Eric Trump (born January 6, 1984), the second son of former President Donald Trump, has been in the news recently for what to me is a rather incongruous reason. Eric, who along with his older brother Donald Trump Jr. took over the reins of his father’s companies while he was president, was scheduled to give a speech on May 13 at a ReAwaken America Tour at one of his father’s hotels, the Trump National Doral in Miami. However, a few days before the event, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow took Eric Trump to task because some of the other speakers were known for espousing anti-Semitic sentiments, including far-right commentator Scott McKay—who has claimed that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by Jews, who he has said were also involved in the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy—as well as Charlie Ward, a Holocaust denier who has praised Hitler and peddled false claims about Jewish people being behind the outbreak of viruses.
On her Monday night program, Maddow expressed dismay that Eric Trump would associate with such people. “I can’t really believe they’re going ahead with it,” she said. Although McKay and Ward were dropped from the list of speakers, Eric Trump tweeted the next day that he would sue her or any other reporter who implied that he was an anti-Semite. “If she or anyone else even remotely suggests that I am anti-Semitic, I will not hesitate to take legal action against them personally,” he wrote. I immediately reached out to Eric and asked if he would be interested in speaking to me about that episode and address the insinuation that he was insensitive to anti-Semitism.
On May 30, Eric graciously welcomed me into his office on the 25th floor of Trump Tower. I was accompanied by Ushi Teitelbaum and Dalia Maidi from Ami, as well as by Ami’s photographer Dov Lanchevsky. Kimberly Beza from the Trump Organization, who helped coordinate the interview, was also present.
During the interview, which occurred just as the recent federal indictment over his father’s handling of classified government documents and obstruction of justice was looming, Eric Trump discussed what it is like living in the political arena with remarkable candor, describing the pressure his family has been under from the continuous allegations being made against his father as well as Trump-run businesses. At times, he seemed to be fighting back tears.
I knew I had to interview you after you felt the need to defend against the insinuation that you’re an anti-Semite, as I understand how hurtful such baseless accusations can be.
By now, we’ve been labeled just about everything. My brother-in-law Jared, along with my sister Ivanka, are a very big part of our lives. We are very close. When Laura and I got married in 2014, we asked Jared to be the one who officiated at the wedding. Of course, Jared is an Orthodox Jew, so it must be very anti-Semitic to ask an Orthodox Jew to officiate… It was very funny because we got married under a canopy of flowers that looked like a chuppah. I hope I said that right; I don’t get the “ch” sound right. People reported that we got married according to the Jewish faith. We didn’t, but we left it out there because we thought it was great. In fact, I’m going to their daughter’s bat mitzvah next week. I’ve been to more brisses and Sabbath dinners…
After your father announced that he was running for president in June of 2015, I met with your father’s then-real estate attorney, Jason Greenblatt, a Sabbath observer, here in Trump Tower. Jason told me wonderful things about your father, including how he urged him to go home early on Fridays even when he was in the middle of negotiating mega deals.
First of all, I must tell you that Jason is like a second father to me. I worked with him every day for 15 years. He’s a great man and someone who cares about people. I think he’d tell you that if you were to tour the floors here as well as those of the Trump Organization, you would meet many Orthodox Jews. I am very pro-Semitic, not the opposite.
Putting a deal in potential jeopardy because of your Jewish attorney’s Sabbath observance speaks volumes.
I’ll never forget when we were buying real estate in the Dominican Republic. Jason and I had been working on this deal for three months around the clock. The other side was coming in to sign everything, but they kept getting delayed. It was a Friday afternoon, right before the Sabbath, and Jason lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He said, “I have to leave,” but then he kept bumping it back because of the delays. Finally, he hopped into his car and left. He got to the George Washington Bridge—this was in the middle of the winter—and he parked his car, put on a jacket and gloves, and walked across the bridge to Fort Lee. For obvious reasons, I didn’t learn about this until Saturday night. Jason is a really great guy and my father cares about him dearly, as you know. My father brought him into the White House to do amazing things and he did, especially in the Middle East, as did Jared.
Whenever someone is accused of being anti-something, the only response is to say, “Look at my credentials.”
I was invited to speak at that conference. There were 100 people speaking there, and I was asked to deliver the keynote speech. Much of the conference was about religious freedom. They said that there was one speaker who was anti-something, but they attach that label to every person in the world. They label me all sorts of things too. Then there was a backlash—how dare Eric Trump speak at the same conference as this person!—as though I’m going to do background checks on 150 people I don’t know. I was only there to talk about my father’s accomplishments, not only in terms of the American economy, jobs and everything else, but there was also a lot that pertains to Israel and to religious freedom, which is really under attack in this country.
I don’t think it has ever been so difficult to be religious in the United States as it is today.
Religious liberty and expression were probably more under attack under Obama than at any time in the history of this country, and that includes all religions. My father was always disgusted and appalled by it, and frankly, a big part of his running for president was motivated by that. But he never wore it on his sleeve; he just wanted to do great things.
A large part of what I speak about is my father’s “war” on what they were trying to do to observers of every faith in this country. There was a war on religion in just about every forum during the Obama administration. Look at what they were trying to do to pastors who spoke out about political affiliation, or in terms of stripping religious organizations of 501(c)(3) non-profit status. It was an attempt to bully people. Typically, the people who were attacked and ostracized the most were the ones who weren’t on their team. That always upset my father, and those marginalized people were a big part of his Cabinet.
Every time I look at Donald Trump, he’s under attack, as are you and the Trump Organization. Do you feel as if you are living on the front lines of a war?
Yes. For the longest time, Saturday Night Live would parody me as a guy walking around with a fidget spinner, which is kind of ironic because I went to one of the best schools in the world and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I’m a relatively smart person, I hope to think. Despite that, they’ll parody you every single day. They’ll go after you, they’ll go after your family. It’s not that they really think you’re stupid; it’s that they think you’re effective, so they’re trying to take you out of the game. That’s how they work. How do I make your life so miserable that you don’t want to be part of the game anymore? Do I throw a bunch of civil lawsuits against you, which are all nonsense and cost so much money? They’re hoping you’ll say, “You know what? This politics thing just isn’t worth it. Let me get out so they’ll stop bothering me.”
You must have very thick skin.
You’d better, because if you’re going to allow it to affect you, you’re finished.
Do you ever have moments when you feel that you do want to get out of the game?
Truthfully, I think we like the punishment. If you didn’t somehow enjoy the fight in a twisted way, you couldn’t be in it. Make no mistake, it’s a game of chess, a really dirty, disgusting and nasty game of chess, and our country shouldn’t be run like this, but that’s what they try to do.
They thought they could hit Donald Trump so hard that they would break him, so that after his four years he would say, “You know what? I want to go back to Mar-a-Lago, I want to play golf, I want to hang out with my friends, I want to fly around in my beautiful private plane. I don’t need this nonsense.” So they decided to make up these scandals that he colluded with Putin, that he had secret servers, and that he was doing X, Y and Z. And when that didn’t work, they tried to impeach him again. And when that didn’t work, they started going after the Supreme Court justices. When that didn’t work, they started going after his kids. When that didn’t work, they started going after his younger children, Tiffany and Barron. When none of that stuck, they called the attorney general of New York and district attorneys in every radically leftist place—where women are being thrown in front of subway cars and little girls are being shot in the middle of Times Square—and said, “Go after Donald Trump and his company.” Hundreds of subpoenas and millions of documents later, they still don’t have anything. So what did they do? They said, “Let’s go after his CFO.” The CFO didn’t pay personal taxes on a corporate car, so let’s tell him, “Make up anything on Donald Trump and we’ll let you go.” He didn’t have anything to make up.
They try to destroy lives. They try to hurt you so badly that you’ll bow out of the fight. The problem is that this tactic would work with every other Republican. No disrespect; I’m not trying to talk bad about anyone, but DeSantis couldn’t last for 30 seconds in my father’s shoes. First, because he wouldn’t have the backbone to fight these people, which he proved when he said that “these are issues that don’t matter”—meaning the weaponization of district attorneys and attorney generals—and “I’m going to focus on the real issues.” But believe me, they would do the exact same things to him the second he took that number-one seat. He also doesn’t have the financial resources with which to defend himself against them.
The legal fees must be staggering.
The good thing about Donald Trump is that he had a couple of billion dollars behind his name so he could write checks for a couple of hundred million in legal fees, and it’s a rounding error to him. Any other political candidate would break. They break these people like cheap pencils. That’s why you always hear political candidates promising to go to Washington, DC, and change the system, but after they’re there for about two weeks people wonder why they suddenly got weak knees. That’s exactly why you need a Donald Trump. I think the toughest times call for the toughest individuals, and he’s a remarkably tough man. He has a heart of gold, he’s the best father in the world, but he’s also strict and has high expectations. These are the exact characteristics America needs.
Can you put some meat on the statement “best father in the world”?
He’s an incredibly loving person, which most people watching him on TV probably never see. He’s funny and smart, and he fills you with tremendous confidence. He also lets you sink or swim—which I think is very important—and he gives you the opportunity and mentors you in a very good way. He doesn’t micromanage. And he was always a very solid guy. Every day before school I would go into his room, and he would say—even from the age of five—“Eric, no drinking, no drugs, no smoking and no tattoos.” I’m five years old and thinking, What’s drinking? Does he mean apple juice? What are drugs? What is smoking? What are tattoos? These weren’t things I understood at that age, but he did that every day.
Then I went off to a great boarding school. I would call him at the office, and he would always answer regardless of who was there. I remember calling him one time while he was meeting with Mayor Giuliani. My father said, “Eric, say hi to the mayor.” “Mayor Giuliani, how are you, sir? It’s so wonderful to speak to you. We’re big fans.” He could be with the Clintons, he could be with the most important business team, he could be in the middle of negotiations with the debt holders of a bond or Atlantic City during 1991 [a difficult time for the Trump Organization], but if I called him, he picked up. That’s very different from a lot of parents, who will often put the world before their children. If I told that story to most people, I don’t think they’d recognize that as being Donald Trump. Most people don’t see him that way.
The other thing people find surprising is the fact that he doesn’t micromanage. We all got to see this when he allowed so many things to happen during his administration without needing to be directly involved at every stage. Let’s take the Abraham Accords as an example. Jared and his team operated with your father’s support, encouragement and advice, but he allowed them to do it without breathing down their necks and trying to claim all the credit. I know this because I had the opportunity to interview Jared and David Friedman about the Abraham Accords.
He has always taken the best people and slotted them into their respective roles—the roles they are passionate about—and let them work. One of the first buildings I ever built was Trump International in Las Vegas, which was the tallest building on the Strip: 64 stories, 1,282 rooms. I built every inch of that building. I was a young kid and didn’t really know what I was doing. Did he watch over me? Yes. I would call him to say, “We have a problem. We have this decision to make.” Then he would say, “Okay. What’s the decision?” It was very much sink or swim combined with hard work.
Throughout his career, he has always entrusted things to the people who care about them. Do you care enough about a problem to truly deal with it? Does it affect you emotionally? If you have a problem and it doesn’t go to your heart, then you don’t care. I remember seeing people with much greater pedigrees asking, “Why did this person get that job? It should have been mine.” The person who might not be as qualified and might not have that pedigree but has the passion will win every single time.
Many people believe that what your father accomplished in the Middle East was worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. I’d like to get your perspective on that.
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