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Trump's Kids Are No Longer The Ultimate Weapon

by Bronwyn Isaac

During the course of the election Donald Trump's children have both championed their father's leadership skills and attempted to humanize his campaign. However, during the last few days — even hours — their efforts have started to implode. Perhaps, the most noticeable problem was when Donald Trump Jr. made a gas chamber joke in an interview with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. The off-handed statement was made as Trump Jr. pointed out his perceptions of the media's biased handling of Hillary Clinton:

The media has been her number one surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn’t even be a contest, but the media has built her up. They’ve let her slide on every in-discrepancy, on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now.

Unsurprisingly, Trump Jr's use of a Holocaust metaphor neither supported his point about possible media bias or improved his representation of the Trump campaign at large. To make matters worse, this isn't the only campaign-related flub from Trump Jr. in the past week. On Wednesday in a piece published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Trump Jr. claimed that his father's releasing of his tax returns would only distract from the campaign. This particularly looks bad given the fact that presidential candidates over the past 40 years have released their tax returns as a signal of transparency and integrity.

The lack of articulation from Trump Jr in the past week feels like a direct contradiction of the public opinion following the Republican National Convention in July, when the Trump children took the spotlight following their speeches advocating for their father.

Following the Trump children's display of unified political support for their father, Florida delegate Dana Dougherty told CNN:

They're eloquent. It really shows what a family man he is.

This week, however, that eloquence may be rapidly desecrating itself — as Trump Jr. is not the only Trump child losing his edge. On Wednesday Ivanka Trump cut off an interview with Cosmopolitan, after reporter Prachi Gupta brought up her father's past statement to NBC that pregnancy is inconvenient to employers and questioned the new Trump maternity leave plan. Rather than fully addressing the question, Ivanka disengaged claiming the interviewer was being negative.

Are the past week's poorly answered interviews just a preview of the rapid downfall of Trump's children, who were formerly considered strong assets to the Trump campaign?! Only time will tell, but if they're hoping to recover their polished image, they'd better do it quickly.