Triggered

  Especially in the beginning, the Trump campaign was filled with political neophytes, and I mean that in the best sense of the word. Almost all of us came from walks of life other than politics, meaning we were used to actually working for a living. All of us were accomplished, just not in the political arena. While the other campaigns were wasting time with polling data and staff shake-ups, we were figuring out ways to streamline the process and reach as many voters as possible. No one had time to reach out to foreign governments and ask for help. I mean, look, candidly? I got one unsolicited email. The Clinton campaign sought out and paid for foreign operatives to do research on its opponents. That’s a big distinction.

  If you were a liberal in early 2017, the Russia collusion story was really all you had left to cling to. It absolved you and your candidate of all blame for her defeat, and it gave you a perfectly sensible reason to reject the results of the election. All of a sudden, once Big Bad Russia got involved, Donald Trump became an “illegitimate president,” and the whole getting-elected thing was just a colossal misunderstanding. It was the do-over they all wanted so desperately. Not only did Democrats get to carry on as if their candidate hadn’t lost, they also had free rein to take down just about everyone who had ever associated with Donald J. Trump, from his close associates and friends to the people who share his last name. Ask me how I know!

  I mean, I’m old enough to remember when Barack Obama made fun of Mitt Romney by telling him “the 1980s called and want their foreign policy back.” But now, miraculously, Russia could be brought back from obscurity to be the villain in the Democrats’ assault on democracy. They always get to have it both ways.

  Thank God we’re on the other side of the Russia hoax now. The reports have been written, the testimony—days and days and days of it—has been given, and we know the truth. There was no collusion. No obstruction. Not so much as an unpaid parking ticket as far as my father and his closest aides from the campaign are concerned. And finally, the liberal media have given up on the story.

  Yeah, right.

  They’ve kept up the delusion, assuring their disillusioned followers that more evidence is coming, more interviews are being unsealed, and there are more investigations to be done. No matter how many times Robert Mueller tells them to shut up and read the report—which, as my father has correctly said, exonerates him completely—they keep bringing up the man’s name as though he’s some kind of conquering hero, even dragging him in front of Congress so he could stutter and babble his way through five hours of testimony. Hell, I’m still waiting for all the evidence that Adam #FullofSchiff claims he’s been privy to over these past two years. It seemed as though he was on television every night, claiming he had “seen evidence” of collusion.

  I have to admit that I almost felt bad for Robert Mueller during that testimony. And if it weren’t for the fact that I was probably number two on the guy’s kill list for years, I might have. I’m not against old people; I’ve always respected my elders. But watching those Democrats in Congress go at him, question after question, all of them trying desperately to make him tell them about the smoking gun they all wanted so badly, was like watching a bunch of kids find out Santa Claus isn’t real. For years, they had been living in their filter bubbles and echo chambers, able to spread lies about the Mueller Report without anyone throwing any facts into the mix. They had staked their entire reputations on the allegations being true and gone all in. They’d chosen—or rather, they’d used—Mueller because they’d thought he was beyond reproach, someone whom no one—not even my father—would dare attack. After all, he was a former prosecutor, the former head of the FBI, a decorated Marine. But it all came tumbling down when we realized he was nothing more than a pawn for the leftists running the show—an empty suit to fit their narrative and nothing more. Worst of all for Democrats, in their hysteria to destroy Trump, they forced the man they had elevated for two years to appear before Congress and he proved what he and the MAGA-sphere had known all along: that he was the author of his report in name only. Asked about key figures in the report and dates that anyone who’d even been following the story on Twitter would have known, Mueller came up short again and again. Oh, he said, I don’t know, I need to check that, I don’t know who that is… That’s beyond my purview. Seriously Mr. M? Well, it was right there here, so it really isn’t. You wrote the report and you can’t tell me what’s in it? You didn’t know anything about Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm hired by the DNC to dig up dirt on my father? You didn’t know that they were the genesis of the entire investigation and all of the FISA warrants? Sorry, I don’t buy it. You spent two years and nearly $40 million and you didn’t bother to learn how it all started? The genesis of the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people is “beyond your purview”? G.T.F.O.

  Tell you what: if you see me on the street, feel free to ask me questions about this book you’re reading right now. I might not be a fancy former head of the FBI or anything, but at least I can remember things I’ve written myself.

  In their desperate attempt to get him to testify beyond the report, the Dems actually did more to discredit the whole farce than anything before. And for that, I say: thanks!

  But if you think a little thing like the debacle of Mueller’s appearance before Congress is going to stop the Democrats, think again. They are obsessed. They’ll believe anything that confirms what they already believe, and they’ll call anything that contradicts what they already believe a lie.

  If you’re trying to find the starting point of this lunacy, look no further than the night of the 2016 election, right around the hours of midnight to six o’clock in the morning, when the craziest wing of the American left finally lost its mind for good. DJT has been living rent-free in their heads ever since—a strong real estate play from the best in the game.

  It was in those few hours, right after the networks finally called the presidential election, that the liberal press and the Clinton camp first started groping around for anything that would explain their loss. For them, my father’s victory was the worst possible thing that could have happened. The postmortem that immediately followed the election read as if the world had come to an end. “The world’s shining light of democracy has gone dark,” one journalist said. Paul Krugman, a columnist for the New York Times, wrote that markets were plunging, and that they would probably never recover (How’d that work out?). A few weeks later, Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN—who, by the way, has my father to thank for his job—blamed himself, saying that the network probably shouldn’t have aired so many of DJT’s campaign rallies. Yeah, right, Jeff. You could have filled the airspace with New Year’s Eve with Anderson Cooper reruns, and my dad still would have won. I guess these days CNN is paying reparations by choosing to be the anti-Trump network at all costs—especially in the ratings. All the experts proved what we’ve all known all along. That they are full of shit. They all got it so wrong they needed cover and when they saw something, no matter how asinine, it became gospel to cover their abject failure.

  Still, the left wouldn’t feel sorry for itself for long.

  First it picked up the Russian spy story and started pushing it to every devastated reporter who would listen.

  Then it did everything it had told us the Trump supporters would do if Hillary won. Think about it. For weeks leading up to the election, we had been hearing about all the horrible things Donald Trump would force his supporters to do if he lost. DJT wouldn’t accept the defeat they were all so sure was coming. The editorial boards at the New York Times and the Washington Post both ran many articles warning us about the chaos that was about to ensue. According to popular opinion, Trump supporters were going to riot in the streets, refuse to accept the results of the election, and begin some kind of underground coup against the duly elected president, Hillary Clinton. They would start a second civil war. The streets would become absolute anarchy.

  And when things didn’t go the way the Democrats had wanted them to go,
what happened?

  Let’s see. They held riots in the streets. (Check.) They refused to accept the results of the election, cooking up one of the strangest spy-movie stories I’ve ever heard in order to maintain their collective delusion. (Check.) Then they formed an underground group of online keyboard warriors called “the Resistance,” dedicated to taking down my father one stupid hashtag at a time. Prominent journalists, liberal activists, and actors have all identified themselves as proud members of “the Resistance” on Twitter. When I’m attacked by an outraged mob online, their voices are usually among the loudest. (And Check.)

  The hatred that fomented online and in protests became hand-to-hand combat—and I mean real violence, the kind you usually see only in Third World countries. I’m not kidding. The same party that used to preach peace, tolerance, and inclusivity (mostly platitudes when you look at its history, which I will) has now become the party of hate, violence, and suppression of free speech.

  So-called activists on the extreme left have moved from their safe spaces and the basements of their parents’ houses out into the streets, usually clad in black hockey pads and carrying weapons. Sometimes they call themselves antifascists, or Antifa, but most of the time, they don’t know why they’re there or what they even believe. All they know is hate and anger. Time and again, these people try to shut down speakers with whom they don’t agree. They attack journalists in the streets and threaten anyone who doesn’t go along with their twisted sense of social justice and equality.

  They’re not exactly the most physically imposing people in the world (that’s what happens when you live on nothing but soy lattes and veggie burgers), but the sheer force of their numbers is shocking. They have allowed hate to spread at a rate we haven’t seen since the era of civil rights, when Democrats—the party that founded the KKK, in case you’ve forgotten—would organize lynch mobs and counterprotests all across the South, most of which ended in horrific violence.

  These people are irrational, hysterical, upset, and out looking for enemies.

  I should know. As of November 16, 2016, I became one of their top targets. Before the election, I was just a guy who appeared on television every once in a while, went to work, and went home at the end of the day and played with my kids. There were probably a few people who thought I was an asshole because I was blessed to have been born into a wealthy family. But no one was mailing suspicious powder to my home or screaming at me in a restaurant where I was celebrating my brother’s birthday. No one was threatening my life. After the election, I became the guy who receives the second highest number of death threats in the country (according to the Secret Service, second only to my father). And that’s a list that includes senators, former presidents, and ambassadors to several war-torn countries. Here’s what the exploding letter filled with powder that sent my then wife and a member of my Secret Service detail to the hospital said: “You are an awful person. This is why people hate you. You are getting what you deserve. So shut the f—k up.”

  Keep in mind that I hadn’t done anything to that person, who, by the way, turned out to be a liberal activist and an Elizabeth Warren donor. I’ve never had an actual physical confrontation with any of those lunatics in my life. All I do is give speeches, have opinions, run a business, and support the president of the United States, who also happens to be my father. For that, I get the second highest number of death threats in the country.

  It gets worse. Much worse.

  In June 2017, a left-wing activist, armed with a rifle and a 9 mm handgun, walked up to a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game and started shooting at Republicans. Sometime before, he’d tweeted: “It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” My friend Republican Whip Steve Scalise was so badly injured he almost died. Matt Mikaf, a lobbyist and former legislative assistant, was critically wounded and underwent surgery. Another legislative aide, Zack Barth, was shot in the calf. Two Capitol Police officers, David Bailey and Crystal Griner, were injured just before they took down the shooter.

  These days, anyone who supports my father is a target. Just as the anti-Trump revolution was beginning, Senator Rand Paul, one of my father’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, was brutally attacked by his neighbor, an avowed lefty. The man ran down a steep hill to gain momentum and then blindsided Senator Paul, who had headphones on and his back turned. He never knew the man was coming. The senator had six broken ribs and blood in his lungs. Doctors who examined him said that the injuries sustained were more consistent with a car accident than a sucker punch. As he was recovering, the left celebrated. The celebration continues among some of the most callous and idiotic people on the left. Just a few months ago, the comedian Tom Arnold tweeted: “Imagine being Rand Paul’s neighbor and having to deal with @RandPaul lying cowardly circular whiny bullcrap about lawn clippings. No wonder he ripped his toupee off.” Within seconds, Representative Ilhan Omar had retweeted it, obviously gleeful that the attack had taken place. Nice, right? And they say Donald Trump is the one who’s vulgar, but they won’t say anything about Omar allegedly marrying her brother to enter the country illegally. Or, having an affair with a married paid staffer, or as someone hilariously commented on my Instagram feed, “She puts the infidel in infidelity.” Whether it’s true or not, she’s not exactly the moral authority the media makes her out to be.

  The left has become nothing more than a hypocritical caricature of itself—a Saturday Night Live clip gone horribly wrong.

  And it’s not just politicians who are targets. It’s anyone the left doesn’t agree with. As I was working on this book, my brother Eric walked into a bar in Chicago and a waitress there spat in his face. The Secret Service had to lead her outside before the confrontation could get worse. People get triggered simply by seeing a Trump. Last year Sarah Huckabee Sanders, my father’s longtime press secretary, and her family were kicked out of a restaurant in Washington, DC, simply because she worked for the president. Her family was forced to leave another restaurant by an Antifa mob just minutes afterward. Democratic Socialists of America threatened former Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, White House adviser Stephen Miller, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in restaurants. Senator McConnell has been targeted multiple times, including by left-wing extremists who stormed his home screaming “Just stab the m—f—in the heart.” Then, when the senator posted a video of the incident, Twitter locked him out. They locked him out for showing an attack on his house directed by the left!

  Even the vice president has been harassed. Instead of taking a curtain call, the entire cast of the musical Hamilton stood on stage and lectured Mike Pence, then the vice president–elect. Vice President Pence was at the show with his daughter and her cousins, who were upset at the public display of hostility.

  As gracious as anyone you’ll ever meet, the vice president excused the rudeness of the cast by telling his daughter, “That’s what democracy sounds like.” Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, even if the left doesn’t think we are. There are, however, appropriate times and places to express them. I don’t know, but the cast of a show shouting at a man and his family who are sitting in a theater where tickets for the show cost hundreds of dollars doesn’t seem like one of those times to me. If anything it shows most of America how uncivilized and deranged most of these lefties are. (By the way, though I use the terms “lefty, leftist, and left” interchangeably with “Democrat” in these pages, not all Democrats are leftists. Many are good people, some even voted for my father. Unfortunately, the party has lost its way and is now run by the leftists and the socialists.)

  Last year, with a few friends, we were celebrating my girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle’s, birthday at a restaurant when a man came up to our table and started screaming “Shame on you!” Our friend Sergio Gor, who was with us at the table, asked the man to name one policy of President Trump’s that he wasn’t happy with. Instead of giving an answer, the man continued his irrational rant but now targeted Sergio.

  “Is it the
environment?” Sergio asked.

  More incoherent screaming.

  “Civil rights?”

  Loud nonsense.

  “Taxes?” Sergio pressed.

  “I don’t have to name one!” the man finally screamed and walked away.

  It was a classic display of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He didn’t know why he was mad; he just knew he was mad.

  The attacks against us aren’t random incidents. They’re part of a coordinated plot to intimidate anyone into silence who doesn’t agree with the radical left. Antifa is nothing less than a terrorist organization, and it’s about time we started treating it that way.

  Its members are certainly radical enough. In their own minds, they are part of a long line of brave, tightly organized “antifascists.” They see themselves as being descended from those who took on the supporters of Benito Mussolini in Italy and opposed Adolf Hitler in Germany during World War II. In reality, they’re just idiots who’ve played too many video games. They are people who have never gotten the chance to confront anything real in their lives, so they turn the real world into a fantasy land where they are good people fighting evil fascists. Oh, and in this little fantasy world, anyone who says things they don’t agree with—or anyone who is white and male and happens to be within fifty feet of them when they hold their demonstrations—is a fascist.

  I’m not sure if Antifa understands fascism all that well, because it sure as hell seems to be willing to employ fascist tactics on a daily basis. Maybe they should just call themselves “Fa,” because from what I’ve seen they’re far more fascist than anti-.

  In April 2017, an Antifa mob wearing ninja black, ski masks, and sun goggles and carrying knives, clubs, and cans of Mace descended on the peaceful Patriots’ Day “free speech” rally in Berkeley, California. Of all places—the home of the ’60s hippies’ crusade for free speech. One of the Antifa thugs began hitting people in the head with a large bicycle U-lock. He sneaked up on them and hit them from behind—the worst kind of coward. As many as eleven people fell from the blows. One man was so badly injured that he needed multiple staples in his skull to close the wound.