Hi, I'm Vince Molinari, and welcome to FinTech TV.
We're broadcasting from the iconic New York Stock Exchange.
The Trump family has lived an American experience like no other.
Born into a world famous real estate business with celebrity implications, President Trump's children learned the art of the deal from a young age.
Despite countless media interviews, magazine covers, rap song mentions, and even after a highly rated reality show, the Trump story was far from over after The Apprentice ended.
No one could have expected the second act that began when the now president descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015.
This includes 3 presidential campaigns, hundreds of subpoenas, countless depositions, gag orders, 91 indictments, mug shots, and much more.
All of this action might not even fit in a book, but that hasn't stopped President Trump's son Eric from trying.
In his new book Under Siege My Family's Fight to Save Our Nation, Eric captures a raw, unflinching insider account of life under a global spotlight.
This account captures the story of the private lives.
Public battles of the Trump family.
Joining me to tell us about this book is the author himself, Eric Trump, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization.
Eric, congratulations on your new book Under Siege My Family's Fight to Save Our Nation.
Welcome to our show today, buddy.
Uh, thanks, buddy.
It's great to be on with you as always.
You know how much I love you, you know how much our family loves you and uh we go back a very long time, Vince, so it's, it's great to be on.
Well, it is always an honor for me, and it's an extra special moment to bring this forward with you and tell more of the story that hasn't been heard, you know, at this point, you know, what inspired you to really put all these, these experiences and bring these private experiences out into the book, put it out forward and why now?
You know, Vince, I've always been on the opposite side of the camera talking to you about, about markets and about, you know, crypto and about, you know, uh, you know, the US economy and other things, right?
I never thought I'd be doing this right under siege, and this is the story of America.
This is the story of America over the last, you know, 10 year period of time.
They did everything they could to destroy my family, to destroy our country, to destroy the Republican Party, to destroy people who believe in God and faith, and just wanted that, you know, the strongest economy, the strongest nation.
Uh, anywhere in the world.
I mean, they subpoenaed my father every single day.
I became the most subpoenaed person in American history for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
They debunked us, they deplatformed us, they impeached my father twice.
They smeared us.
They made up the Dy dossiers.
They made up.
Russia collusion.
They claimed that we had secret servers in Trump Tower there in New York, communicating with the Kremlin.
It was obviously nonsense.
Indictment after indictment.
They weaponized Letitia James.
They weaponized Alvin Bragg.
They weaponized Jack Smith.
They weaponized Mueller.
You know, they took my father off of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
They turned down all of our dials.
The siege that they put us under was unlike anything that you can possibly imagine.
And obviously, Vince, you know, I run the Trump Organization.
It's one of the great hospitality companies, you know, anywhere in The world, they did everything they could to destroy our company, to destroy me personally, to bankrupt us, to take our name off of every building, not only just right there in New York, but, but everywhere.
They put us under siege, but they didn't just do that to our family.
They did that to an entire movement.
They did it to a lot of the people listening to us right now where they, you know, stripped bank accounts and they canceled bank accounts and they weaponized the system against them and and somebody had to tell the real story.
So, you know, I'm incredibly proud of it.
I'm incredibly proud that we won the fight.
Uh, I'm incredibly proud for our economy and, and, you know, the thing that you and I probably care about the most.
I mean, you literally had Kamala gave her her big economic speech, you know, right before we beat her, and she's talking about price gauging. you know, Vince, you and I have been around the business world a very long time.
I'm not sure if any of us have ever heard of price gauging.
I think, I think you and I know it as price gouging, but I'm not sure if we've ever heard it, but this is what we were up against.
We're up against a weaponized media.
We were up against a total weaponized system.
They had us in a courtroom every single day when we had never done anything wrong.
They fined our company been $600 million which I just had overturned, by the way, $50 for, for being the greatest lender by paying back every loan ahead of time by for making banks hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.
You know, the siege was real, the siege was crazy, and I, and I think the reason the book went to number one, I mean, it's literally #1 on Amazon, it's #1 everywhere right now, it's doing so exceedingly well.
You know, it is because these attacks weren't just against us.
It was, it was against this entire nation, an entire party and people who loved the United States of America.
So I'm incredibly proud to have written it.
I'm incredibly proud of how well it's, it's, it's doing and uh what a story it's been, what a life it's been, it's been um.
It's been wild.
It's truly, truly been wild.
Well, I think a testimony to what you put together here, Eric with the book, as you know, we talk about voting.
Voting comes in so many different ways as people vote with their purchasing power clearly at the polls and now voting with your book to really understand what actually happened.
And when you go through so much of what you just talked about and living through the investigations, the media scrutiny, all of the political crossfire.
I know one track that we're going to talk about a little bit more, but how did that affect and shape your perspective on America today?
You know, you're coming out so positive and I feel your passion and energy about our country.
Give me a little bit of how you feel about the perspective today.
Well, listen, this they hardened us, right?
I mean, I think, I think all of America probably went into 2016 a little bit naive naive as to the the games that government can play, and I, I guarantee you there are thousands of people watching this show that Letitia James has attacked.
I mean, she's attacked everybody in the business community in New York and, you know, I, I mean, we've, we've all dealt with it in a certain way.
We were just the pinata, you know, I became the punching bag in that.
You know, I didn't have constitutional protections.
I wasn't a member of the executive branch.
I wasn't, you know, my father had those protections and so guess who started taking every single one of the errors?
The guy that was running the Trump Organization, the guy that was running, you know, our businesses globally, they came after us and they attacked us like we were dogs for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
In fact, for doing everything right, for being a huge taxpayer, for being a huge employer.
You know, for being the best of kind of capitalism, which is what we all obviously believe in, you know, New Yorkers and everybody watching the show believes, and they came after us relentlessly.
They wanted to see us in prison, they wanted to see us gone.
They wanted to see us bankrupt, you know, but so I think he gave us an armor and uh and I think that's a good thing in life.
But I think the vindication was us winning so decisively.
I mean, Vince, it's not like we won by a little margin.
We won the popular vote.
We won every single swing state, every state in the nation tacked to the right.
You know, it was so, so the American people get it.
There's only so many times you can cry wolf, you know, before people, you know, kind of, you know, figure out what's actually happening and, you know, it's sad for a state that I love.
I mean, you're sitting in the stock exchange right now.
I mean, I love New York.
I'm a New Yorker.
I was born in New York.
I left that state and I dragged our entire company down to Florida because It got to a point where it wasn't worth it for us anymore to kind of take the, you know, the attacks, and that hurts my soul to say because had it not been for that, I would have never left.
I mean, again, I love the place that you're sitting.
We have so many assets as the Trump family in New York, you know, but it's just unbearable at a certain point and you finally say, you know what, you know what am I even doing here?
Why don't I just get the hell out?
And again, that's sad, but You know, hopefully we're rewriting history right now.
Hopefully we're normalizing a system which was so blatantly weaponized, and hopefully our government can go back to the things that matter, which is having the greatest economy in the world, having the greatest stock market in the world, having the greatest job markets, being the greatest innovators in everything.
You know that that we do leading every technological, you know, advancement around the world, being the best entrepreneurs, right?
This is how America wins and that's what we need to get back to and that's what my father is hell bent on doing in Washington DC.
Well, I couldn't agree with you more as we look at America and our history.
Greatest resource in my opinion is our entrepreneurship, our ability to innovate, how we job create, you know, build new economies that add to our GDP.
And as we segue into that, you know, we've had the great benefit of having conversations about blockchain.
The power of the technology, cryptocurrency, and I'd love if you could share a little bit about American Bitcoin because that strategy seemed to be birthed a bit from some of this adversity that you really went through in being debanked and being targeted, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, of course, Eric, but you know, I'd love if you give us a little visibility on your thoughts of that that pathway to what is now a public company in American Bitcoin.
You know, it's, it's, it's amazing, you know, I've kind of this principle in my life.
It's called the law of unintended consequences, and I believe in more than anything.
I never thought I'd be, you know, in cryptocurrency.
I never thought I'd believe in digital assets.
And you know, if I went back 5 years, you know, 7 years, you know, I'm a hard asset guy.
I've built, you know, the biggest hotels, the biggest buildings, the best golf courses, residential buildings, commercial buildings, right?
I mean, that's, that's ingrained in kind of Trump blood.
And then all of a sudden, you know, I fell into crypto because I was de-banked by everyone.
Capital One by far was the worst.
I mean by far was the worst.
I was getting letters, you know, saying, you know, you're here, your accounts are hereby effectively canceled, you know, and, and, and they had no rails, right?
And all of a sudden the same people that the big financial institutions were canceling, you know, the same guys that were canceling me were also canceling all the people in cryptocurrency, and I realized very quickly.
That there's nothing done in finance.
There's nothing done by the big banks that can't be done better, faster, cheaper, and more efficiently on the blockchain.
And so, you know, it was out of necessity.
I had nowhere else to go because we happened to wear a hat that said Make America Great Again, and JP Morgan didn't like it, and Bank of America didn't like it and and and certainly Capital One didn't like it.
And so I found this amazing industry.
I found Bitcoin first.
I went down the rabbit hole and I was telling people to buy Bitcoin three years ago when Bitcoin was, you know, 45,000, 50,000, you know, and now look at it, it just cracked 126,000 yesterday.
It's absolutely roaring.
And by the way, Vince, as I go around the world, everybody wants Bitcoin.
I mean, everybody wants, whether it's the biggest sovereign wealth funds, whether it's the biggest family offices, whether it's the wealthiest people, whether it's Fortune 500 companies that are now adding it.
You know, kind of as a treasury item for for their company, we certainly have it as the Trump Organization.
It's been absolutely amazing, but I started a company called American Bitcoin.
I've never been more proud of anything in my entire life.
I mean, we're, we're mining Bitcoin right now at roughly 5050 cents to the dollar of current spot price, you know, maybe based on yesterday's price, maybe even a little bit less than that.
And so it's amazing.
So, you know, we're we're we're part was American Bitcoin, we're listed on the NASDAQ.
Um, you know, so on one side we're mining Bitcoin every single day, and doing so, um, incredibly efficiently.
We've got the largest mining operation in the world under one roof using American energy out of West Texas.
It's, it's really amazing.
On the other side, we're accumulating, you know, Bitcoin and, uh, and it's, it's been an unbelievable success.
I've never been more proud of a venture in my life and I really believe in it, but, you know, just the other side of of crypto.
You know, we're also doing the fastest growing, you know, stablecoin on earth right now, which is World Liberty Financial as USD one, and, you know, that is going to be the rails.
I, I mean that is going to be the rails of financial institutions and there's no question.
Stablecoin is going to win the day.
Blockchain is going to win the day.
There's no reason that JPMorgan Chase needs 10,000 employees in a 70 story building in every single city in America and around the world, you know, why is it that you can't send out a wire transfer at 5 o'clock in the afternoon on a Friday?
Why is it that it takes somebody, right, who has the means.
120 days to go through a know your customer to get a mortgage for a simple house, when they have the assets with a bank that they banked at for 20 years.
I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
This all gets fixed on blockchain, all all the the the exorbitant fees.
The timing, the inefficiencies, the costs, the speed, all of that gets fixed using blockchain.
And so I'm the biggest proponent of crypto.
I'm the biggest proponent of the rails, but I'm also the biggest proponent of Bitcoin and digital gold.
There is no question that we're we're in the infancy of it.
And when we sit here in in in 235 years, 10 years from now.
I mean, it's gonna be a whole different game and uh and crypto is gonna have won the game.
I, I believe in it with every ounce of my soul and my heart and uh and I've never had more conviction to something, but as you said, that all came out of getting debate and de-platformed and actually then realizing how inefficient the financial system really was, you know, in this country and around the world.
Well, as you know, Eric, I'm the super shy guy from Queens, New York, so I think, you know, there's so much here we should be doing a series together on all that's unfolding.
But you know, I have, I have to go back to this, you know, from stablecoin to blockchain, everything that is occurring, it is really that tectonic shift and and really from FinTech TV's perspective, my own personally and so many in the digital asset community, we are so thankful to you personally what you're doing and bringing forward.
American Bitcoin, what the administration is doing not only to allow the US to catch up but to take the lead on really what I think is this tectonic shift in global capital and job creation, as you say, you know, what's happening now is really one of those points in in in equivalent of the industrial revolution in my mind that is going to change the very fabric of our country.
So not only being competitive, but thank you for helping us lead this journey.
Well, honestly, it's the most unlikely journey.
I again, I, I couldn't have ever mentioned, you know, lawfare kind of translating to this, but it's, it's, it's amazing and it was, I, I spent a lot of time, I've spent a lot of time in Asia, I spent a lot of time in the Middle East, you know, projects, hard asset projects, you know, in in all of those places and what what's even what's really amazing is America is leading the revolution, but, but those countries want it more than anything.
I mean, when you look at at Asia.
They, they want to be on the US dollar.
They want US dollar stablecoin.
When you look at so many of the countries, they don't trust their governments, they don't trust their currency.
So guess what they want?
They want Bitcoin, they want digital gold.
They want something that can't be stolen, can't be confiscated, can't be, you know, I, I mean, taken away that, you know, that, that, that isn't subject to fraud and abuse and You know, crookedness, right?
I mean, they want it almost more than we wanted.
We're leading the way thanks to my father and understanding the value of it and also understanding the value that that America should be the country that creates modern day finance, right?
And, and so we're leading the way, but, and if you look at South America, if you look at the African continent, there's actually no, there's no places in the world that that cryptocurrency is more pertinent to.
Then those.
I mean, imagine if you lived in Zimbabwe where you have 1,000% or 10,000% inflation every single year.
I mean, you get your, your paycheck and and poof and it's gone.
And now all of a sudden you can buy Bitcoin, right?
I mean, you can use a basic thing like this, right?
And you can buy Bitcoin or you can buy, you know, USD1 denominated by, you know, the US dollar back to 1 to 1 by US Treasuries, right?
And now all of a sudden you've got some financial security in your life.
You've got some financial.
Independence, it can't be taken from you.
It can't be confiscated.
It, it can't be, you know, it's not in some shady seedy bank somewhere in the country that's probably controlled by criminals, right?
I mean that happens all over the world, as sad as that is.
Cryptocurrency is giving people financial independence all over the world, and that's why it's growing faster than the speed of the internet, you know, growing.
In the 90s and, and that's why we're, we're just at the beginning of this.
And, and every single day I see the biggest financial institutions of the world, whether it's Fidelity or it's Schwab or it's, you know, JP Morgan, I mean, you go through all of that.
I mean, they're all allowing the custody of, of. digital assets now.
I mean, and and then you obviously have the Robin Hoods and the the coin bases and the Krakeens and 1000 others out there, but for the first time, these people aren't trying to do so using a ledger, people are able to do it or if you want, you can just go buy spot ETFs for the first time, or you can go buy.
American Bitcoin, right, if you want, if you want full, you know, exposure to to an asset like that, you can go buy it through the equity markets.
It's a beautiful thing for this country.
It's a beautiful thing for financial freedom.
It's a beautiful thing for the world and uh and I'm glad America's kind of leading the charge, and, and I've never been more proud to lead the charge in anything in my entire life.
Like you are doing an amazing job at it.
Eric, I want to jump back to the book Under siege for a moment.
You talk about points in time, moments, some details that the public's never heard about before.
I know the book isn't out until next week, but is there a little kernel you can share one story or a moment that's in under siege that kind of captures all of that you've been through that the family's been through?
Yeah, you know, let me start about 200 yards from where you're, you're seated right now.
I'll never forget Vince, uh, being in the courtroom with my father, um, and I was there.
34 felony convictions were read out loud by by a jury, which has all been overturned by the way, since, but I'm sitting there right next to my father in these wooden pews of of a room about 200 yards away from where you are right now in in in the courthouse downtown, guilty, guilty, guilty.
He stood up, he shook my hand, we walked out together, we walked out proud, we hopped in the car and he looked at me, he goes, honey, I'm not sure how, but we're gonna win this.
We're we're gonna win this whole thing, not just the case, but but the but the presidency.
And I looked at him and I said, you know, Dad, it's either it's it's either the White House or it's jail for both of us, it's either the White House or jail.
That, that's how close we were.
I mean, and and that was, that was the duality of our life at the point, right?
I mean, you're either gonna be sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Or these crooked corrupt animals, right?
All of this has been overturned, as I said, we're going to make sure that we rotted for the rest of our life in a in a jail cell.
That's what they wanted for us.
They wanted us gone, they wanted us bankrupt.
And so, you know, the book goes into all the behind the scenes, the stories that were never on kind of the front page and and it does a hell of a job, but, but it also goes into how kind of good triumphed over evil.
You know, it it it was David and Goliath.
We are fighting the entire United States government.
We are fighting corruption like you've never seen.
We are fighting the entire corruption of the legal system, and we are fighting the entire weaponized mainstream media.
You know, and the American people won.
They, they wouldn't put up with it.
And not only did we win, we won, we won decisively.
So, you know, um, a lot of dark moments right there, right next to where you're sitting a couple blocks away and uh and I'll never forget them and I think a lot of those moments gave us the armor that we have today and um I I think a lot of, a lot of those moments.
Also really crippled the other side because I think Americans, they gave Americans a firsthand preview.
I mean, you shut down all of lower Manhattan for 6 months, bike racks, barricades around for a $100,000 payment that my father didn't even make.
Give me a break and no one bought it.
No one bought it in New York.
No one, especially the business community, by the way, they were livid, um, and no one bought it around the country and, and, and honestly, I think.
The building right next to where you are right now probably actually won my father the presidency.
Well, I cannot imagine that and encapsulating that in the description of the White House or jail, I think she puts it in it couldn't be in any better perspective.
Hey Eric, if I can ask you this, you know, Do you see yourself stepping into the political arena in the future at all, or are you going to continue shaping the message from outside the political system?
You know, Vince, I've always been a business guy, you know, I, I, I, I took over the company at 33, you know, it's pretty unlikely story, but, you know, my father was going to DC, but he called me up.
I built most of our buildings.
I was managing most of our teams at that point, and he goes, Honey, I want you to run the company, right?
You're, you're, you're extremely good at what you do and, and, uh, and, and you, you love it, you adore it, you know, you're the person to do it.
I want you running, you know, everything that we built and.
Unless I've, I've taken that company and I've put it on steroids, right?
I mean, we're the biggest company we've ever been.
We're the best company.
We've got the best cash flow we have ever had.
We've diversified in other industries and, you know, I paid off hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt.
We hardly had debt as a Trump Organization.
I mean, we're we're truly one of the greatest, um, leanest, uh, best, you know, best managed, you know, hospitality companies anywhere on Earth, and obviously now we have kind of the crypto component of it, which has been You know, the digital asset side of it, which has been absolutely incredible.
And so, you know, I never really saw myself with, with bureaucrats in Washington DC.
I mean, you know, the vast majority of politicians in Washington DC every day, they, they've got two, you know, they've got their choices are either yes no votes, right?
Like either vote yes for something or no.
I'm not sure if my mind works in that way where, you know, on any given, you know, day there's, there's 300 ways to win a race and it's a lot more complicated and it's a lot more strategic than, you know, voting yes and no on bills and uh.
I, I, you know, I think we've developed a great voice for it.
We've obviously developed a great passion for defending our country and standing on that stage, um, but we've also seen the worst of politics.
We've seen the best in certain ways.
We've also seen the very worst of it, and I don't know.
I love capitalism.
I love being part of a great organization with great employees, with the greatest hotels on earth and the greatest golf courses and, you know, commercial buildings.
I'm sure you have people watching us right now that are sitting in our commercial buildings and, you know, there's, there's also one that's about 300 yards from where you're sitting and In fact, I think it was your first office space ever, um, and I think you were one of our first tenants about 25 years ago, Vince.
But, um, I don't know, you know, whether or not I enter politics at some point in the future is, is a big question mark.
My family would have to be right for it.
My kids would have to be ready for it.
And um, I don't know, I certainly love the business community and I'm not a huge fan of a lot of people on Capitol Hill, uh, that much I can say.
Well, Eric, I appreciate that candor and yes indeed, you know, a stone's throw away at the Trump building, as you know, your dad gave me my shot back in the late 90s and what an epic journey that is.
And I have to just reflect, as, as a father with, with four kids, you know, I heard you reference it a couple of times talking about your dad, referring to you and calling you honey.
And, you know, I just, that just is so warming because that side of your father isn't isn't seen as much or heard much about in the media.
So you know that humanizing him as a father and you know, calling you honey, that's just a beautiful thing and what what what a wonderful way for my lens to close out this episode.
And Eric, any closing thoughts from you?
I certainly welcome them, but you know, so, so delighted that you joined us today.
No, Vince, we love you to death.
You've been a great friend for a long time.
Uh, you know, you're an amazing person, amazing voice, amazing at what you do.
So, you know, so thanks for everything and, and, uh, you know, go by the book, you know, go by, go by under siege, you know, and make, make your voices heard and no order.
I can't wait.
You know, it's it's number one on Amazon, and by the way, if you have any liberal friends, send it to them and, and honestly, I think I do a really good job not antagonizing but hopefully opening people's eyes to the hell that we fall through um for the benefit of this country.
And you know, I hope for the benefit of the markets and and everybody that watches his show, all the industries that follow you religiously, um, we're gonna do a great job.
We're gonna do a great job.
We're gonna make America proud.
We're gonna keep us as the The biggest and best country and economy in the world with the best entrepreneurs in the world, with the best businesses in the world, um, you know, and, and, and at the end of the day, that's our victory.
The siege was worth it.
The siege was worth it if, if, if that's, if that's ultimately what we can, we can instill in this country and, and if that's ultimately what we can save in.
So, we love you, it's great to be back on, can't wait to see you soon, my friend.
Thank you, my friend, and go out, get under siege, and thank you for continuing to facilitate the open dialogue, Eric.
I think it's so important for our nation right now.
