Eric Trump: The Left tried to destroy us, they wanted my father dead

0:28The Telegraph

0:40Eric, let me begin by saying this is an important book. It's an important book because we all think we know Donald Trump and we all think we know the Trump family, but we don't really. We see them through the lens and the prism of the media and of politics. And what you've done is given us a perspective on that family that we wouldn't otherwise get. And I think it's one of the, I honestly think it's one of the most honest perspectives that I've seen in a book of this nature. And I want to begin with an event that we all know very well, but your take on it will be unique. And that, if I can take you back to July the 13th, 2024, Donald Trump was speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania.

1:18You were watching it at home with your wife, Lara, and with your two children, Luke and Carolina. And of course, the president was shot. What was that moment like? How did you react? It was horrible. I mean, I very well, you know, could have been at that rally. Yeah, I was sitting there. I had two kids on my lap. I was working on the email and I heard the shots. And I talked about a lot in the book. I've done a lot of competitive shooting. It's been a big part of my life. And I instantly knew what that sound was. And I mean, I jumped up. I think my face was probably two inches away from the TV screen.

1:50I'm trying to see if I can see, you know uh chest wounds of any sort obviously is wearing a dark suit so if if there was blood you probably wouldn't see it under under a dark blue suit and obviously we saw blood on his face and you know on his hands and you know coming down the side of his face and i you know i knew every single person on that stage every one of those secret service agents they're all friends of mine many of them were on my detail the female was on my detail for a three-year period of time the other two guys in the back i know extremely well and sean who ran my father's detail i knew extremely well and you know and they're sitting on top of a person i love more than anybody and there's nothing you can do.

2:23You're powerless, right? And I don't think type A people like to be powerless. I would have done anything I could have to be there at that moment. And it was horrible. I'll never forget it. But I picked the name Under Siege for this book long before Butler because of what they did to our family. I mean, they made up the Russia hoax, which was just made up lies, right? You have secret servers in the basement of your Trump Tower communicating with the Kremlin. It was all made up. It was to help Hillary Clinton win. And then they impeached my father the first time. The second time, they went after every Supreme Court justice.

2:55They took us off of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. They did everything they could to silence our voice in this country. They put gag order after gag order. I became the most subpoenaed person in American history for doing nothing wrong, for doing nothing wrong other than the fact that I was the person who ran the Trump Organization, which was a namesake to everything my father had ever built. They removed us from the ballots of Colorado. They removed us from the ballots in Maine. They raided our home. They raided Mar-a-Lago. They raided Melania's room. They raided Barron's room. They weaponized every district attorney and every attorney general in the country to come after us.

3:29And that's just a few of the things. I mean, they leaked all of our tax returns, my tax returns, my father's tax returns, all of our corporate employees' tax returns. The IRS leaked all of those to the New York Times. They did everything they could to cancel us and bankrupt us. And that was a siege that I had just started writing about when I named this book under siege. And then I see my father, you know, bleeding from the face on the ground covered with secret service agents. I'll never quite forget it. But they wanted him off that stage. They wanted me off of that stage. They wanted the conservative movement in America.

4:01They wanted us dead. And then you saw that they tried to kill him, obviously, eight weeks later. Then you saw what they did to Charlie Kirk, you know, who is a dear friend of mine. This was the siege. They did everything they could. I mean, you know, I know most of the major banking CEOs in this country. And you had you literally had government officials calling them up and saying, debank the Trump organization. If you bank them, you know, we regulate you. We're not going to take it kindly. They did everything they could. And then obviously, you know this better than anybody because you've reported on extremely well.

4:31But, you know, the government was working with Twitter to to censor us. Right. The government was working with Twitter to to claim that, you know, Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation. You know, the government was getting intel officers from the CIA to write the fact that Hunter's laptop was all Russian disinformation. It was all a coordinated siege against our family. They wanted him off that stage. They wanted him in prison. They wanted him voiceless. That's the whole point of the deplatforming and the gag orders. They certainly wanted the same for me. I'm not going to say that Joe Biden ordered a hit on my father.

5:08That's not at all what I'm trying to convey here. but clearly their party, you know, I mean, they had espoused violence over and over and over. I mean, you had Democratic senators who literally called for my father to no longer have Secret Service protection, right? I mean, if you didn't want to see somebody hurt, why would you say that, you know, the most famous person on earth should lose their Secret Service protection, as certain Democratic senators were trying to do? So yeah, there's no question that many of them wanted violence on my father. So the Biden administration might not have put a hit on your father, but it encouraged people to view him violently and then exposed him to danger.

5:46Oh, well, they've done that every day. I mean, since my father came down the escalator, they've called him a fascist. He's far from fascist. He's like the least, you know, they've called him anti-Semitic. Isn't that ironic? Like he's got a Jewish daughter and he's been the greatest thing that's ever happened to, you know, to Israel. They've called him sexist. I mean, isn't that ironic? His first campaign manager was a woman, the first time in American history. You know, we won in 2016. His second campaign manager in 2024, guess who it was? Susie Wiles, also a woman, I mean, kind of dispelled it.

6:10They called him racist. And yet you had the biggest African-American turnout in the history of the country for a Republican, because, you know, they didn't like the mugshot. They didn't like a lot of things, but they certainly didn't like the mugshot, you know, and all the ways that he was getting attacked him. And so, but, but, but I think the frustration that I have with Butler is as follows. First of all, as a competitive shooter to allow somebody on a rooftop at 130 yards with a modern scoped rifle is unfreaking acceptable, right? Let's just start there. It's unacceptable. My eight-year-old son will make that shot 100 out of 100 times.

6:39It's like, you know, that's like, you know, Colin Montgomery missing a four, you know, a four-inch putt. Like, he'll never, ever, ever do it. Tiger Woods missing a six-inch putt. He'll never miss that shot. So that's the first unacceptable thing. Second of all, there's a lot of people in this country that are really frustrated. We don't know anything about this guy. We don't know anything about this guy. We have one picture of the person. The kid looked like he was a prepubescent 14-year-old. And this is the person that tried to literally change, you know, the face of democracy in the largest superpower anywhere in the world to try to exterminate a president.

7:10You know, it blow off his head and we know nothing about this kid. They were able to break into the phones of every single January 6th protester, you know, grandmothers who were walking through a Capitol taking selfies, causing no harm, causing no damage. But yet, you know, they couldn't get into the phones of a guy who literally tried to assassinate a president. I am wholly unsatisfied with where we are and the answers to who this person was and who he was talking to and how he got on that roof and how he was able to get a shot off and how all of this happened and how I almost lost my father in the process.

7:44I am wholly unsatisfied with that response. Okay. Well, let's talk more about your father as you know him so that people can understand him better. You were born in 1984 in New York City. You had a brother, Don Jr., a sister, Ivanka. Were you the tallest before Baron came along? Yeah, I was definitely the tallest. And now I know this word isn't exactly politically correct, him, but now I'm like the family midget because, you know, Baron's about 6 '9". I'm 6 '5", right? I'm a seriously tall guy, right? I mean, I very, very, very rarely look eye to eye with somebody. Normally, I'm looking down. With Baron, I think he caught me when he was 15.

8:23He's tall. He might even be too tall. To quote the president, you have great genes. You say this in the book of your father. He's tough, no bullshit, and beautifully ambitious. He also has a heart of gold and is the greatest father a son or daughter could ever have. So what was he like as a father? The greatest. I mean, just truly the greatest. And it was such a unique childhood. I talk about it a lot in the book, but But listen, it wasn't it wasn't wiffle ball in the backyard every night. You know, I was flying to Atlantic City on on helicopters every weekend with Michael Jackson and with, you know, Don King and with Mike Tyson.

8:58And, you know, the biggest celebrities, Lenny Kravitz of the world and the Barbara Walters of the world and everybody you could possibly imagine. I mean, I grew up following him around casinos. And but yet, you know, as spoiled as we were in that sense, you know, living the top of Trump Tower and, you know, having Mar-a-Lago as our second home. he expected us to work. There was no nonsense. There was no fluff. He put us on construction sites at the age of 11. We were making minimum wage. I was running conduit. I was pouring concrete. I was doing stone work. I was doing plumbing work. I was doing HVAC work.

9:31I was cutting down trees, chainsaws, running big equipment from a very early age, likely maybe too early, meaning thinking back, it was almost borderline. Today in our soft society, Tim, They would probably call it borderline negligence and abuse. It was the best thing that ever happened to us. And it did a couple of things. It taught us the value of a dollar. It taught us really the foundation of what my industry is, which is hard assets. And you know so many of our hard assets with Turnberry just north of you. I built every inch of Turnberry. I built every inch of Trump Aberdeen. But the last thing it did is it made you tired.

10:08And I'm convinced that the worst thing that you can give to type A children is time and money. Don't give them time because they'll figure out something, you know, a way to cause trouble because they're kids and they're stupid. And, you know, and they've got a lot of testosterone and, you know, they probably are overly ambitious. And if you give them money, that just compounds that problem. And I can tell you among my peer group of friends, I don't have many that haven't been through rehab, that haven't fallen into drugs and serious drinking and a lot of other bad habits. And none of his five kids ever went down that path.

10:41You say in the book, another great quote, for as long as I can remember, every morning started the same way. Before heading out to school, I would make my way to my father's bedroom and kiss him goodbye. As I was leaving, he would always end by saying, no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, and remember, never trust anyone. Based on the life that we lived, it's probably a great advice. And I remember I was six years old. I'm saying, what's drinking, right? You don't fully understand it. What's smoking? You don't fully understand it. What are drugs? You don't really fully understand that concept at that age.

11:12But they're not trusting as well. What did he mean by don't trust people? That was an interesting time in his life. If you've ever read the book, The Art of the Comeback, that was really the comeback days where he was billions of dollars into debt. He had every banker that was breathing down his throat. They were trying to take the company away from him. This was the very early 90s, late 80s, very early 90s in New York City where interest rates went to 20 plus percent, every developer failed. I mean, every developer went bankrupt and went bust. And he fought and he fought and he fought. And, you know, there are many times where people tried to take everything he had ever earned, everything he had ever built.

11:52You know, he was in the fight of his life. And I think naturally, there's probably a lot of cynicism. And, you know, it's probably the greatest lesson that we've had, right? You know, be careful, be careful. And, you know, it's funny going into politics, I can't tell you how many great friends that were on that stage before. Before we stepped on the political stage, right? They were our best friends. The second we touched that stage, they were nowhere to be found. I mean, NBC is a great example of it, right? We saved NBC. My father saved NBC with The Apprentice, right? They were begging him for another contract.

12:20They loved him. He was friends with everybody. I was friends with everybody. I was on seven seasons of it. The second he touches that escalator, goes down to the bottom, it's like NBC never even met my father before. They just, they turned like that. And I can't tell you how many people in our lives were the same. And so being a little bit reluctant to have full trust in people, especially before you go through those terrible moments of your life where you become divisive just because you get into politics. One of those people, you say in the book that even people who shared our last name have betrayed us.

12:52And that's a reference, of course, to Mary Trump, the president's niece. Yeah, that's right. I mean, listen, Mary Trump wrote a 300 something page book, very long book. You know, you can pull up the title on it. I mean, if I've met Mary Trump four times in my entire adult life, I'd be shocked, right? Like, I don't, I don't know her, right? Kind of distant family member. I only remember one time I've actually seen her in my in my adult life. You know, yet she writes a profile about, you know, our character and our personalities. You know, I mean, I know I know the FedEx guy that delivers packages to my house substantially better than I know Mary Trump.

13:29I wouldn't have her cell phone number. You know, and yet I get I get to read a dissertation about who I am and who my father is. And, you know, it's it's it's a joke. And, you know, I think it's one of the reasons I wrote this book. And it's one of the reasons I was just so damn honest. And by the way, Tim, it really means the world that you you read it. I think, you know, I didn't hold back. And, you know, I think, you know, I didn't mince words. And I didn't sugarcoat anything. I didn't sugarcoat it. And I got sick and tired of seeing people who didn't know us, who weren't involved in things, who weren't involved in the campaign, all of a sudden write these long books, you know, seeded, by the way, by, you know, some of the big publishers who would give people, you know, lots of money to write anything that was negative about my father.

14:09And I had to correct the record. And I had to do so from a son. I had to do so as a person who was on that stage every single day. I had to do so as a person who was raised by him. And I think the people of the world and the American people in time can judge those books against mine. Yeah. I mean, you say in the book that if you ever called as a child, he would pick up the phone. If he was having a business meeting, he didn't mind you playing on the floor while he was talking to people. He was affectionate. Every time. I mean, I would call up. It didn't matter if now King Charles, but, you know, obviously we, we, we knew him, we've known him for many years and we knew so many, it didn't matter if, if, you know, he was on the phone.

14:48It didn't matter if Rudy Giuliani was on the phone. I can't tell you how many times I'd call in, I'd call in from school, you know, hi dad, how are you? You know, say, say hello to Mr. You know, say hello to mayor Giuliani. Hello, mayor Giuliani. You know, I'm a big fan of yours. It's, it's, it's so nice to speak to you. And no, there was, it didn't matter where we were. I mean, And I called my father the second he got off the last debate stage. And I mean, he had just walked behind the curtain and he picked up the phone instantaneously. I called him the second he hit the hospital at Butler. And actually, he called me from Butler.

15:19But within two minutes of him getting to the hospital room and didn't matter where he was, he was always available to his kids. This was not like, you know, I'll see you tonight at nine o 'clock when I get home from the office and don't bother me until then. So it was a different type of childhood. It wasn't it wasn't T-ball in the backyard. The guy was running a massive empire and working like crazy and working seven days a week. You know, but he was there for his kids in ways that people could never comprehend. You point out that your father has never had a parking ticket in his life, and that he's also never had a drink in his life, I believe.

15:53And of course, tragically, his brother died of an alcohol related problem. And you yourself suggest in the book, this is what I'm saying about this being, I think, sometimes a surprisingly frank book. You say that maybe that history, you imply that maybe that history of alcoholism in the family is one reason why the family's a little more careful than others about their private behavior. Yeah, there's no question about it. I mean, there's no question about it. And I lost, you know, I told a story in the book that I've never told before, and that was about my mother. My mother was an amazing woman.

16:22In fact, she knew you guys so well, your outlets so well. My mother had a place in London. I spent a tremendous amount of time there when I was, you know, a kid. We should say this is Ivana Trump businesswoman, skier, talented designer, and your mother. Sorry, carry on. Yeah, and my mother. And listen, she was on the front page of the Vogue's and the Esquires and every publication over there, including yours, hundreds and hundreds of times. There was no better fashion icon in the world than my mother. There was no better businesswoman. There was no better athlete. I mean, she did it all. She was Claudia Schiffer, Lindsey Vonn, and I mean, all combined into one.

17:01She was a really amazing woman, but she fell way too early to alcoholism. I saw it. I saw the downward progression later on in her life, and I found her dead body in her house in a puddle of blood. I go into pretty great detail in the book about that whole experience. It's a story I've never told really outside of this book. You took it upon yourself to clean up, which I think is remarkable. I think that's a responsibility of a son. But back to alcoholism, we saw it on both sides our family. We certainly saw it on my mom's side and we saw it on my father's side. And I think that's one of the reasons, you know, I mean, my father was really, really influenced by the death of his brother, who was, you know, he always talks about him being the best looking guy he's ever met.

17:43And he loved his brother and he just fell to something that plagued so many people. Your mother is my favorite character in the book. I would love to have met her from the way you describe her. And I want to give one story that you tell, quote, my high school graduation happened to be on the same week as the Monte Carlo Grand Prix, which is a very big deal to Europeans. When I told her the date of the ceremony, she replied, Eric, no fricking way. Sorry, every moron graduates high school. I'm not missing Monte Carlo." I was worried about putting that story in the book. I'm so pleased you did. It's brilliant.

18:17Honestly, it became one of the favorite stories in the book. And by the way, she didn't use the word fricking, just so you know, she used the word that was slightly worse than that. And no effing way am I missing the Monte Carlo Grand Prix, every effing moron graduates high school. And by the way, I could have graduated MIT with a doctorate degree in neurosciences. And by the way, I would have gotten the same thing. Every freaking moron graduates from MIT with a PhD. But that was her. She was just honest, right? She was one of these women. And by the way, It made me actually love her more, as crazy as that is, right?

18:52You have parents that come do that kind of stuff out of meanness. That was just so true to my mom and who she was. I mean, she could give you the greatest hug and absolutely love and adore you. And she could also tell you, too effing bad, get over it. And I heard those words all the time. I mean, this was old school Czech discipline, right? She was from Czechoslovakia originally. She was pretty much almost an Olympic skier. if we didn't have manners, you had two fake nails in your throat and you felt the hand go back and forth across your face. And now that's not acceptable in either your society or ours.

19:28You do say that she frequently spanked you. Oh, she spanked the hell out of us. And honestly, as un-PC as it is today, I can tell you, it absolutely worked. She only needed to look at us. There was a certain point she only had look at us where it's like, okay, she's serious and it's coming, we're about to get it. And we were always great kids. We never - Did your father ever have to discipline you that way? Or was it just your mom? No, listen, I think it was a really bad day if we had to get past our mother to him. If we had to get through that war and then we got to him, it was going to be real hell to pay.

20:08But he was strict in a different way. He had very, very, very high expectations for us in terms of manners, in terms of grades, in terms of achievement, in terms of never sitting still, not being lazy, fighting for the things that you believe in. And there were no Ferraris in our family at 16 years old, right? There were construction sites and sledgehammers. Come 2011, 2012, the family is hugely successful. As you say, he is a TV star, thanks to The Apprentice, as are you at that point. You, your brother and your sister are also stars on that show. One of the great mysteries of life is why Donald Trump ever ran for the presidency when he knew he would have to jeopardize all of this.

20:47And I sense that you help us with that question by talking about the 2011 White House press correspondence dinner. This is when Barack Obama famously joked about Donald Trump and the future president did not look happy during that. Is that a turning point? Yeah, I think psychologically it was, whether it was realized at the time. I mean, I remember I was sitting there and And Barack Obama was a community organizer in this country that went from community organizer to owning the largest house on Martha's Vineyard. My father has achieved a thousand times more than Barack Obama could have ever imagined achieving.

21:22I mean, my father built entire skylines of the biggest cities in the world. He's arguably one of the greatest real estate people in history. what he was able to build and what he was able to develop, not just in hotels, not just in residential, but in commercial and golf. You know, that runs in our blood. There's no one better at construction. And then you go over and you take that to a show that ran for 14 seasons. I mean, Apprentice is probably the most successful reality TV show ever. Right. You know, everything he ever touched turned to gold and he was remarkable. And so, you know, he sees this guy, you know, who's, you know, who is doing everything wrong in this country, getting everything wrong, making every incorrect decision for this nation, sitting there poking fun at The Apprentice.

22:08There's no question that in a certain way that was a catalyst that said, oh, I'll show you people. And by the way, he did. He did. I mean, he self-funded his whole campaign. We won against Hillary Clinton, right, at a five to one financial deficit. I mean, she raised$1.5 billion. We self-funded our campaign. We didn't know what the hell we were doing in politics. And we went on. We spoke from the heart. And it was one of the resounding victories ever. And one thing you bring out, which again, is a very interesting perspective, is how on the campaign trail or in his business life, Donald Trump would always go directly to people.

22:41He wouldn't speak through managers. So if he was campaigning, he'd speak to the crowds. He wouldn't try and win the endorsement of the local person. I think that's a really interesting... That's what really marks him out as different in so many ways from Washington Insiders. No, he would try and win the endorsement of the local person. what he wouldn't do is he wouldn't go to a campaign manager who is responsible for a state. Hey, how are we doing? I mean, he might ask that question, but you know what he'd do? He'd go to the campaign staffer who was out there putting signs on every single freeway, knocking on every door.

23:12Hey, what are you hearing? What are you seeing? He'd do the same in the business world. I'll never forget it. He would never go to the guy who owned the electrical company. He would go to the guy who was installing the electrical outlet in the wall. Hey, how are we doing? Are we on time? Are we on schedule? No, sir, we're not on schedule. We're weeks behind. You know, we haven't been getting materials. They haven't been giving us the labor that we need. Now, obviously, the guy who owns the company, yes, sir, of course, sir, we're on time. We've got a great team out there. We're servicing you very well every day.

23:39He never wanted to listen to that voice. He wanted to listen to the voice of the actual doers. And that's what's made my father amazing. I mean, in this country, when we had the border problem, because, you know, we were doing, guess what? You go talk to the rank and file, you know, border agents. What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? And he was doing the same thing in the military, right? The military commanders would tell every president of this country everything that they wanted to hear. And then he'd grab one of the special forces, you know, what are we doing wrong, sir? They're putting handcuffs on us every day.

24:07You know, they're holding us back. They won't let us do the job. Those were the guys he loved. And those were the people he always entrusted to actually do the job. He would always grab those guys and be like, you're in charge. You know, you, like the guy doing the dirty work, you're the guy in charge. Like, you go win the war. You go build the project. You go seal the border. He was always excellent with that. Yeah, you mention in the book that when he first entered the White House, generals would call him in the middle of the night and say, am I allowed to do X? And after a while, he began to say to them, it's your job.

24:38Go away and do X. I trust you. That delegation is very interesting. Again, it's not what one might expect. It's not about being power hungry and just putting everything in the White House and doing everything out of the Oval Office. It's also about trusting people to go and do their jobs. Well, he told me that story. I mean, it was like one of the first weeks when he was in 2017. It's like every night I'm getting a call. You know, hey, sir, we found this person. Do we have permission to go do X, Y, and Z? And, you know, first night I was like, sure. And the second time I was like, hey, where did you go to school?

25:09You know, sir, I went to West Point. I went to the Naval Academy. Pretty smart guy, right? If you call and make a recommendation to me, I'm not going to turn you down. Go take care of business. I have your back. The difference is the presidents in the past never had the military's back. Somebody would make a decision, and then all of a sudden, it would be second guess from Washington, D.C. He did the exact opposite. It's, listen, I have faith in you. Get the job done. You get the job done. You're remarkably smart. You don't need to be calling me from the other side of the world at 3 o 'clock in the morning and wasting valuable time.

25:39when by the time you get in touch, get the phone signals and secured lines and everything all the way back to Washington, DC, you could have already had the guy. And hence the reason, in the last 18 months of my father's presidency, you didn't have a single fatality in Afghanistan. And then guess what? Joe Biden comes along and the place goes to hell and you have the botched withdrawal and everything else. My father has been an incredible leader in that regard. He's also done some things which some Americans find very controversial. And I have to say that reading the book, you might come up with the impression that he was just a very, very good president, that there wasn't some things he did which there might be legitimate anger about.

26:18I mean, for example, he appointed the justices that led to Roe v. Wade being removed, right? Some of the pushback that you got, some of the siege that you found yourself under, is there a part of you that thinks, OK, that's because dad was doing some controversial things? Well, listen, I mean, I don't dive into kind of social issues because they're complicated as hell. They're complicated as hell, and they're different for a lot of people, right? And I think a huge segment of the American population was massively in favor of that, right? I mean, let's just be honest. That is an issue over here that there are issues on this side of the pond that aren't nearly as pertinent on your side of the pond.

27:01I mean, let me give you one example, free speech. Right. What's what's happening right now in the UK. And this is a person I mean, I've been to the UK 300 times. I mean, I've built massive projects there. I know I know the country as well as anyone. What's happening to you guys in the UK on freedom of speech, where you voice your opinion and all of a sudden some judge throws you in jail is like insane. Right. And yet on this side of the pond, like, you know, freedom of speech is is an absolute right. The reason is our First Amendment right in America is because we believed it was the most important.

27:32But in this country, you might say it was controversial or it didn't go over well. That was hugely popular among so much of the country, especially when you had Democrats on the other side of the aisle who were advocating for late-term abortion, i.e., a child is about to come out in the nine months and you just go in and kill the baby. or the abortion of a child after birth, after consulting with your doctors, as we're literally being advocated by many Democrats, which is insane, which is absolutely insane. I take that point. My point is that some of the siege that you faced, and I understand why it was very personal and distressing, can you accept that some of it was just people legitimately disagreeing with your father's policies and using every lever available, as people generally do in politics in order to push back?

28:25No, no, no. Hold on one second. I mean, there are politics and there is peaceful discourse, right? Over the fact that two people might disagree on abortion. People might disagree on gun rights. People might disagree on the limitations of freedom of speech, right? People can have these disagreements on either side and they can do so and they can debate certain things. And whoever wins that debate and the populace ultimately wins. That's different than raiding somebody's house. That's different than subpoenaing their children with the intent to literally try and bankrupt a company. That's different than calling every financial institution and telling them to debank a person.

29:02That's different than making up dirty dossiers where saying that there were golden you-know-whats happening with prostitution when it was totally fabricated and paid by the opposition. That's different than saying that there were secret servers in the basement of a building communicating with the Kremlin when we don't know a damn person in the Kremlin. We don't know anybody in Russia. We had nothing to do with Russia. That's different than having people take him off the ballot in states so that democracy could not prevail in those states. That's different than calling every attorney general and district attorney in the country to indict somebody for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

29:37All of those indictments we've since overturned. Right. That's criminal type behavior. That's not democracy. That's not the debate of ideas where people can have different perspective. I believe - I might correct you. That's criminal conduct. You personally have been subpoenaed 112 times. The most in American history, having done nothing wrong only because I was the proxy to my father. My father had constitutional protections when he was in the executive branch. I had no protections afforded to me. And guess who they came after relentlessly? Now, they didn't go after Hunter Biden, who had pictures of prostitution, who had pictures of massive illicit drug use, who had shady deals all over the world, right?

30:21The laptop from hell. They weren't giving that guy a hard time, right? But yet a guy who tucks his kids in bed at 8.45 every night, says a little prayer to them every night, has never gotten so much as a speeding ticket. They tried to destroy my life. They tried to destroy my father. They tried to bankrupt us. They tried to take our voice. They tried to gag order us. They wanted us gone. They wanted us irrelevant. And they certainly wanted my father dead.

30:55How much did your faith sustain you? I note from the book that I believe your children were both baptized in the White House. Yeah, from what we've been told, it was the first time ever. First time ever, two children are baptized. And those are special moments for us. Faith played a big role in this, a huge role in this. There's no question that God was looking down. There's no way we would have beaten Hillary Clinton if it wasn't. And Tim, we didn't know a damn thing about politics. We didn't have anybody endorsing us. It was literally my father, Don, and I, and then my wife, Laura, a little bit later on, who was out there every single day on the campaign trail fighting.

31:31We didn't know what the hell we were doing. I didn't know anything about illegal immigration. I built golf courses as a skyscraper. And again, we were going up against the greatest political dynasty probably in the last century in America, which was the Clintons, you better believe the hand of God was on his shoulder. And you better believe that day in Butler, Pennsylvania, when my father turned at the last second, the hand of God was on his shoulder. And you better believe when that American flag that was right above my father's head at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, right after he got shot, folded up in the perfect form of an angel.

32:03It's not statistics. It defies statistics. And I'm a believe that somebody was watching over my father in a real way and guiding him in a real way. I've sensed in what your father has been saying a shift in his relationship with God too. He just seems to talk about him more and reflect upon him more. Is that true? Do you think that the president has, his faith has grown since the assassination attempt that he's gotten closer to God? Yeah, there's no question. But you know, also my father's never been one of these kind of fake politicians who just tries to wear God on his sleeve, you know, for the purpose of a couple other, you know, extra votes.

32:41And by the way, in this country and in Europe, there are plenty of people who try and do that. I mean, he's always had his relationship with God. And, you know, sometimes God puts the most unusual people into certain tasks. And I truly believe he did that with my father, right? You know, I mean, he was my father was designed for this moment. You asked the question before, which is why, like, you live such a great life, you have, you know, Trump force one, you have Mar-a-Lago, you have all the greatest golf courses in the world. Again, many over on your side of the pond, you know why? Like you knew how much this was going to cost you.

33:11You didn't know how brutal it was going to be in terms of the prosecution, but you knew what it was going to cost. And, you know, I think I think maybe that was maybe that was God that led him there. And it was a very unlikely series of events that got him from where he started to where he is today. You know, both in terms of obviously 2016 and then having to redo it again for 2024. four. And what's interesting, Tim, is if you look at 2020 and what happened there, the break, I can't tell you how devastating that was to us at the time. We won that election. No one in this country believes that Joe Biden got 16 million more votes than Barack Obama.

33:47I don't think Barack Obama thinks that. In fact, I wish a reporter was honest enough to ask him. God works in mysterious ways. And I truly believe that the four-year break was the best thing that ever happened because not only did my father win the popular vote again, he won every swing state, every state in the country went to the right. He's got the Senate, he's got the House, he's got the most incredible cabinet of killers. The mainstream media in our country is absolutely dead. The NBCs, the CNNs, the ABCs, they're irrelevant in this country. And he's got all the wind at his back and he's doing transformational things, including Middle East peace and so many other great things for our nation, but also the Western world.

34:26That leads me to this, Another quote from your book, you say, Trump 2.0 isn't just working harder than ever. He's driving the mission with renewed purpose and unmistakable energy. But this time, he's doing it on his own terms. And he's having more fun than ever doing it. What is the difference between Trump 2.0 and Trump 1.0? Listen, Trump 1.0 is one of the most successful presidencies in the history of our country. And this is that presidency on steroids. I mean, my father is throwing so much lead in the air that the Democrats don't even know what to do. So let's see, he stopped seven wars at this point, including India, Pakistan.

34:59Look what he just did in the Middle East, right? But we've got the greatest economy, what we're doing in AI, what we're doing in crypto, what we're doing for the financial revolution in this country, what we're doing for energy exploration. We've got the lowest energy costs of any country in the world by far now. He believes in drill, baby drill. You have trillions of dollars coming back to the United States. You have trillions of dollars reinvesting in the United States. Our markets are absolutely roaring right now. So, I mean, every technology, every advance, America's winning the way in terms of AI.

35:29We've rebuilt the military. I mean, the American dream is back. Respect for America is back. We have peace throughout the world, but peace in the Middle East. He's working like hell to end the Russian conflict. Why do you think he was able to make more room in that? Why was he able to move forward greater than Joe Biden was? Because Joe Biden was an imbecile who couldn't get through a sentence and certainly couldn't conduct an interview like this. I mean, listen, I've just got to be honest. Joe Biden, he had lost his mind. And that's very sad. That will probably happen to you. And that's going to happen to me at some point.

36:06But he wasn't cognitively there. He couldn't walk across a stage without tripping. He couldn't get throughout a sentence without stumbling or misrepresenting some fact. He didn't have the stamina. He didn't have the personality. He didn't have the respect. And frankly, his policies were insane. They weren't just insane in the United States. They were insane around the world. And so he was wrong on every policy. And that's why, by the way, the defeat of his running mate, Kamala, was the greatest political victory in the history of the country. Listen, people aren't into guys my size, six foot five, swimming in women's sports.

36:43Right. And yet every day, that's one of the things that, you know, the Democratic Party was espousing. You know, it's I can't tell you how many good jobs, how many good people who had worked their entire careers in a job only to have DEI come in. And all of a sudden, somebody who knew this subject was the best at it, you know, was it was the best worker. All of a sudden got passed up for somebody who checked some DEI box. This pissed off America. America was not OK with this, let alone inflation, you know, and it roaring, let alone our energy costs going through the roof, let alone illegal immigrants, you know, immigration in this country.

37:17I mean, I personally have four friends that have lost children to fentanyl. Four. Four of my friends have lost little kids to fentanyl. Some weren't little, but it will always be little to their parents. People in this country were sick and tired of the nonsense and they wanted it to end and it's ended. I mean, every single day, one of those drug boats goes up in a ball of smoke. Americans are cheering right now because that just means that one of their sons or one of their daughters won't die based on some cartel somewhere in South America. And that's why America had the referendum we did. As you know, in this country, we have a problem with illegal immigration.

37:57You've also raised the issue of free speech. And the ambassador to the United Kingdom, Warren Stevens, recently said that in his meeting with Keir Starmer, they discussed how the UK could attract more foreign direct investment from the US. And he said his answer was lower your energy costs. Are there things we can learn from the Trump revolution here in the UK? Listen, I feel, Tim, I feel deeply personal when I speak. Listen, I'm not from the UK. I'm not a United Kingdom citizen. but there is no American who spent more time in your country than I have. And there's no American family who's probably invested more in the UK than the Trump family has.

38:35I've cut my teeth under multiple jobs in that country. I know everyone in that country. I know your PM. I know Warren very well. And I feel like, and also with my mom growing up in London, I just, I feel like the UK is in my soul. It's in my DNA. And I care about the people over there deeply. So many of are good friends. So let me put that on the table. The UK is losing the race in so many ways. And that hurts me to say as a person who cares about the place. There is an absolute reversion to the word no for everything that anybody wants to do. You want to go build a green at a golf course and it's no.

39:10And then you have to fight for five years in order to get to a yes. And you spend millions of dollars. And at that time, you've already zapped all your energy. And then you made something better. When I look at energy costs, and I look at every budget of every property we have, I've seen years where your energy costs in the UK have gone up by 5x. 5x. And yet, I look at the great North Sea, and you've got more natural gas, you've got more energy than just about anybody in the world, and it's not being utilized, and it's crippling your society. It's going to cripple the UK when it comes to AI, because obviously, it takes a lot of energy.

39:45It's going to cripple the UK when it comes to cryptocurrency and modern day finance, obviously a lot of energy. It cripples your society when it comes to manufacturing and productivity, because obviously that is such a huge cost. And then you look at what's happening in the UAE. You look at what's happening in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. You look at what's happening in all across Asia. And you look at what's happening in America where we're going full out on energy right now. I mean, drill, baby, drill. I pray as somebody who is deeply aligned and loves the UK, I pray that they can start exploiting energy again, that you can bring down your energy costs, which are just killing your nation.

40:23I pray that you can get to a spot where you can have freedom of speech because that goes really badly, really, really quick. I mean, that's a dangerous route that you're going down. And I would just be very, very careful. And in terms of illegal immigrants and illegal immigration, Oftentimes, people don't want to have the conversation. They don't want to say what I'm about to say. But I grew up in London, and London is no longer what London used to be. Frankly, New York is probably no longer what New York used to be, albeit a lot of the cities in this country are getting cleaned up very quickly out of my father.

40:53You've got to be very, very, very careful. You've got to be very careful. How has London changed? Well, listen, I mean, I think the running notion right now, and I hear this all over, and I'm usually the benefactor of feedback, but I hear from people all the time, You can't walk across London wearing a nice watch anymore, that they wouldn't do it, that they wouldn't do it. And that's very sad in a city that really epitomizes the Western world. And that was not the case of when I was growing up in London. But, you know, people are scared. Are people blaming that on our mayor, Sadiq Khan, as his name?

41:25Because I know your father has been critical of him as well. Yeah, listen, I don't want to get into somebody's politics in that way. I don't want to start pointing at political figures over there. I don't think that's my job. These are personal elections and decisions and everything else that get made. But I would be very, very careful with the lack of law and order that's plaguing our cities. I can tell you, if you go over to Dubai, people who have second homes in London, they will tell you, I'm spending a lot less time there because I'm afraid to walk down the street. I'm afraid to go get a cup of coffee.

41:53I say this coming from a place of total hope and total admiration and total respect because there's no better ally to the United States than the United Kingdom. I adore the country. But what's happening in London is scary to a lot of people in the Western world and to a lot of people around the world. And I certainly hope that the lessons are learned. When you look at my father and how quickly he cleaned up Washington, D.C., he cleaned it up in 12 days. They arrested 4 ,300 people and Washington, D.C. no longer has any crime. Murder's gone. Everything gone. Carjackings gone. I would love to see London take a little bit of that playbook.

42:28You speak as a businessman. We should explain that while your father is in the White House. You are separating out the interests of the Trump organization and the presidency. I will address this because it came up on CNN recently. How do you respond to critics who say that the Trump family is effectively leveraging having a president? Because by having a president, if, for instance, you invest in Bitcoin, as I know you have done, and he says Bitcoin is a good thing to invest in, that might be something that brings profit to the Trump family. Yeah, Tim, I mean, it's pretty crazy. I mean, first of all, let's go back to profiting off the presidency.

43:04Let's start there, and then we can talk about Bitcoin. We spent$400 million keeping the animals off of our back. My father self-funded his entire campaign. My father's never received a paycheck from the federal government. He donates his paycheck every month to some worthwhile charity in the US, largely dedicated to governmental causes, whether it be injured soldiers and a whole host of other worthwhile causes. give me a break, give me a break. And then every year, I write a big check back to the United States Treasury for any business that comes from overseas governments through one of our hotels.

43:40So if somebody books on Expedia.com or Travelocity or one of those OTR websites, and that person's affiliated with the government or comes through any other channel, I literally take the entire profit of that stay and I donate it back to the United States. And I write that check every year. That never gets reported. It never gets brought up. But the amount that the presidency has cost my father, my father's lost a lot of zeros off the back of his name based on the fact that he was president. And guess what? He doesn't care, nor do I care. As to Bitcoin, we got into cryptocurrency for really two reasons.

44:14First of all, we got canceled by every major financial institution in the country for not doing anything wrong, only because my father wore a hat and I wore a hat that said, make America great again. I got into crypto because I didn't have a damn choice. It was like the only rails that we had left as a major organization. And I realized that it is the future of finance. But whether my, I mean, if my father goes out and says that Boeing is an amazing company, and you own the index funds that Boeing happens to be included in, is that you profiting off of the presidency? Like, no. I mean, cryptocurrency is the future of finance.

44:48I have nothing to do with Washington, DC. I believe in Bitcoin with every ounce of my heart and soul. I have a company called American Bitcoin. We just got listed on the NASDAQ a couple of weeks ago. But to suggest that it's ever enriched, that the presidency has enriched my father after the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars we've had to spend in defense of absolute nonsense shams, not to mention the amount of deals that we've turned down around the world. I would have had a hotel in every city in China had we not been in politics, right? I would have had a hotel. I would have had five hotels in Taiwan.

45:21And guess what? I don't even play in those markets because I can't because of politics. You know how much that costs us? That costs us a tremendous amount. And you know what? We don't give a damn. We're saving the United States of America. We're saving our constitution. We're saving our flag. We're saving the Western world. And when I see peace in the Middle East, man, I would do it a thousand times over. I don't care what it costs us. I would do it a thousand times because it's all worth it. It's all worth it. Two final short questions. One, will you run for the presidency? see. Listen, never say never do anything in life, right?

45:58But I can tell you I've been on both the best sides of politics and by far the worst sides. And I understand the game very well at this point. And I think we've developed great voices. I really do. I mean, hence, this book right now, it's the number one book in the country by far, not even close, not even close, right? No, The reason I say that is people adore us in this country and people love us. And the MAGA movement is the greatest movement that we've ever seen in the history of the United States politics. And I've been a big part of that movement. I think if I wanted to, I could. That's a good, polished politician's answer.

46:32No, I just don't know if I want to also put my kids through the crap. And oftentimes it looks very glamorous outside and it's not as they're trying to take off your head and put you in prison for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I know it's not glamorous. I've covered the campaign trail. In 2016, I was in Trump Towers when your father won. And you describe the atmosphere perfectly in the book where you say, open bar and no food. Everyone was drunk by the time your father came out to accept his win. By the way, you know why? We didn't want to plan these lavish parties where thousands of balloons fell from the ceiling and everybody's eating caviar.

47:10You know what we want to do? We want win Michigan. How about that for a concept? Hillary spent more time planning her under the glass ceiling victory party. Had she spent a little bit more time campaigning, she might have actually won the race. We were much more concerned about winning the race than the finger foods. We can worry about the finger foods afterward. We're great at hospitality. Understood. Well, look, my final question, and I hope from this interview, people have gained a better understanding of what motivates the Trump family. And my final question is this, what does Scotland mean to you and your family?

47:43Because a lot of people don't know this, that your father is Scottish, basically. Yeah. And so my grandmother came from Stornoway, a beautiful woman, a woman that meant so much to me, meant so much to my father, obviously, in so many ways. And when we found Turnberry, well, first we found Aberdeen, we went to build the greatest golf course anywhere in the world and we succeeded. Aberdeen is the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. And I put so much time into the Eastern side of Scotland, which is obviously, Aberdeen, Aberdeen chair. And then obviously, you saw what I did with Turnberry.

48:13I mean, I was going back and forth to Turnberry once a week for three years and built every inch of that property, that hotel. I could tell you every single room by room number. I love it. And I saved that property. It was bought by Leisure Corp out of Dubai. They never visited the property. There's not a whole lot of love. The Japanese owned it before that. They didn't put a whole lot of love into it. And I came back and my father and I, we saved Turnberry. And I have hundreds of employees in Scotland. I love the country. I love the people. I love the culture. I love the love of the United States and the mutual bond we have.

48:49There is no American who's put more money into, you know, your great nation and no American who's spent more time over there than I have. And I adore every facet of your society. I just, you know, from an outsider's perspective, I do worry greatly about the freedom of speech and I do worry greatly about energy costs. and I certainly worry about your immigration problem. Eric Trump, thank you very much. Tim, it was a great honor to be on.

49:38Thank you.