1:33
- ABC News
- Donald Trump
- November 18, 2017
Trump brothers hunting history reexamined
The Trump brothers were photographed holding dead animals on safari in 2012.
1:33
“Not a pr move I didn't give the pics but I have no shame about them either. I HUNT & EAT game,” he wrote in another.
Not a pr move I didn't give the pics but I have no shame about them either. I HUNT & EAT game @sharkjumpers: whatever... horrible PR move...
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 12, 2012
More recently, Donald Trump Jr. has shared a number of photos from domestic hunting trips, including one in Montana earlier this month. He also shared a photo from a bow hunting trip in the Yukon “earlier this fall,” and went pheasant hunting in Iowa with Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) in October.
A post shared by Donald Trump Jr. (@donaldjtrumpjr) on Oct 28, 2017 at 9:51am PDT
President Trump commented on his sons’ love of hunting to TMZ after the photos were released in 2012. At the time, Donald Trump defended his sons but acknowledged he felt differently about hunting.
“My sons love hunting. They're hunters and they've become good at it. I am not a believer in hunting and I'm surprised they like it,” Trump told TMZ at the time.
“I know that anything they did was 100 percent okay in terms of the hunting community,” Trump added to TMZ.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/donald--trump-jr-howells-gun-shop-gty-jt-171117_4x3t_384.jpg\")
Donald Trump Jr. echoed that sentiment in his interview with Forbes in 2012, saying that his father “really doesn’t understand why Eric and I hunt. However, he is open-minded and so always allowed us to go hunting.”
The brothers said their interest in hunting came from Ivana Trump's father.
“Our maternal grandfather was Czechoslovakian. When we were young, he would have us to his place in Czechoslovakia for a month or more during summers…He loved to hunt and fish and taught us how,” Donald Trump Jr. told Forbes in 2012.
But Ivana Trump herself has spoken out about her sons' hunting, writing in her book published just last month, “Raising Trump,” that she was \"not fond of\" it.
“I don’t object to their going to Patagonia to shoot birds. There are a million of them there, enough to spare,\" Ivana Trump wrote. \"But why go to Zimbabwe to shoot Bambi and Dumbo? I don’t blame people for giving them a hard time about it.\"
While President Trump may not “understand” his sons’ interest in hunting, he has referenced it when appealing to gun rights supporters both during the campaign and since he has taken office.
A month before Donald Trump announced his candidacy, he tweeted about his sons’ ties to the National Rifle Association.
“My two sons, Eric & Don, have long been expert hunters & marksmen @NRA. They go on safaris & give animals to the poor & starving villagers!” he tweeted.
My two sons, Eric & Don, have long been expert hunters & marksmen @NRA. They go on safaris & give animals to the poor & starving villagers!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2015
And while the president never talks about hunting himself, he said he does own a gun. In his 2015 book, Trump wrote that he \"owns guns. Fortunately, I have never had to use.\" According to publicly accessible records, President Trump has had a concealed weapons permit since 2010.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/donald-trump-nra-gty-jt-171117_4x3t_384.jpg\")
“I'm a member of the NRA. My sons, Don and Eric, are members of the NRA for a long time. They're hunters. They're great members of the NRA,” Trump said during an MSNBC town hall event in February 2016.
He has specifically mentioned his sons’ NRA membership in speeches he has given to the gun rights group, both as a candidate in 2016 and as president earlier this year.
“I can tell you, both sons, they love the outdoors. Frankly, I think they love the outdoors more than they love, by a long shot, Fifth Avenue,” he said in his April 2017 speech to the NRA.
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