President Donald Trump bizarrely threatened to “fire” Don Jr., after his son put him on speaker phone at Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest conference.
“I wanted to call in a little guest. He may not be here today, but I wanted to make sure he had a chance to say ‘hi,’” Don Jr. said at the Phoenix, Arizona, conference on Sunday, before adding, “Mr President!”
Video showed the right-wing crowd erupt into cheers as the president greeted them, saying, “Oh, I wanna be with you. But I’ll be with you soon, and I just wanna say that nobody did more for me than Charlie, and there’s nobody better than Erika, and you are the greatest people on Earth.”
After thanking his MAGA base for voting for him in the past election, the elder Trump added, “I just wanted to thank you all, and I hope my son’s doing a good job representing me; otherwise, I’ll have to say ‘You’re fired, Don. You’re fired.’”
“So thank you very much and have a great day. I hope Don makes a great speech. If he doesn’t make a great speech, let me know about it, I’ll give him hell,” the president added.
The bizarre comments elicited tense “Ohs” from the audience before the president told everyone to “go have a good time.”
During the speech Sunday, Trump Jr. proclaimed that the Republican Party was a thing of the past, with his dad leading the “America First Party” and “Make America Great Again Party.”
“Midterms are coming around the corner and make no mistake, the Democrat Party wants to do whatever they possibly can to shut this movement down. Not just the Democrats. The RINOs,” Trump Jr. said.
“You see the manufactured attacks on JD [Vance], myself, my father — anyone who understands that this isn’t the Republican Party anymore. It’s the America First Party. It’s the Make America Great Again Party. And we are not going back!” he continued.
The remarks drew a considerable amount of applause and cheers from the crowd, followed by a “USA! USA! USA!” chant.
While using the speech to slam Democrats, Trump Jr. also took the opportunity to criticize “weak” Republicans “who just capitulated to the D.C. swamp.”
“Some of the loudest voices, even in the Republican party, demanded we bring in tens of thousands of unvetted Afghan refugees. For years they turned Minnesota into little Somalia,” Trump Jr. said, referring to a Somali refugee resettlement program that Trump suspended.
The program, which helped revitalize entire neighborhoods in Minneapolis, was capped by Trump earlier this year. Under the order, the annual refugee admissions are capped at 7,500 – a decrease of over 90 percent from last year’s ceiling of 125,000 and the lowest number since the program began in 1980.
“How’s that working out for anyone? I keep hearing diversity is our strength. I’m not so sure,” Trump Jr. added to cheers.
