B (3:13)

How did that affect the family itself?

A (3:17)

I think it probably turned us into rocks, to tell you the truth. I mean, it probably desensitized me. I remember the first time I got a subpoena, and it almost hurt. And honestly, 10 subpoenas in, it's like, yeah, here we go again. I know the game, and it's all a game. It's not a fun game, it's not a nice game, but it's a game. And you start compartmentalizing it as exactly that. It's evil. You have sick people on the other side. You have people who wanted to destroy this country. You had people who wanted to destroy a man just because he had differences of opinions. First they tried to laugh at him, mock him. You remember that from the White House correspondence dinner and so many others. And then they tried to silence him. They again stripped him off of social media. I mean, Boko Haram, the Ayatollah, the Taliban, you know, Hezbollah, they all had Twitter accounts. But guess who couldn't if the 45th president of the United States, he couldn't have a Facebook account. They were writing my wife letters. You know, if you talk about Donald Trump, you know, on YouTube, we're going to throw you off. And then they exerted fiscal violence on him after they couldn't get him with legal lawfare. And it was a crazy battle, and it's a crazy battle, and it's a battle that we won against all odds. And again, it's really what the book Under Siege is about.

B (4:38)

Can you tell me about one kind of instance where it just seemed very, very dark, maybe, that you chronicle in the book that's memorable.

A (4:49)

I sat next to him every day in the trials in New York, and I remember they stood up and read 34 indictments which were just bogus. The judge was corrupt. His daughter worked for the other side. The whole. He was gagged. I was the only person who wasn't gagged. So I was on the the steps of the courthouse every day, yelling and screaming about how rigged the whole trial was. And I remember, after 34 felony convictions, he turned around, shook my hand, we walked out together, we hopped in the car, and we're actually going to a fundraiser. We were in court by day, we were fundraising by night, we were campaigning by night. And I remember as soon as we got in the car, he looked at me, he goes, I don't know how, but we're going to win. I don't know how, but we're going to win. And he wasn't just talking about the court case, which we had overturned. We won it. But the overall election, you had every press member in the back of those courtrooms, and they were giving him a zero percent chance. And, you know, it's funny, in his early life, he wrote, you know, the Art of the Deal. Then his second book was the Art of the Comeback. You know, talking about, obviously, his business career in the 90s, when everybody thought he was down and out. And it's like the perfect parallel, right? I mean, this was the art. It was the art of the comeback. No one would ever thought a guy who was just charged with 91 felony convictions for doing nothing wrong, but because you had a system that was totally weaponized against, you could ultimately become president. And not only did he become president, won every swing state, right? It won the popular vote. Every state in the nation went to the right, meaning, you know, attacked to the right in terms of voting. We picked up places that we had never. I mean, we picked up 11 counties in California that had never been Republican before. That went Republican. Miami Dade, which hasn't been won in 37 years. We won by 11%. I mean, it wasn't like a baby victory. It was like the greatest. You know, I would use a different word, but because we're on tv, greatest butt kicking in the history of the world. And you want to talk about the art of the comeback. That was the true art of the comeback. There was a great Foreshadowing in his early life when he named that book to exactly where we sat a year ago.

B (7:00)

Talking about the art of the comeback when he got up in Butler after he was shot and said, fight, fight. I mean, I don't know, it's very difficult to describe. Tell me about that time, about your experience of that from the outside.

A (7:21)

So I took a lot of heat about six weeks before Butler. I said, listen, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to inflict bodily harm. They tried everything, right? First they tried to laugh at him. Ha ha ha. He could never make it. He's not a serious guy. I remember Obama was saying, he's not a serious. This is coming from a guy who was a community organizer. Give me a break. He never built anything in his life and he's saying that Donald Trump isn't a serious guy. And then obviously they tried to silence him and then all the lawfare wasn't working. And I said, listen, the next logical course of events is violence. That's what they do when they lose the narrative, they resort to violence. I mean, that's what happened to Charlie Kirk. And I called it right, I called it right. And I called on Hannity and I got absolutely shelled. He's an alarmist. And then sure enough, obviously six weeks later, Butler, and then two months after that, what happened at the golf course and about a year after that was obviously what happened to our good friend. But no, those are difficult times. Difficult times when you lose the narrative, resort to violence. And that's exactly what the left has been willing to do. And it's crazy. It's crazy. The times that we live in. Never did I think that the country would get to this point. At the same time, I can tell you universally people are sick and tired of the, of the games and nonsense and they're all seeing it. And I think that's why you've had the mass exodus from the Democratic Party in this country. I think it's why in a four year period of time, you turned every college kid in this nation from having been indoctrinated by every teacher and tenured professor and been taught revisionist history to literally solidly being in our camp. And the pendulum has swung in ways that I think most people in most countries probably can't even comprehend. And I'm very proud to have played a big part in that.

B (9:10)

How big an impact do you think what happened in Butler had on 2024, on the election?

A (9:15)

I'm massive. I mean, when I saw the hand in the air I thought to myself, hey, we just won the election. People aren't going to stand for this. And people know the radical left for who they are. They're not hiding. The radical left isn't hiding who they are anymore. We know exactly who they are. They're the ones who will call you a fascist, yet sit on a rooftop in all black holding a sniper rifle and shoot somebody who's peacefully exercising their First Amendment right. I mean, to me, that's what fascism looks like, not the person speaking on the other end of it. And again, the bullets are only flying one way. Hence Steve Scalise, my father twice, Charlie Kirk, what they almost did to Kavanaugh and so many others, right? It's. They wanted to lead our voices. They don't want guys like me on that stage. They don't want guys like me doing events like we're going to do today. They want us in their basement. They want us doing effectively what Joe Biden did during 2020, where he didn't leave his basement, he wasn't heard from. We didn't stand a chance if that's our playbook. Hillary outraised us in 2016 five to one. If we weren't loud and slightly on PC and spoke from the heart and stood on every tractor with a bullhorn in every single swing state, as we did, and spoke at every church and every house and every picnic that we possibly could, no chance. We would have won. And they realized that. And I think that's why they want to make sure that you don't go outside and you don't assemble in large crowds. And it's exactly what we can't allow to happen. We have to be more vocal than ever right now. And I think we are. And I think people are realizing again, exactly who that party is. And hence the fact that 50 states again swung to the right and we won the popular vote and we won every swing state by a major, major factor. I think people are solidly coming into our corner right now.

B (11:11)

If I may, of the two older brothers, you seem to be the more low key one. But in 2024, you seem very active. Do you have any aspirations for political office sometime in the future?

A (11:30)

I'm one of those guys that doesn't need to be in the spotlight. I've run our company for a very long time. I'm very good at it. I love work, I love capitalism. I love hotels, I love real estate. I enjoy politics. It's not my first love, frankly. I detest half the people in politics because I think most of them are freeloaders who've never actually accomplished anything. And the person who's never signed the front of a check is writing legislation that's going to apply to every business and every person in our country. The person that doesn't know the first thing about healthcare is making decisions for the lives of millions of people. It doesn't seem to compute. You see all these 20 year old kids who get into politics, that is Joe Biden, and they're in politics for 50 years and then they become president. And you wonder why our country is totally dysfunctional under their leadership when they've never seen an outside perspective. Their entire lives have been dependent on checks from the government for making yes, no votes. Right. I dislike that system. I'm far from shy, but I can also turn off the public spotlight oftentimes. I like working behind the scenes and getting to an end goal without ever being seen. And certainly when I have to turn it on, I do listen. I introduced my father at the RNC in front of hundreds of millions of people. I'm no stranger to the stage. I did thousands of rally events. But also I was the first person to call him up on the day that we won on November 6. Early in the morning, we still hadn't slept and said, pops, I love you to death. Congratulations, we won the Super Bowl. It's been the greatest honor of my life to stand on the stage, but I'm going to get back to our company. I'm going to get back to work. There's no more place for me to run, there's no more events for me to do. You got the big W. The country's in great hands, you know that. The business will be in great hands. You go do what you do best and I'll go do what I do best. And in instances like that, I'm happy to turn it off and go back into the shadows. And I enjoy being able to do that.

B (13:45)

So I'll share something briefly. I had people call me up prior to 2024 and ask that question, hey, people want me to run. And I bet there's people who have told you that as well. And my response was, we need people who are consequential, who know what's what and who probably don't like politics very much. So how do you respond? I'm not asking you to run, but my question is, is that something you would consider?

A (14:19)

Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't rule anything out in the world and the ecosystem is beautiful. And I think what I'm learning, I Mean, I certainly learned this first time, but we were truly under siege. First time, I think, second time, it's like I'm watching my father make transformational change. I mean, look, military recruitment under Biden was the worst it's ever been in the history of our nation. One month later, everybody was applying, everybody wanted to be in the United States military. There was patriotism again. So there are certain things that you can just make transformational change on if you're a real leader and you do it the right way. Forget about all these career politicians say, I'm going to go into D.C. and I'm going to make a difference. Most of them don't, and they fall prey to kind of Washington D.C. mob. But listen, I would never rule anything out. What I can tell you is I think it's given us a great voice. I think we've all developed a great voice. We had a voice from the business world, and we had a voice from the number one reality TV show. I was on the Apprentice for seven years. You know, we had some confidence, we had some backbone. And then all of a sudden, we got into politics, and I think we developed a real voice and a real comfort on that stage and real backbone. Right? I mean, this stuff requires real backbone as they try and literally and figuratively kill you in every aspect of your soul and your company and your family and your marriage and everything else. And so I think it. I think it armored us in a unique way. And I think I could do it. I think I could do it in a. But. But the question is, do you want to? And we've seen the greatest parts of politics. We've certainly seen the worst parts. We've definitely seen the worst parts. Worse than probably most can ever imagine. Hence the whole point of the book, Under Siege, telling all those stories. But I never rule anything out. I believe in this country. I love red, white and blue. I love our First Amendment. I love our Constitution. We have to become the. We have to stay the dominant superpower of the world. And you do need good people. And you better have people like Donald Trump, who will set everything aside, set aside his wealth, set aside his fortune, set aside his family, set aside his company to do the unthinkable. There's not a lot of courageous people out there. Truly, of the Fortune 500 crowd, very few of them would say, listen, I'm going to sacrifice all of it to run against 16 Republicans who actually know a damn about. Know something about politics, which. Which we did not, and then have to run against somebody like Hillary Clinton, you know, one of the great political dynasties of, of modern times, you know, only in the off chance of being able to, to win at a, at a 5 to 1 financial deficit, self funding your whole campaign. Like, give me another billionaire who would agree to those terms. Zero. Right. I mean, these people gamble on probability. And, and I think traditional sense would say that your probability was probably not very good under those odds. If you're lining that up and saying, okay, you have to run against 16 Republicans, beat them, you have to then beat the Clinton family at a 5 to 1 deficit with the entire media hating you, how many other billionaires would have taken that? Hence the reason you get Joe Biden as your president versus getting Warren Buffett at that said, you have to have great business leaders, people who can offer transformational change and I'd love to see many more of them. And if the stars ever aligned and that was the right calling for me at the time, I'd consider it. I guess.

B (17:47)

Just very briefly, you're donating some of the proceeds from the book to Turning Point in the memory of Charlie Kirk. And just tell me very briefly about that and why.

A (17:59)

What's the whole point of Under Siege? Right. I mean, exactly what they did to Charlie, I mean Charlie would have been the final chapter of that book had the book not come out three days before his assassination. And they want our voice gone. They want it off that stage and we can't allow that to happen. Turning Point's incredibly important and independent voice is incredibly important. And so yeah, I'm going to give a proceeds to the book, a nice percentage over to Turning Point so that their mission continues. And they can't silence us the way they thought they could silence us. They thought they could just remove his voice with a $1 bullet. They were wrong. They can't do that. And in fact, it's a law of unintended consequences that the exact opposite is happening. I think our voice is stronger than it's ever been right now.

B (18:48)

And just again, super briefly, we're filming here at Clay Clark's business conference. And how is it that you happen to be here?

A (18:55)

Clay's a great friend of mine. I've been to this event one or two times before and it's amazing. So honored to be here. Honored to be with a great friend. Honored to be with great people. It's fun to be in Oklahoma.

B (19:06)

Well, Eric Trump, it's such a pleasure to have had you on.

A (19:09)

Thank you.

B (19:09)

Thank you all for joining Eric Trump and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'M your host, Janje Kellick.