Don

It was the first time the presidential candidate's 38-year-old namesake had ever done any fundraising on his own.

Donald Trump's first apprentice is no longer an understudy — in business or politics.

Don and siblings Ivanka, 34, and Eric, 32, are commanding their father's multibillion-dollar real estate empire while Trump campaigns for president.

"When my dad commits to something, he commits fully, whether it's real estate or politics," Trump Jr. says. "He's 100 percent focused on politics right now."

And Trump Jr. proved to be a fundraising phenom here in the Lone Star State. By the latest tally, his quick-hit visit brought in nearly $2 million.

Before

His events, private meetings and my interview in Dallas were coordinated by Trump Jr.'s longtime buddy, Tommy Hicks Jr., the 38-

The

Since then, Trump Jr., an avid outdoorsman and safari big-game hunter, has made frequent visits to Texas to socialize, fish and hunt birds.

"It's been awesome watching Donny as a normal guy with five kids and a great wife," Hicks says. "They do not need to be doing what they're doing. They're doing it because they love our country."

Donald John Trump Jr. has never been called Donald. His close friends still call him Donny.

Hicks Jr. invited Trump Jr. and me to sit down and talk at Hicks' home in Preston Hollow. Trump Jr. agreed to talk about his relationship with his enigmatic father and his global enterprise. I agreed to the interview if we kept politics out of it.

Trump Jr. didn't ask for anyone's approval for the interview. Nor did he keep me waiting when I showed up early. That's not how he rolls. He comes across as self-assured but not cocky.

He says he speaks from his heart and has no need for handlers. "I'm not one of those guys who's limited by sound bites," he says.

And he's happy to ignite the internet with his own version of social media controversy — even though it's a new role for him. "It's gotten crazy learning a new game," Trump Jr. says. "I am the way I am. We're all pretty blunt."

The Trump Organization Inc., which has real estate, retail, commercial, hotel and golf interests around the world, is owned by Trump Sr., so it doesn't have to report financials. Even its size is a matter of debate, ranging from $4.5 billion estimated by Forbes in 2015 to more than twice that claimed by Trump Sr.

"Forbes' estimation is grossly low," his son says. "But everyone values things quite differently. I'll stick closer with my father's number than anything else I've seen out there."

Donald Trump's eldest children from his first marriage with Ivana Trump are all executive vice presidents for the Trump Organization. Tiffany Trump, Trump's daughter from his marriage with Marla Maples, is a 22-year-old model who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Trump and his wife, Melania, have a 10-year-old son, Barron.

"We're a meritocracy organization," Trump Jr. says of the company hierarchy. "Whatever needs to get done, we do it. If I need to go lay sheetrock, I'll do that. ... I'm the only child of a billionaire who's as comfortable in a D10 Caterpillar [Crawler Tractor] as I am in my car."

Trump Jr. handles commercial leasing for all of the projects. On smaller projects, one sibling takes command and fills in the others in weekly meetings. On larger ones — like the redevelopment of Washington, D.C.'s historic Old Post Office Pavilion — it's all hands on deck.

For the time being, new projects aren't being fed into the pipeline, Trump Jr. says. "The time I would normally spend finding and chasing new deals, I've basically said, 'I'm going to commit that to the politics side and work on that.'"

If his father is elected, Trump Jr. says Trump would put the company under the administration of a blind trust to prevent conflict of interest.

"We haven't looked that far into it yet," says Trump Jr. "But that's what he's said he would do."

New Year's Eve baby

Donny Trump was born in Manhattan on New Year's Eve in 1977.

As a kid, he says, his parents let him stay awake to see the ball drop in Times Square. They spent the holidays in Colorado, so he didn't know it was really only 10 p.m. It wasn't until he was older that Donny realized the festivities had nothing to do with his birthday.

His indoctrination from The Donald began as a rug rat.

"The way we spent time with my father was really on his terms," says Trump Jr., without a trace of resentment. "He wasn't the conventional, 'Let's go play catch in the backyard' kind of dad. He was a business guy. That said, he was always available to us. I remember playing with trucks on his office floor while he was talking [in person or on the phone] with Jack Welch or some other CEO or a king. And I'm yelling on the floor making all sorts of noise."

As toy dump trucks and tractors gave way to real ones at job sites, Donny discovered a passion for real estate.

"I joke that I've worked in the organization for 38 years and I'm 38 years old, because that's the way he was with us," Trump Jr. says. "It was a great exposure to life and a great exposure to business. We learned a lot from a very young age about that and how he works."

The Trumps moved into the penthouse of Trump Tower when the upper floor was completed in 1982. Donny was 5; Ivanka was a baby.

Trump Jr. remembers the first time he saw the view overlooking Central Park. "It was spectacular," he says. "My dad still lives in the same apartment. That view never gets old."

He credits his mother with adding culture, flair and travel to their upbringing.

"We were blessed to have the best of all worlds," he says. "I can't say we weren't spoiled. That would be laughable. But it was spoiled in the right way — education and experiences. They made sure we had a work ethic, understood the value of a dollar and respected everyone."

His paternal grandfather, who laid the foundation for the family fortune, was a "rigid, workaholic kind of guy" without his father's energizing personality as a saving grace, Trump Jr. says.

"His saying was to retire was to expire. The few weekends I spent with him growing up as a kid was, 'OK, you're here. I guess we'll go collect rent,' " Trump Jr. says with a laugh. "He had no idea how to relate to a child."

He was much closer to his mother's dad, Milos Zelnicek, a blue-collar electrician who was an emigrant from communist Czechoslovakia. Zelnicek taught his grandson to love the outdoors and to speak Czech by age 3. He took Donny back to the homeland every summer for six to eight weeks.

"For me, it was all about being with him," Trump Jr. says. "I spoke the language and had friends there. But Czechoslovakia in the '80s was a total juxtaposition from my life in New York City. I realized at a very young age how fortunate I was and not to take any of that for granted."

Zelnicek died when Trump Jr. was 12 — the same year his parents split in a scandal-laden, tabloid-headlined divorce and his father's financial situation went into crisis mode.

"That was a pretty rough year," Trump Jr. says. "I went to [a highly regimented] boarding school the next year. I lived away from home from the time I was 13."

Beginning that summer, Trump Jr. worked as a dock attendant at his father's property in Atlantic City. He made minimum wage but says he got pretty good tips from people who had no idea who he was.

He got "promoted" to summertime landscaping, which turned out to be the hardest job he's ever done.

"Brutally long days out in the summer heat. That was real work. But it was also great," he says. "That was a fundamental tenet of my dad's for us growing up. He had us work with the guys who had doctorates in common sense, not the guys who had doctorates in finance."

Three-quarters of the way into his first summer as a landscaper, Trump Jr. realized he was making a lot less because he didn't get tips.

When he asked his father why he was paid so little, Trump Sr. answered with a question. "He said, 'Why would I pay you more than you were willing to work for? You didn't ask for anything. Why would I give it to you?'

"OK, now I get it. Lesson Number 1: You don't get anything you don't ask for in life. You've got to be assertive," says Trump Jr. in a no-hard-feelings way. "I tried to negotiate retroactively. That failed miserably. But from that moment on, I did OK. That's the way you learn from him -- by hard knocks."

A year tending bar

Trump Jr. got his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 2000. After graduating, he moved to Aspen, where he tended bar at a joint called the Tippler for a year.

"I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be sitting at my desk one day in my 40s saying, 'What did I do with my life?'" Trump Jr. says. "So I experienced the antithesis of what I'd be doing. It was great and amazing. But I also realized that I needed to engage my mind a lot more. I liked being a fighter putting it out there every day."

Tending bar didn't sit well with his parents, particularly his father.

"Growing up it was always, 'No smoking. No drinking. No drugs.' He was very adamant about that," says Trump Jr. "He never had a drink in his life, and he saw his brother pass away from it."

Like his father, Trump Jr. is now a teetotaler.

The prodigal son was welcomed home and into the business in 2001.

Donald and his son don't look like each other and don't go to the same hairstylist — yes, I asked. But how else are they different?

"I'm able to turn off the work mode more easily than he is. Even when he's playing golf, it's always on one of his own golf courses, and he's fixing this and adjusting that. He probably wouldn't play the game if he didn't own those assets."

But he's seen his dad shift to a softer side with the grandkids. "He's able to relax more and step away. I see him with my daughter playing golf with her where he's actually playing with her and not just, 'OK, you can tag along with us.'"

Trump Jr., his wife, Vanessa, and their brood live on the Upper East Side near the Trump Tower, so he walks to work.

As busy as he is, Trump Jr. is big on his five kids, ages 2 to 9.

He says he hasn't spent a weekend in New York City in a decade. Most often, he and Vanessa load the kids into an SUV or two and head to their cabin in the Catskills, where they hike, fish and sit around a campfire.

The big speech

Trump Jr. says he didn't know he had aspirations to be mayor of New York City until he read it last Sunday in The New York Post.

But hey, never say never.

"As a businessman, I like reserving my options," he says. "But my only focus right now is getting my father elected."

So what was it like to address the throngs from the massive stage of the Republican convention?

"It was incredible," Trump Jr. says. "It was an amazing opportunity to speak about my father and also what I believe the situation we're in as a country. I felt very comfortable because I'm passionate about the message, and I've always been reasonably comfortable in front of people.

"But I kept getting text messages from my friends telling me, 'Don't think about 45 million people watching on TV.' I needed that like a hole in my head."

John Tatum, chief executive of Dallas-based Genesco Sports Enterprises Inc. and a campaign rainmaker for John McCain and Mitt Romney, didn't know Trump Jr. before his Dallas visit but increased his contributions because he was so impressed.

"He killed it," says Tatum. "It's incredible for a surrogate. There's only two people who could come down to Texas and generate more revenue: his father and his younger sister Ivanka.

"He has a natural DNA that makes people feel welcomed," Tatum says. "He's warm and connects. He's as comfortable in boots and jeans in Texas as he is in boardrooms in New York."

AT A GLANCE: Don Trump Jr.

Title: Executive vice president, development and acquisitions, The Trump Organization Inc.

38

Resides: Upper East Side, New York City

Education: The Hill School in Pottstown, Penn., 1996; bachelor's degree in economics, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, 2000.

Personal: Married to Vanessa for 10 years. They have two daughters, 9 and 7, and three sons, 4, 3 and 2.

SOURCES: Don Trump Jr. and Dallas Morning News research