Donald Trump Jr keeps ghosting Australia and his fans are furious

Donald Trump Jr looks increasingly unlikely to visit Australia any time soon and ticketholders have been left in the dark by event organisers who are yet to reschedule the former US president’s eldest son’s repeatedly postponed tour dates.

With the Republican primaries for the 2024 US presidential election still underway, Trump Jr has been an active cog in his father’s political machine.

His schedule as his father’s most active political proxy is set to get only busier when Trump Sr is expected to clinch the nomination in the not-too-distant future, locking in a repeat of 2020’s showdown with Joe Biden. HIs role will be especially crucial to Trump’s reelection campaign as the former president juggles court dates for his several indictment charges. 

How this packed calendar will affect his speaking tour to Australia remains unclear as organiser for the “Donald Trump Jr Live” tour, Turning Point Australia, has gone silent on plans to bring him Down Under. 

Trump Jr was set to visit in July last year but cancelled at the last minute citing a delay in visa approval until just 24 hours before he was set to get on a plane. A second set of dates were delayed in September because of a “scheduling conflict”, and again in December just days before the event was set to take place. 

One ticketholder shared an email they received online in a petition calling for legal action against Trump Jr and Turning Point Australia: “Unfortunately, we find ourselves in the regrettable position of having to inform you that Don Jr’s tour will be postponed until early next year. The new dates for the tour are currently being finalised, and we expect to make an announcement next week regarding the updated schedule for 2024.”

However, since then there has been no new information provided to ticketholders. The ICC Sydney Theatre, which once published a statement from Turning Point Australia promising an update in “coming weeks”, no longer features the tour on its website. Ticketing purchasing platform Ticketek has taken down its web page for the event, and Ticketbud hasn’t updated its old December event.

Turning Point Australia once directed users to different places to buy tickets, but its domain for the event trumplive.com.au now shows a generic landing page that says “we appreciate your patience while we update the site”. The group, fronted by freedom movement figure Joel Jammal, has not posted on social media for two months either.

Multiple ticketholders have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to complain about not receiving refunds. “Hey Turning Point Australia, when you give the money back to the people who payed to see Donald Trump Jr.? How can this people trust you anymore?” posted one user in late December.

When contacted by Crikey, Jammal said the group is still figuring out Trump Jr’s and various venues’ availability. He said ticketing companies were to blame for delays in refunding, that Turning Point Australia doesn’t get the money from ticket sales until after the event, and that it was chasing up the companies for these ticketholders. 

“We will be making an announcement in February regarding this,” he said in an email.