CNN Special Report “The First Son: The Life of Donald Trump Jr.” airs Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT.
Story highlights
CNN's David Chalian talks Trump's biographer Michael D'Antonio
The two explore some of Trump's relationships
Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio explores an eventful week for the administration and how President Donald Trump may be responding on this week’s “The Daily DC” podcast with CNN’s Political Director David Chalian.
In the wake of the President’s trip to France and Donald Trump Jr.’s email revelations, the two discuss Trump’s relationships with those closest to him, particularly his wife, Melania, and Trump Jr. D’Antonio explains some of the highs and lows of Trump’s complicated relationship with his son, who – despite being one of his biggest supporters on the campaign trail – didn’t speak to his father for about a year following Trump’s split from first wife, Ivana.
“He was a boy who was very angry with his father for a very long time,” D’Antonio says, adding that Trump Jr. is the most willing to criticize the President of all his children.
They also discuss what Trump’s psyche might be like six months into the job and how his interactions – with the media and with the American people – may hint at what he’s thinking.
D’Antonio is the author of a 2015 biography titled “The Truth About Trump.” With his knowledge of Trump, D’Antonio contextualizes Trump’s behavior as president by comparing it to similar behavior in the business world and the problems Trump may be running into because of that.
“This is a world that can’t be managed as well as a private enterprise. You really can’t manage the national press corps the way that you could manage the New York Post or the Daily News when you’re Donald Trump, calling up pretending to be somebody else and planting a story,” D’Antonio says. “It just doesn’t work.”