A modest Eric Trump has stated that his father would not be president without his assistance.
The 41-year-old said retiring from his role as senior adviser to his political campaigns and returning to the family real estate development business cleared the way for the 79-year-old’s Donald Trump’s presidency.
“I called my father the morning of the election after we won… and I said, ‘Pops, I love you. I’m going back to the company. I’m going back to the people I love… I’ll run this side of life, and you do a great job for the country, and you won’t need to worry about anything over here,’” he told The Iced Coffee Hour podcast.
“I never thought I would have been a major player on that stage,” he added. “And I was, and arguably without me, my father couldn’t have done it, right? Because there would have been no one watching over the actual company, and that was everything he had ever built, everything he ever created.”
Trump, who is executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said there was still a slight chance he could return to politics, citing something his father used to say.
“He had an answer back in the 80s, which is if it ever got so bad that we had no other choice I would do it and that would probably be my answer as well.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
He claimed to have seen the “best and worst” of politics from the inside, including two failed assassination attempts on his father’s life.
“I’ve seen how they can try and destroy a family for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I see how they can lash out and try and imprison you and bankrupt you and then kill you as they did to my father twice.”
Like his father, Eric revealed he is nocturnally-challenged. “We run a very big company and work very hard and don’t sleep a whole lot and always get interrupted, whatever I’m doing,” he said.
“That’s fine, right? It’s the life I love and it’s life I enjoyed and I think if I ever had free time I’d probably be miserable and incredibly bored… My grandfather had this great expression, ‘To retire is to expire,’ and I think we’re all built that way.”
“I like to run hard in everything I do,” he added. “I think what actually gets compacted in my life is actually probably sleep, but that’s okay. We operate on very little sleep anyway.”
Trump is in the middle of promoting his book Under Siege, which his father has plugged shamelessly on his Truth Social account.
He was also drawn into an embarrassing hot mic moment between his father and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto this month that seemed to confirm they were discussing family business matters.
In footage obtained by Reuters, Subianto could be heard asking Trump during the president’s visit to Egyptian city Sharm el-Sheikh on Oct. 13, “Can I meet Eric?”
“I’ll have Eric call. Should I do that? He’s such a good boy, I’ll have Eric call,” Trump replied.
Speaking to CNN after the incident, Eric Trump said he had not heard from the Indonesian president and had never met him, then awkwardly referenced his father’s quote, adding, “I’m glad he acknowledges I’m a good boy. I am a good boy.”
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