Eric Trump's Response To NYT Report Alleging Pay-To-Play: 'We've Lost A Fortune'
Eric Trump on Sunday danced around questions from ABC News’ Jon Karl about an explosive New York Times report that hundreds of entities patronized Trump properties and scored federal contracts and favors from President Donald Trump and his administration.
In its investigation published Saturday, the Times found that more than 200 companies, special interest groups and foreign governments were “reaping benefits” while spending money at various Trump hotels, golf clubs and other businesses.
“Lots of specifics in this story,” Karl told Eric Trump, the second eldest of Trump’s three sons. “You guys didn’t respond to The New York Times. Here’s your chance. What’s your response?”
Eric Trump didn’t deny any of the specific allegations laid out in the Times report, which was based in part on President Trump’s tax records and the membership records of at least two of his properties. Instead, Eric Trump, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said that his family has been hemorrhaging money in recent years.
“My response is, we’ve lost a fortune,” Eric Trump told Karl. “My father’s lost a fortune running for president. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. He wanted to do what was right. The last thing, I can tell you, Donald Trump needs in the world is this job.”
President Trump “wakes up in the morning, and he has to fight you, and he has to fight the entire media, and he has to fight the Democrats,” he added. “He doesn’t need to shop. My father has lost a fortune ― an absolute fortune ― doing what he does.”
NEW: “My father has lost a fortune,” Eric Trump tells @jonkarl when pressed on a NYT report that Pres. Trump turned “his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway’s new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign.” https://t.co/fsCP2um0H5pic.twitter.com/MtZLiszs2K
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 11, 2020
Karl interrupted Eric Trump to push him for...
