Donald Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on Thursday delivered a blistering analysis of Eric Trump’s testimony in his father’s civil fraud trial in New York.
Eric Trump attempted to spin he wasn’t really involved with the financial aspects of the family’s business that are the focus of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million fraud case. Instead, the Trump scion claimed he was more involved in the construction side of the company, even though emails he was shown in court suggested otherwise.
Prior to taking the stand, Eric Trump claimed “I pour concrete” rather than pay attention to the valuation of assets which James says the Trumps routinely overinflated for financial gain.
Eric Trump’s argument is “just so absurd,” O’Brien told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “Eric Trump does not have callouses on his hand. Eric Trump has never labored in the hot sun on a highway making sure it’s smooth, the driveway going to Bedminister or wherever else he’s talking about.”
It “sort of highlights the fact that in a family full of people who dissemble and are profoundly unsophisticated and ignorant, Eric Trump is unusually ignorant and unusually unsophisticated,” O’Brien added.
O’Brien further noted the former president didn’t attend court during the testimony of either of his sons. His daughter Ivanka Trump will take the stand next week.
“Good job, dad,” O’Brien snarked. “You’ve led your children through life teaching them that they can try to get by on spin and they can try to get by on falsehoods but at the end of the day you’re going to be left alone like everyone around Donald Trump is because loyalty is a one-way street in the Trump universe and he’s even leaving his son hanging here.”
Eric Trump was “the worst witness you could ever have,” said O’Brien. “Even among his siblings [he] was routinely derided as being incapable and a bit of a doofus.”
Watch O’Donnell’s summary of the trial so far here: