Eric Trump, son of former President Donald Trump, has threatened to sue MSNBC host Rachel Maddow over her correct reporting that he will likely be participating in a talking tour alongside white supremacists this weekend.
Eric Trump — who, alongside his older brother Donald Trump Jr., helped handle his father’s firms whereas he was in workplace — is ready to take part within the far proper ReAwaken America Tour that is currently traveling across the country. Audio system collaborating within the tour have used the platform to unfold unfounded conspiracy theories concerning the 2020 presidential election, the COVID-19 pandemic, LGBTQ individuals, QAnon, and extra. The occasion this weekend is slated to be held at one in all Donald Trump’s properties, Trump Nationwide Doral in Miami, Florida.
A number of media organizations have noted that the tour consists of audio system with white supremacist and Christian nationalist viewpoints. A few of the audio system are additionally recognized for espousing antisemitic beliefs — together with far proper commentator Scott McKay, who has falsely claimed prior to now that Jewish individuals orchestrated the 9/11 assaults and had been concerned within the presidential assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy; in addition to Charlie Ward, a right-wing commentator and Holocaust denier who has praised Nazi chief Adolf Hitler and peddled false claims about Jewish individuals orchestrating the outbreak of viruses.
Different friends set to talk this weekend embrace: former Trump financial adviser Peter Navarro; former nationwide safety adviser (and Trump pardon recipient) Michael Flynn; Fact Social CEO and former congressman Devin Nunes; MyPillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell; and Trump ally and former political adviser Roger Stone.
Flynn, who co-founded the tour, has additionally expressed Christian nationalist and antisemitic views. At earlier places on the tour, Flynn stated he needs there to be solely “one faith” (Christianity). He has additionally shared anti-Jewish sentiments on social media, with Media Matters noting that he once tweeted a post that read, “Not anymore, Jews.”
Maddow, like different media personalities, reported on the occasion, expressing disbelief on her program Monday night that Eric Trump — the grownup son of a presidential candidate considered by many because the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024 — would affiliate with audio system who brazenly specific such bigoted views.
“I can’t actually consider they’re going forward with it,” Maddow stated.
In response to her reporting, Eric Trump tweeted on Tuesday night that he would sue her or some other reporter who continued to report on his talking engagement.
“If she or anybody else even remotely suggests I’m anti-semitic I can’t hesitate to take authorized motion towards them personally,” Trump said in his tweet.
Joel Swanson, a Ph.D. candidate on the College of Chicago who’s finding out fashionable Jewish mental historical past, stated that Trump misrepresented what Maddow stated in her report.
“What Rachel Maddow stated wasn’t that Eric Trump is personally antisemitic, however that he’s showing at a public occasion alongside Nazis and Holocaust deniers,” Swanson pointed out. “That’s merely true.”
Trump additionally instructed that he couldn’t be antisemitic as a result of he and his household are vehemently “pro-Israel” (a notion that Swanson stated in his tweet was “telling”), and that he shouldn’t be criticized for showing with white supremacist audio system as a result of he has members of the family who’re Jewish. (His sister, Ivanka Trump, transformed when she married her husband, Jared Kushner, and their kids are Jewish.)
Nevertheless, there are quite a few examples of Eric Trump and his members of the family expressing antisemitic beliefs.
In August 2019, when he was nonetheless president, Donald Trump smeared American Jews by utilizing a typical antisemitic trope, calling Jewish People who voted for Democrats “disloyal” to Israel. Throughout a presidential debate in 2020, Trump refused to condemn white supremacists when prodded to take action by the moderator and his opponent, President Joe Biden.
Eric Trump’s brother, Donald Trump Jr., has used language invoking the Holocaust to attack their father’s political opponents.
Eric Trump has additionally been criticized for making antisemitic feedback. In 2018, he stated that journalist Bob Woodward promoted his e book on Donald Trump on CNN to help “sell three extra books” and earn “three extra shekels.”
The phrase “shekels,” referring to the forex of Israel, is frequently used on alt right websites in a derogatory manner against Jewish people, reporters identified on the time.
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