Donald Trump’s son has told Sky News that any momentum Kamala Harris has in the campaign is because the media has “put her on a fake pedestal”.
In a wide-ranging interview at the Trump International Scotland golf course outside Aberdeen, Eric Trump also spoke in detail about the assassination attempt against his father three weeks ago and defended JD Vance as the vice presidential pick.
On the momentum in the race, Eric Trump said: “Well, it depends on how you define the momentum, within the country, within the people of our country? No, the momentum is not [with Kamala Harris].
“You know, now all of a sudden she’s praised by media. When the media three weeks ago was mocking her, she’s praised as this kind of the second coming of politics. It’s pretty disingenuous, the entire thing.
“I think that the mainstream media in the United States has put her on a pedestal, it’s a fake pedestal. No different than the one they put Joe Biden on.”
Reflecting on the assassination attempt which he watched live on TV, Eric Trump said: “So I had my kids in my lap and my wife was in the room. And that’s when we heard the shots.
“You think the worst. It’s never good when you have blood coming out the side of you ear. In life that’s not a good thing. I mean, the chances of a bullet just grazing an ear? It probably defies statistics.
“You were about a quarter of an inch from that day being very different. And not just for myself, not just for our family, not just for, you know, the kids that were sitting on my lap but also for the western world, I really mean that.”
Donald Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents after the failed assassination attempt. Pic: AP
Asked about the extent to which the shooting had changed his father, he said: “I think that creates a humbleness in a person, absolutely.”
But he defended Donald Trump’s continued combative style.
“I think that probably puts what’s, you know, important in life in perspective. At the same time, he pops up by stage and what does he do? You know, ‘fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight’ – and I think that emboldened a lot of people… in the United States.”
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Eric Trump speaks days after assassination attempt on his father
Pressed on whether language like “fight, fight, fight” in an atmosphere of such dangerous divisiveness could stoke further division, he shot back: “That can’t be a serious question.”
“I mean, the guy’s just had a bullet put in his ear. And you want to talk about healing division? I mean, you know, respectfully, they just took a shot at him… you know, they try to end his life. They tried to take him out of all of our lives. They tried to change US history.”
He continued: “They did everything they could to try and take him out. Tried to ruin his reputation, tried to destroy his family, trying to separate his family, tried to bankrupt him, trying to imprison him. And then they tried to kill him.”
Pushed on his apparent attempt to conflate the judicial efforts to prosecute him and the attempt on his life by a lone gunman, Eric Trump said: “I can’t imagine the person that tried to shoot him in the head was a diehard Republican, by any means. But no, he’s a madman. No question about it, he’s a madman.”
Throwing the dangerous rhetoric back at the Democratic Party, he said: “Joe Biden, two days before my father had a bullet through his ear, put up a tweet saying we need to put a bullseye on Donald Trump.”
Eric, 40, is Donald Trump’s third child and is the executive vice president of The Trump Organization. He has taken a central role in his father’s campaign to return to the White House.
He dismissed his father’s comments this week about Kamala Harris’s heritage.
Donald Trump and his vice presidential candidate JD Vance. Pic: AP
Donald Trump falsely claimed on Wednesday that the vice president and Democratic nominee had emphasised her Asian-American heritage until “she became a black person”.
“I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black,” Trump senior said at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago.
“So I don’t know – Is she Indian? Or is she black?”
To that, Eric Trump said: “I don’t know what Kamala is. What I do know is that she is incompetent and she has done a horrible job.”
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Commenting on Donald Trump’s confirmation that he will debate Kamala Harris on Fox News in September, Eric questioned the point of the debate process.
“Sometimes I wonder, honestly, if he should. It’s a joke. So he goes in, he debates Joe, and then all of a sudden, you know, Joe does so poorly that he’s forced out of race. If he debates Kamala and she does a terrible job, as she will, because again, she hasn’t achieved anything and her policy is terrible, and frankly, she’s not a debater traditionally and never has been, are they just going to replace her?”
He doubled down on his father’s vice presidential pick, saying JD Vance was “an amazing guy”.
Last week, comments Mr Vance had made back in 2021 emerged in which he had said the country was being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too”.
Responding, Eric Trump said: “I don’t know what the kind of context was with this comment, you know, but do I think there are deranged people in this country? Yes. But I know nothing about the comment. What I think is, I think that JD would be a great vice president and what I know is that we’re going to win on November 5th.”