Trump children paint personal portrait of supportive father

CLEVELAND, July 19 (UPI) -- Two of Donald Trump's children offered personal endorsements and anecdotes about growing up in a prominent family while addressing the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.

Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and his youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump, both spoke glowingly about their father, painting a picture of a kind and supportive parent who, despite their family's wealth, encouraged them to get a real-world education in the values of hard work and determination.

Calling his father a man "who changed the skyline of New York," Trump Jr., said the determination his father has brought to the business world will translate into change in American government.

"We're still Americans, we're still one country, and we're going to get it back," Trump Jr., said.

He spoke of his father's insistence on spending time on actual construction sites, rather than in corporate offices.

"He spent his career with regular Americans on work sites, pouring concrete and hanging sheet rock. He's promoted people based on their character, their street smarts and their accomplishment," he said.

He added Trump insisted his children do the same, learning the family business from the ground up from regular workers, not from professors at business schools.

"We didn't learn from MBAs, we learned from people with doctorates in common sense. It's why we're the only children of a billionaire as comfortable in the cab of a D-10 Caterpillar as we are in our own cars," he said.

Tiffany Trump, a recent college graduate, has cut the least public figure of Trump's adult children. Speaking to most Americans for the first time, she said she reveled in introducing friends to her father because he regularly defied expectations of the brash persona he displays on television.

"In person, my father is so friendly, so considerate, so funny and so real my friends walk away with a glimpse of all that he is," she said.

She lauded her father as encouraging of not just results but intentions, saying she saved report cards dating back to kindergarten for the supporting notes he left on them about the positive comments teachers made of her.

"My dad is a natural born encourager, the last person who will ever tell you to lower your sights or give up on your dreams," she said.

While Tiffany Trump avoided any partisan attacks, Trump Jr., reveled in them, assailing Hillary Clinton as someone who "would be the first president who couldn't pass a basic background check."

He criticized Democratic positions on education as too slanted toward protecting teachers at the cost of students and failing to address a worsening security situation across the globe.

"The other party is the party of risk. When we have weak leaders in positions of power, Americans risking their lives for our freedoms are less safe," he said.