Appearing on ABC News on Sunday, Eric Trump defended his father’s murky business dealings in response a New York Times’ article that revealed the president used his political position to create new, more lucrative forms of income through his hotels and golf courses.
According to the report, Trump reaped millions in exchange for favors toward hundreds of companies, lobbying groups and foreign leaders who stayed at Trump’s commercial properties.
However, Eric Trump came to the president’s defense claiming that his father “wakes up every morning to fight for you and fight the media.” He also claimed that his father “lost a fortune.”
“We’ve lost a fortune, my father’s lost a fortune running for president. He doesn’t care, he wanted to do what was right. The last thing I can tell you Donald Trump needs in the world is this job. He wakes up in the morning and he has to fight you and he has to fight the entire media. He has to fight the democrats and he gets punched in the head every single day,” Eric Trump told ABC “This Week’s” Jon Karl.
Karl quickly interjected, asking for a response that directly addressed the claims made by the Times. Eric Trump instead called into question Joe Biden’s finances.
“Go Google Biden’s house right now and tell me if you think that a person who’s been in government for 47 years can afford that mansion, on the water in Wilmington, Delaware,” Trump said. Both Biden and Harris released their tax returns right before the first presidential debate.
When Karl again asked Trump to address the Times article, the president’s son said, “We’re a hospitality company. We’ve got tens of millions of people staying at our properties every single year. The New York Times is absolute fake news. All they want to do is take down my father.”
Trump then went on to claim that the media in the U.S. has become an “activist arm for the Democratic Party.”
Karl responded, “Eric, we’re asking legitimate questions.
Eric Trump’s comments triggered an avalanche of mockery on social media.
Watch the video below and some of the reactions below:
NEW: “My father has lost a fortune,” Eric Trump tells @jonkarl when pressed on a NYT report that Pres. Trump turned “his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway’s new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign.” https://t.co/fsCP2um0H5 pic.twitter.com/MtZLiszs2K
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 11, 2020
We know. Trump “loses” a fortune every year. And then he writes it all off, on your backs. Meanwhile, he’s launderering criminals’ drug, arms, and human trafficking money through his properties. It’s all a sham. This house of cards is falling down. pic.twitter.com/iUbkc1tjfI
— WaterBluSky (@MsMariaT) October 11, 2020
Trumps are never capable of speaking, just screeching about crazy theories. They never answer a question. It’s why interviewing them goes nowhere.
— Alison Berkowitz (@aliberk65) October 11, 2020
The ticking time bomb is in his TAX RECORDS because why would he defend them so vigorously if there were nothing to find out? He's literally spent millions trying to keep them sealed.
— IN THE NICK OF TIME (@INTHENICKOFTIM4) October 11, 2020
Ok I watched this nonsense and all it did was give me a headache. Stop giving a platform to these fools and liars. They have nothing useful to say. From now on if anyone from the DJT organization is booked to be on the show, I’m out. 🙄
— Aunt Bunny (@Danette47313223) October 11, 2020
I just can't believe those Trump fools are being booked for the Sunday shows. They should be gone after the Elections. Eric Trump got nothing to construct his response from the new New York Times article on the Trump taxes late last week.
— Tobby Olumba (@tobbystweet) October 11, 2020
I believe Eric—trump has lost a fortune so he made the Presidency into a fund raiser. So Eric, since trump doesn’t need the job, we’ll help him out and not re-elect him. How about that?
— Liberal and Proud Of It (@TillisonDeborah) October 11, 2020
Truth hurts Trump because he has built his empire upon a foundation of lies, greed and stiffing those who worked for him. How did Eric's deposition go? Why can he not address the facts of the article? I am over the Family of Woe Is Me. Real, hardworking Americans are struggling.
— 𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕪𝔾𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕖𝕕 (@ghouled_merry) October 11, 2020
When the Trumps leave the White House there will be nothing to protect then from the rule of Law. They will be prosecuted for all their crimes.
— Kim Cunningham (@kcunn129comcast) October 11, 2020
Sure he has, but not while he has been president. He is a failure in many ventures, owes millions of dollars, & is essentially a leveraged brand running a con while sponging off the American people & siphoning money to his grifting children and billionaire enablers.
— FLAW AND ODOR (@randomp79734065) October 11, 2020
Eric is desperate, unable to answer the question. They gave out contracts and got NOTHING in return. They can’t even grift right. They expected to get away with it, but they’re going down so hard after this. Even McConnell has to disavow this level of incompetence & stupidity.
— Donnie Beenz (@DJAnder17996980) October 11, 2020
It’s the cocaine
— Granny gz’s (@MarleneMcAllis7) October 11, 2020