Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Q+A: Donald Trump Jr. talks union negotiations in Vegas, immigration, Adelson support

Donald Trump Jr. Interview

Steve Marcus

Donald Trump Jr., son of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, responds to a question during an interview at the Trump International Hotel Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016.

Donald Trump Jr. Interview

Donald Trump Jr., son of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, poses after an interview at the Trump International Hotel Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. Launch slideshow »

Donald Trump Jr., son of the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, stopped over in Las Vegas Thursday morning while helping out his father on the campaign trail.

Trump Jr., in a brief interview on the 61st floor of the Trump International Hotel, touched on a wide variety of subjects relating to his father’s campaign, from Trump’s policy on immigration to his lack of support from some of the most prominent Republican elected officials in Nevada.

He also touched on the Trump hotel workers’ efforts to unionize and whether hotel management could be expected to begin negotiating with workers soon.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sun: Why are you here in Las Vegas today?

Donald Trump Jr.: I’m helping out on the campaign trail doing whatever I possibly can for my father. I believe in what he's doing. I believe in his message. I believe that career politicians and the corruption associated therewith have put our country in a very precarious position and I'd like to see someone who's a disruptor get in there and shake up that system and not allow that to continue, by the way, on both sides. That's a partisan issue.

D.C. and the lobbyists surrounding them have just enriched themselves at the expense of the American people. I know my father could go in there and change that and create some efficiency there. Imagine what we could do with it. Imagine being able to educate our kids well. Imagine not being No. 30 in education behind a long list of Third World countries. Imagine what that could do for the future.

Your father has been focusing a lot of time on Ohio and Pennsylvania. Does the path to victory run through Nevada? How important are we?

It's an important state for us. We spent a lot of time here in the primary. We'll continue to spend more time here in the future. We have created jobs here. We have a business here. We're in it. The family has spent a lot of time here doing just that. It is a place that has a spot in our heart because we're invested here and have actually participated in the community.

Thinking about the support your father has had from Republican politicians, the governor, who is a Republican, has wavered in his support for Trump. Same with Sen. Dean Heller. Is their support necessary to win the state?

No, I don't. I think the establishment politicians — a lot of them who waver — to me it's oftentimes they're preserving their self-interest. They've gotten very comfortable in a system that has taken very good care of them and their supporters. So, again, to my earlier comment, it's a partisan issue. We've got to get rid of that in D.C.

I think having an outsider in there scares them because they're worried about someone who will shake up a system, who will change the business as usual, who has a track record of doing that, taking on jobs where government has failed — whether it be Wollman Rink, whether it be Ferry Point Golf Course (both in New York) — government jobs that were failed, were stagnated. He spent tens of millions of dollars, comes in and fixes them in months, under budget, ahead of schedule, risking his own money to do so. He's witnessed and fixed government ineptitude more than any politician ever already. So I think that scares them because you're going to have someone in there who's going to be vocal, who's going to call people out when they don't perform, and I think we need more of that.

The Trump workers here at this hotel voted to unionize. I know there has been some back and forth with the National Labor Relations Board. Will the hotel start negotiating or continue to fight back?

I don't think anyone in the history of politics has done more with union labor than Donald Trump. If you look at any job, you go around New York right now and look at all the Trump stickers on hard hats from union workers and blue collar workers across the country. By the way, these are not our jobs, these are others. They understand my father is a better builder than other people because he has spent that time with those workers on jobs. He listened to their opinions for decades as he was building up his company.

I think we have great relationships there. You have to have relationships also that make sense. You have to have deals that make sense. But no one has done more with union labor than us. Those are people that I think have reached across the aisle. They're not blindly following their leadership, who've been bought and paid for by the Democratic Party for generations and told to vote liberal. The workers, the guys actually doing the work, the ladies actually doing the work, they get it. My father's message resonates with them.

Do you think we'll see negotiations here start? That's a big argument that Democrats are using here saying, "Yes, he says he's good on labor, he's good for union workers, but his hotel is not negotiating with their workers."

If you look at our history you'd see a history and decades of negotiation. So we'll see what happens. Everything is a case by case basis. But I think there's a very clear history. We're known for having done that. We're known for having great relationships there. So I wouldn't be worried about it.

You don't know of any negotiations planned to start soon?

Not that I'm aware of.

In his immigration speech, your father said that immigrants who are not here legally need to exit and reapply. But then in an interview Monday he said he hasn't ruled out legal status. Is that something that might be a real possibility?

I think he's been pretty clear as it relates to the policy. He'll ask questions. He wants to hear what the people think. But I think he does believe you have to start the relationship off on the right foot. You can't undercut those people who've spent years going through the process correctly and say, "Hey, well guess what everyone else?" So I think we have to do that. It is something that has to be addressed, but we also have millions of Americans who are underpaid, who are underemployed, or unemployed because they're being cut out by illegal immigrants.

Again, we're not against immigration. I'm the son of an immigrant. My father is the son of an immigrant. We understand the issue, but there has to be a process that we can't penalize Americans. We can't penalize those that have gone through the process legally. We can't say someone who — maybe with the best intentions — came in and did so breaking the law should then be absolved of that while everyone who went about it for years and went through it and bought into the system, have our values and have really fought hard for it. It means so much to them because they've done that. We do have to have a rule of law.

I know that your father and Sheldon Adelson have spoken and Sheldon said that he would promise $100 million to the campaign. That hasn't been spent. Is that a bad sign for you? Is that concerning?

No. There's been a relationship there and there's an ongoing relationship. I spent time with Sheldon at the RNC. I know my sister did. There are continuing conversations. I think my father met with him last week. So that will continue. I think when you look at our numbers, we continue to do well, so, I imagine that's a good sign for all things.

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