Eric Trump

Eric Trump is one of Donald Trump’s sons. Reports suggest that if Trump were to win in 2024, Eric (along with his brother Don Jr.) would “focus on vetting potential officials and staffers for ideology and loyalty.” He is married to Lara Trump, who is the RNC co-chair and has promised to spend “every single penny” of RNC funds to elect Trump.

Eric Trump is a vocal 2020 presidential election denialist. He has repeatedly spread disinformation about the 2020 election, and he spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally in D.C. that preceded the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol. The House January 6th Committee subpoenaed and obtained Eric Trump’s phone records for his involvement in the insurrection.

After his father’s 2020 election defeat, Eric Trump retweeted a video that falsely claimed that roughly 80 Trump ballots were burned in Virginia. He also spoke at a news conference in Philadelphia and tried to cast doubt on the ongoing ballot counting in Pennsylvania, falsely claiming, “They’re not letting poll watchers watch the polls.” He also threatened senators and congress members to vote against election certification, stating, “I will personally work to defeat every single Republican Senator/Congressman who doesn’t stand up against this fraud - they will be primaried in their next election and they will lose.”

Following the insurrection, he liked a Tweet that suggested the violence inflicted on the Capitol was staged by Antifa and not Trump supporters. He would then later go on to tell a documentarian that inciting violence over the election was the “right thing to do.”

Eric Trump was a key advisor and fundraiser for his father’s 2016 presidential campaign, and during his father’s presidency his day job was with the Trump Organization. Still, when news broke that Donald Trump attempted to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to provide damaging information on Biden, Eric Trump tried to deflect by accusing Hunter Biden (Joe Biden’s son) of nepotism. He claimed that unlike Hunter Biden, the Trump family stopped doing international business deals. However, Politifact found that the Trump family did engage in international business dealings during Trump’s presidency and that even Eric Trump himself openly celebrated these international business activities.

In June 2017, news broke that Eric Trump’s foundation shifted money intended for cancer patients to Trumps’ businesses. More than $500,000 of the money donated for cancer patients “was re-donated to other charities, many of which were connected to Trump family members or interests, including at least four groups that subsequently paid to hold golf tournaments at Trump courses.” For example, according to one account in Forbes, more than $1.2 million of the charitable donations raised was paid to the Trump National Golf Club Westchester, but “Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.” In 2018, the New York Attorney General announced that “We’ve secured a stipulation requiring the Trump Foundation to dissolve under judicial supervision, with our review of recipient charities… The Foundation functioned as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s interests.”

He made numerous controversial statements during the Trump administration. For example, in May 2020, he appeared on Fox and suggested that the stay-at-home public health order during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic was a Democratic strategy to help elect Joe Biden, by preventing Donald Trump from holding large MAGA campaign rallies. He further claimed that the coronavirus would, “magically all of a sudden go away and disappear,” following the election. That did not happen, and more than one million Americans died from it.

Notably, during Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial, where he was found guilty of 34 felony counts, it was revealed that Eric Trump had signed some of the reimbursement checks paid to Michael Cohen, following the hush money payments Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels to buy her silence during the 2016 presidential election.