Eric Trump [shakes head].
The second son of the former president delivered a humdinger of a performance – even by his own low standards – during an appearance on Fox News Channel with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. Time and time again, Eric Trump seemed to be wholly unaware of, well, history and facts as they related to his father and his time in office. He also appeared to be unfamiliar with the idea of irony.
First came Bartiromo asking Trump about the guilty plea of Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer who was indicted for allegedly lying to the FBI’s general counsel about who he was working for. (Sussmann said he wasn’t working on behalf of any client, but he was allegedly representing Clinton’s campaign as well as a tech industry professional).
Here’s Eric Trump’s take: “I mean, you better believe, if Donald Trump had one of his lawyers going in to make up lies to the FBI to try and smear another campaign, you would have – you better believe that he would have been on every paper around the world. Where is she? Why isn’t she answering these questions?”
Er, Eric? Your father – as well as his, um, lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani have pressured every one under the sun – including Bill Barr, the then-Attorney General as well as various secretaries of state around the country to make up voter fraud in the 2020 election! Also, there was the whole quid pro quo phone call with the Ukrainian president to try to get him to investigate Joe Biden. Remember the one that your dad got impeached for? The first time?
Eric Trump wasn’t done! Bartiromo turned the conversation to whether Donald Trump would run again in 2024, which produced this exchange:
Bartiromo: “All of this as China is waiting in the wings, hoping to overtake the United States.
“Eric, let me ask you. I think your father came too close to the fire in terms of corruption, the corruption fire. He figured it out real quick that there was incredible corruption. And once he figured it out and started talking about it, they wanted him out.
“Do you want your father to run again?”
Trump: “You know, I do, because, honestly, he’s the only person who can save this country.
“And it is an incredibly corrupt system. I see it every single day. It’s incredibly corrupt. And my father returned respect to this country, returned the greatest economy our nation has ever seen, rebuilt the military, did all these great things for America.
“America was prosperous and respected. And under this guy, I mean, what’s happening in Washington is truly – and I hate to use the word – but it’s a clown show. It’s an absolute clown show.”
OK, so the system is incredibly corrupt? Corrupt like 11 – yes, 11! – of your top associates being charged with a variety of crimes from lying to federal prosecutors about connections to Russia to lobbying scams built on perceived closeness to the former president? Or Special Counsel Robert Mueller declaring, after a long investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, that “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so?”
Corruption like that, Eric?
RIP, Irony. Felled by Eric Trump. Date of death: 9/19/21.