Eric Trump has been forced to explain the moment his father, President Donald Trump, was caught on a hot mic arranging a call between him and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto at this week’s Gaza peace summit.
The U.S. president and his Indonesian counterpart were at the gathering of world leaders at Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, on Monday when a live microphone perched on a lectern happened to pick up Subianto asking Trump: “Can I meet Eric?”
“I’ll have Eric call,” Trump replied. “Should I do that? He’s such a good boy. I’ll have Eric call… I’ll have Eric call you.”
The exchange is controversial because it represents a possible conflict of interest, given that Eric Trump is Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization and his father was meeting Subianto in a political capacity, not a personal one, and because the Indonesian leader, a former military general, has been credibly accused of war crimes.
“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 posted in response.
Asked about the incident by Eric Bolling on Real America’s Voice on Thursday, the president’s son was only too happy to discuss it.
“So, I’ve got two projects in Indonesia,” he explained. “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.
“I’ve actually never met the president. And obviously, I think everybody in the country probably knows about the two Trump jobs.
“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” and expressed astonishment that Subianto knew who he was. He was not challenged about the more problematic aspects of the exchange.
But on CNN’s The Source later, the younger Trump was asked about the same issue by the less obliging Kaitlan Collins.
“First off, have you heard from the president? Has he called you?” Collins asked. He answered: “No, not about that. But I’m glad he acknowledges that I’m a good boy. I am a good boy.”
She continued: “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?” she asked him.
Suddenly on the back foot, Eric insisted there is a “huge wall” between his father’s administration and the Trump Organization, again outlining his family’s projects in Indonesia, which he stressed predate Trump winning the presidency in 2016, and repeating that he himself had never met Subianto.
“I think there’s a huge wall,” he told Collins. “I mean, there’s so much of a wall that the guy has never met me. I mean, think about that, Kaitlan, think about your question, right?
“I mean, that the president has never met me, and he said, I’d love to meet your son, because I know he has two of the biggest projects in Indonesia that started over a decade ago, before, again, we even got involved in politics. I mean, again, I take that as a great honor, right?
“I mean, we’ve got two very prominent projects, and the guy asked to meet me because he has never met me. And so, I don’t know, I think – I think that probably indicates that there’s a pretty damn big wall, right there.”
