Eric Trump has addressed the now-viral hot mic exchange at the Gaza peace summit between his father, President Donald Trump, and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
In the clip, Subianto asked POTUS if he could meet with Eric Trump, a request that raised eyebrows given how he’s not in government, is an executive vice president of the Trump Organization family business, which has interests in Indonesia, and the summit was about seeking peace in the Middle East.
“It is NOT normal for the president to be talking about setting up a meeting for his son (who runs a business that the president still owns and profits from) with another head of state,” the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said at the time.
On Thursday, Real America’s Voice host Eric Bolling asked Eric Trump what the moment was all about.
Eric Trump replied: “So, I’ve got two projects in Indonesia. We did them in 2014, 2015. The most exceptional golf course by far in the country, an amazing place. It goes over these lava chutes on the side of a volcano right outside of Jakarta. And I’ve actually never met the president. And obviously, I think everybody in the country probably knows about the two Trump jobs.”
He continued: “The other one’s in Bali. We’re building a great hotel that’s going to start very soon, and I’ve never met the president. I used to go over there quite a bit. We manage teams over there.”
Eric Trump added that he doesn’t “get involved in politics in Indonesia,” but said he found it “pretty amazing” that Subianto, a former military general who has been accused of rights abuses and war crimes, knew who he was.
Bolling did not follow up with Eric Trump about any potential conflicts of interest of the president apparently talking about business during an official event. Watch the interview here.
However, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed the president’s son on the issue in a later interview. “For people who see that moment with your dad and the Indonesian president and say, ‘There’s supposed to be this wall between the president and his business,’ what does it say when a world leader clearly thinks he’s still involved with the family business?” Collins asked.
Eric Trump responded that there’s such a “huge wall” between his father and the Trump Organization that he’s “never even met” Subianto.