Don Jr. Talks Nord Stream, Haley 3rd Party Run, Trump VP Picks in South Carolina

Donald Trump Jr. speaks to supporters at a rally for his father, Republican Presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump in Charleston, S.C., on Feb. 23, 2024. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

CHARLESTON, S.C.—Just one day before South Carolina’s Feb. 24 Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump, Jr. spoke to Trump supporters at the Citadel, South Carolina’s public senior military college, and the Trump campaign’s state HQ.

He fielded questions on a range of topics, including who attacked the Nord Stream pipeline.

Mr. Trump, Jr. said that the United States’ leading role was “most plausible.”

The question of who blew up the pipelines sending Russian energy to Europe has remained controversial. While Western reporting at the time focused on Russia, often through appeals to unnamed intelligence sources, others have blamed the United States.

In early 2023, not long after journalist Seymour Hersh published a Substack article identifying the United States as the culprit, The New York Times reported the incident was the handiwork of pro-Ukrainian actors.

“I don’t know that Ukraine has the sophistication to pull something like that off. So, I imagine there are three-letter agencies that were somehow involved in this, and whether it was jointly with them or on their own, I imagine that happened,” the former president’s eldest son told The Epoch Times.

“It does not seem like we’ve done anything to try to end the war, and it feels like we did a lot before it ever started to give [Russian President Vladimir] Putin whatever excuse he perhaps needed to start the war,” he added. He went on to stress that he was not trying to characterize Mr. Putin as “a good guy.”

Republican Candidate Nikki Haley

Closer to home was the topic of South Carolina’s former governor, Nikki Haley. Ms. Haley, who remains President Trump’s chief Republican rival in the race, has continued to raise money from Never Trump Republicans even as others in the party seek to consolidate around President Trump as the presumptive nominee.

One force in the background is “No Labels,” a national organization that has sought to run what it considers centrist candidates.

“I think I’m speaking for a lot of No Labels members. Gov. Haley would deserve serious consideration,” Joe Lieberman, a former Democratic senator from Connecticut and No Labels’ co chair, said in January.

The Epoch Times’ question to President Trump about a possible ‘No Labels’ run sparked a response from him—“We’ve had enough of her”—and from Ms. Haley herself, who addressed a clip of the question in a segment with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum:

Nikki Haley speaks with supporters at a campaign event in Moncks Corner, S.C., on Feb. 23, 2024. Ivan Pentchoukov/Epoch Times

“My focus is running in a Republican primary. It always has been. I have never talked to the ‘No Labels’ people, that’s not anything I’m focused on,” she said.

Mr. Trump, Jr. dismissed that reassurance from Ms. Haley.

“I don’t know that I believe anything that Nikki Haley says at this point. She said she wasn’t gonna run, right?” he told The Epoch Times.

Ms. Haley entered the presidential race a few months after President Trump announced he would seek the office to which he was first elected in 2016. Yet, she had pledged in 2021 that she would stay out of contention if he decided to seek reelection.

“I don’t know that she changes all that much. … I do understand that she’s there as a cudgel against Trump,” he added.

Talks Trump VP Pick

Mr. Trump, Jr. also weighed in on possible running mates for his father, who recently discussed a few candidates with Laura Ingraham on her Fox News town hall.

“There‘d be a couple that I’d love to see, if only just for like the vice presidential debate, right?... Like a Tucker Carlson go[ing] up against Kamala Harris,” he said.

When The Epoch Times asked about Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who President Trump has praised at multiple events, Mr. Trump, Jr. said the lawmaker is “a good friend of mine.”

“Tim’s a great guy,” he added.

Former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson attends the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Fla., on July 15, 2023. Marco Bello/Reuters

“I think my father mentioned some of those as potentials. And there’s probably a couple that he didn’t mention that are potentials,” he continued.

He also suggested he had helped undermine any talk of Ms. Haley as a potential VP pick weeks and weeks ago.

“I was the first one to be very vocal, maybe the first one in the Trump campaign to be, like, very vocal about not wanting Nikki Haley,” he said.

While some have floated Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as a vice presidential candidate, Mr. Trump, Jr. named him as a possible replacement for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).