During a Wednesday morning interview with the Fox News program “Fox & Friends,” co-host Steve Doocy asked Eric Trump, one of the sons of the president, about the impact of Bob Woodward’s new book and The New York Times’ anonymous op-ed on the White House — and whether those have created chaos within the Trump administration.
Eric Trump’s response has sparked controversy across great spans of the internet.
The son of the president — one of President Donald Trump’s five children — explained how he feels that it is obvious to people that the new Woodward book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” is sensational and nonsense and that Woodward is just trying to make money through this latest publication of his.
However, in the process, Eric Trump used some questionable terms live on the air.
“But don’t you think people look through the fact that you can write a sensational nonsense book, CNN will definitely have you on there, because they love to trash the president?” said Eric Trump to Doocy.
“It will mean you sell three extra books, you make three extra shekels, I mean,” he added, “at the behest of the American people, at the behest of our country and a president that’s doing a phenomenal job by every quantifiable metric.”
A shekel is the currency of Israel — and a term often used by those who are anti-Semitic in their attacks against Jews.
As such, various liberal and conservative commentators called out Eric Trump for his comments in that interview.
“I can’t think of any reason — other than the odious one — why Eric Trump would use ‘shekels’ instead of ‘dollars,’ ‘bucks,’ ‘clams,’ ‘greenbacks,’ or ‘smackers,'” tweeted MSNBC analyst David Corn and chief of the Washington bureau for Mother Jones.
“I just hope no one would talk like that, frankly. I think that just doesn’t fit. I’m sorry,” said Woodward.
“Is Eric too stupid to know he’s being anti-Semitic?” tweeted conservative pundit Bill Kristol.
Legendary Watergate journalist Bob Woodward himself, a longtime managing editor at The Washington Post, responded to the comment as well during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“I just hope no one would talk like that, frankly. I think that just doesn’t fit. I’m sorry,” said Woodward.
“Anyone talks like that, whether it’s a dog whistle or whatever the intent is, it’s not … Part of the point of this book is that we need to have a serious debate about serious issues. And to use invective and this attack rhetoric, or whatever it might be, it sets us back,” said Woodward to Cooper.
Eric Trump denied there was anything anti-Semitic at all about his comment.
“Oh, stop, it’s nonsense,” said Eric Trump, according to a piece in The Washington Post.
Check out the video below for more details.
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