A surprise campus visit by the president’s eldest son turned into a gauntlet of jeers, and the man he came to honor answered the students with his middle finger.
Students at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta booed and jeered Donald Trump Jr., 48, a partner at the venture capital firm 1789 Capital and President Donald Trump’s son, on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, one day after Democrats captured control of the House and the Senate in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
“The country has rebuked you guys! The country has rebuked you,” one person yelled as Trump Jr. made his way through one of the buildings. “We have the House and the Senate!” another heckler shouted. Others chanted, “Shame on you!”
Trump Jr. came to support Omeed Malik, the co-founder and president of 1789 Capital, whose name was added to a building at his alma mater in a ribbon-cutting ceremony, according to an unnamed source cited in video coverage of the visit. The visit reportedly caught students off guard, because they had not been told beforehand that he would be there.
Malik raised his middle finger at the shouting students, a moment seen in the video. A Secret Service agent appeared to motion for the crowd to quiet down, to no effect, as of a Nov. 5 report.
Malik earned his law degree at Emory and worked as a corporate lawyer, then ran the prime brokerage business at Bank of America Merrill Lynch before going out on his own. He co-founded 1789 Capital with Rebekah Mercer and Chris Buskirk. He once gave money to Democrats; public records show he switched to donating only to Republicans after July 2019. Trump Jr. joined the firm as a partner in 2024, the year his father won back the White House.
An “Uncanny Ability” and a Denial
The firm’s growth since Trump Jr.’s arrival has drawn intense scrutiny. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, opened an inquiry into the firm in late August, writing that it had developed “an uncanny ability” to identify companies set to benefit from Trump administration actions. House Judiciary Committee Democrats’ investigation accuses the firm of “insider political influence and thoroughgoing corruption,” allegations the company has denied, according to reporting published Nov. 5.
The firm’s lawyers rejected the claims as “unsubstantiated and emotional aspersions” and said Raskin mischaracterized its deals, disputing that 1789 Capital took the online marketplace PublicSquare public. PublicSquare reached the public markets through a merger with Colombier Acquisition Corp., a blank-check company led by Malik. The firm said it welcomes legitimate oversight but would not be pressured into handing over confidential records.
The firm led a $1 billion Polymarket funding round this year, putting in about $300 million on top of roughly $200 million invested earlier, according to reporting Nov. 10. Trump Jr. advises both Kalshi and Polymarket. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is expected to chair the Senate Banking Committee, will have a platform to investigate conflicts involving the president’s family businesses.
Trump Jr.’s wedding celebration with Bettina Anderson has drawn fresh scrutiny. Russian businessman Umar Kremlev, who has close ties to Vladimir Putin, reportedly bankrolled it in part. Kremlev later claimed Trump Jr. had repaid the money, and the revelation reportedly left the president furious with his son.
The Kingmaker’s Ohio Slip
Trump Jr. spent the closing days of the campaign as a self-styled Republican kingmaker, blitzing Ohio and New York on election eve for Republican candidates. Many of them lost.
He walked out to Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold” at a rally in Swanton, Ohio, on Monday, Nov. 2, part of Vice President JD Vance’s final push in his home state, and stumped for gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Jon Husted. He attacked Democrats over transgender issues, communism and socialism. “They want to pack the Supreme Court. They want to make Ohio a state,” he said, before moving on to statehood for Washington, D.C. Ohio has been a state since 1803. The crowd cheered his earlier lines, then went quiet.
The next night, Ohio voters ousted Husted in favor of former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Democrat Amy Acton beat Ramaswamy in the governor’s race. In New York, Trump Jr. stumped for GOP House candidate Kailee Buller, who lost her bid to unseat Democratic Rep. John Mannion.
Blaming the War at the Pump
Trump Jr. backed Vance’s postmortem on the losses once the results came in. “The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote. Trump Jr. reposted the message the morning after the election with four words and three emoji: “Every word of this is 💯💯💯.” The post had more than two million views by that afternoon.
“The Iran war is largely what shifted voter sentiment and caused this. It spiked fuel prices and changed their minds,” Trump Jr. said in comments shared by TheBlaze on X. He credited his father’s administration with record-low poverty and crime and a secure border, and said the war hit voters where they felt it, at the gas pump. He called Republicans who deny the war’s role “disgusting, frankly.”
President Trump has not backed down, telling Fox News that people support his Iran policy but are unwilling to accept the short-term cost of higher gasoline prices.
When Police Cleared Emory’s Quad
In a separate case, Emory University in Atlanta asked the Atlanta Police Department and the Georgia State Patrol for help on April 25, 2024, after protesters set up a pro-Palestine encampment and displays on the Emory quadrangle in support of the people of Palestine and in opposition to the soon-to-be completed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Emory officials said the protesters were trespassing on private property and refused to leave. Officers used Tasers and pepper balls, handcuffed several people and loaded them into vans; authorities say 28 people were arrested. A widely circulated social media video showed two women identifying themselves as professors being detained, one slammed to the ground by an officer, her chest and face pushed onto a concrete sidewalk. Emory President Gregory Fenves backtracked days later, saying the school’s initial claim that the activists were not connected with Emory was not fully accurate.
