Ronald Reagan’s Anti-Trump Son Flips, Praises POTUS

The son of former President Ronald Reagan, once a fiercely anti-Trump voice in the Republican Party, has suddenly come around.

Michael Reagan, 79, praised President Donald Trump in a series of recent social media posts, crediting his launch of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency with finding billions of dollars in wasteful spending that he said would have made his father proud. He also criticized Trump critics, who he claims have adopted a mawkish attitude about President Reagan’s legacy.

“FYI it is amazing that you all of a sudden support my father when for 8 yrs you treated him like you are treating Trump today,” he wrote in a post on X. “Give Trump time and get out of the way,” he added, noting: “Remember my dad ended up kicking your a**es.”

The sentiment by Reagan is all the more startling considering his sharp criticism of Trump after he became the GOP nominee in 2016.

“This most likely would be the 1st time if my father was alive that he would not support the nominee of the GOP,” Reagan wrote at the time, tagging then-Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus.

Reagan’s antipathy toward President Trump held through his first term and beyond. During the 2024 Republican primary, he called Trump’s decision to skip debates against his lesser opponents a “serious mistake that undermines the strength of the Republican Party.”

Ironically, he wrote in an op-ed at the time, “To me, what’s even more sad — and worrisome for the GOP’s chances in 2024 — is hearing Trump say he won’t promise to support whoever the party’s nominee is if it isn’t him.”

Today, however, the son of President Reagan appears to be giving President Trump much more leeway when it comes to implementing his MAGA agenda. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon shared a video of President Reagan criticizing tariffs against other nations, Michael Reagan clapped back in a post of his own, according to the Western Journal.

“Yes my father spoke about Tariffs when he was POTUS..that was 40yrs ago,it is different time with a different POTUS,for Gods sake quit using my father to bash Trump,” Reagan said on X.

Despite Trump and Reagan’s time on television and in movies, the similarities end there. President Trump’s control over the modern GOP has wrested away any vestige of a hold that Reagan ideologues held, and his populist positions on foreign affairs, illegal immigration, and domestic investments would be anathema to most 1980s-era Republicans.

As the divide between haves and have-nots across the U.S. has grown over that time, so too has bipartisan disdain and wariness of the governing elite, sentiments that President Trump eagerly tapped into on his way to a second term. He has generated deep support for much of his agenda, including the mass deportation of illegal immigrants and fervent negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Michael Reagan, for his part, finally appears eager to let bygones be bygones and pass the family torch.