Donald Trump Jr. turned up unannounced at an Atlanta law school a day after his party lost control of the House and Senate, and the students there did not let him pass quietly.
Students at Emory University School of Law booed and jeered Trump Jr., 48, a partner at the venture capital firm 1789 Capital and President Donald Trump’s son, as he moved through one of the buildings 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 he made his way through. “We have the House and the Senate!” another heckler shouted. Others chanted, “Shame on you!”
Malik Answered With a Middle Finger
Omeed Malik, 1789 Capital’s co-founder and president, raised a middle finger at the shouting students, a gesture seen in the video. A Secret Service agent appeared to motion for the crowd to quiet down, to no effect, according to a Nov. 5 report.
Trump Jr. had come to support Malik, whose name was being added to a building at his alma mater during 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 Trump Jr. would be there.
Malik earned his law degree at Emory. He is a former corporate lawyer who ran the prime brokerage business at Bank of America Merrill Lynch before going out on his own, then co-founded 1789 Capital with Rebekah Mercer and Chris Buskirk. Public records show that Malik, who once gave to Democrats, 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.
The “Uncanny Ability” Raskin Described
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 in late August, writing that 1789 Capital had developed “an uncanny ability” to identify companies set to benefit from Trump administration actions.
The firm’s lawyers rejected the claims as “unsubstantiated and emotional aspersions” and said Raskin had mischaracterized its deals. They disputed that 1789 Capital took the online marketplace PublicSquare public; PublicSquare reached 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.
House Judiciary Committee Democrats are investigating the firm, accusing it of “insider political influence and thoroughgoing corruption,” according to reporting published Nov. 5. The company denied the accusation.
Trump Jr.’s wedding celebration with Bettina Anderson has brought fresh scrutiny of its own. Russian businessman Umar Kremlev, who has close ties to Vladimir Putin, reportedly bankrolled part of the celebration. Kremlev later claimed Trump Jr. had repaid the money. The revelation reportedly left the president furious with his son.
1789 Capital led a $1 billion Polymarket funding round this year, putting in about $300 million on top of roughly $200 million invested earlier. Trump Jr. advises both Kalshi and Polymarket. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is expected to chair the Senate Banking Committee, a platform to investigate conflicts involving the president’s family businesses.
The Crowd Went Quiet in Swanton
Trump Jr. spent the closing days of the campaign trying his hand as a Republican kingmaker, blitzing Ohio and New York on behalf of Republican candidates. Many of them lost.
He rallied voters in Swanton, Ohio, on Monday, Nov. 2, as part of Vance’s final push in his home state, backing gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Jon Husted. He walked out to Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold” and attacked Democrats over transgender issues, communism and socialism.
Then came the on-stage gaffe. “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 that had cheered his earlier lines went quiet, according to The Daily Beast.
The next night delivered the results. 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.
Five Words and Three Emoji
Vice President JD Vance offered a postmortem on the losses, writing, “The reason we lost is the war,” and Trump Jr. backed him with five words and three emoji the morning after the election. “Every word of this is 💯💯💯,” the repost read. It had drawn more than two million views by that afternoon.
In further comments shared by TheBlaze on X, Trump Jr. credited his father’s administration with record-low poverty and crime and a secure border, then said the war hit voters where they felt it. “The Iran war is largely what shifted voter sentiment and caused this. It spiked fuel prices and changed their minds,” he said. He called Republicans who deny the war’s role “disgusting, frankly.”
The president has not backed down. He told Fox News that people support his Iran policy but were not willing to accept the short-term cost of higher gasoline prices.
When Police Cleared the Quad
In a separate case at Emory University in Atlanta, authorities say officers arrested 28 people after a pro-Palestine encampment and displays went up on the quadrangle on April 25, 2024. Protesters cited support for the people of Palestine and 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, and the school asked the Atlanta Police Department and Georgia State Patrol for assistance. Officers used Tasers and pepper balls, handcuffed several people and loaded them into vans. A widely circulated social media video showed two women identifying themselves as professors being detained, one slammed to the ground. Emory President Gregory Fenves days later backtracked on the school’s initial claim that the activists were not connected with Emory, saying it was not fully accurate, and announced a university review.