How Donald Trump Jr.'s Emails Have Cranked Up The Heat On His Family
Time|July 24,2017

How Donald Trump Jr.’s emails have cranked up the heat on his family

David Von Drehle
How Donald Trump Jr.'s Emails Have Cranked Up The Heat On His Family

As a candidate and now as President, Donald Trump has smashed the gauges that once tracked the normal temperature, pressure and wind speed in the climate map of American politics. Now when it feels like the barometer is plunging, we can only watch and wonder: Who can predict what’s coming next, with so many broken indicators?

Yet certain old ways survive. Like a farmer forecasting the weather by the ache in his knee, Washington has a feeling that this storm could be a monster. And the twinge that forecast the deluge was Donald Trump Jr. facing a camera and issuing what sounded a little like an apology. Which is an ominous sign in an Administration that means never having to say you’re sorry.

A bombshell report in the New York Times revealed the junior Trump’s enthusiastic response to “obviously very high level and sensitive” morsels supposedly collected by the Kremlin—a report so accurate that the young Trump shared the proof himself on Twitter rather than try the #FakeNews dodge. Then the President’s eldest son paid a visit to Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show. For Trumpers in trouble, this is like a grounded child serving detention at Grandpa’s house. He frowns, then spins a better excuse than the child could ever create alone, followed by ice cream.

Even in that gentle setting, Trump Jr. felt a need to drop the nonstop offense of brand Trump. “In retrospect,” he said, “I probably would have done things a little differently.”

This story is from the July 24,2017 edition of Time.

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This story is from the July 24,2017 edition of Time.

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