreign political meddling.”
Trump’s second eldest son, Eric, also broke ground on a $1.5 billion golf resort in Vietnam earlier this month. On “Liberation Day”, the president announced a 46 percent tariff on Vietnamese imports. That has since been reduced to 10 percent.
Shapiro continued: “This administration is doing too many important things to be bogged down with conversations about how members of the Trump family or the Witkoff family or any of the other families surrounding the administration are making bank in countries that President Trump is attempting to negotiate with. That is not a good thing.
“At the very least, it is not a useful thing.”
Shapiro also spoke out against the idea of a Trump dynasty.
The comments come after Don Jr. was asked at the Qatar Economic Forum whether he would like to make a run for president of his own.
“Maybe one day,” he told Bloomberg anchor Joumanna Bercetche, before adding later in a post on X that he doesn’t intend to run any time soon.
Either way, Shapiro isn’t hot on the idea. “I’m just gonna put it out there right now. No. No. OK. Dynasties are un-American. They are not good,” he said, making the point that presidencies like that of George W. Bush after his father were “not great for the country.”
“And we elected Donald Trump for a reason, but connection with President Trump’s name does not mean that you should be president of the United States,” Shapiro added, saying that a “leading gambit” of Trump’s GOP presidential primary campaign in 2016 was attacking “low energy” candidate Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush.
“Why the American obsession with political dynasties? And that’s not a critique of Donald Trump Jr. as a person or as a future politician—that’s just a reality that dynasties in American politics are typically bad. Kennedy dynasties, Bush dynasties, none of this is good,” he concluded.
Donald Trump Jr. has been contacted for comment.
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