A recently released transcript of a Trump deposition from April revealed that Trump intends to essentially throw his son Eric under the bus to deflect blame away from himself in the civil fraud case against him in New York. This civil case is completely separate from the criminal charges Trump also faces in New York.
When Trump was asked if he was the decisionmaker for the Trump organization, he deflected responsibility to his son, saying that Eric had been in primary day-to-day control of the company for the past several years.
"My son Eric is much more involved with it than I am. I’ve been doing other things. And I guess you could say on something major, final decisions, whatever. But I’ve been much less involved in it than ... over the last five years, five or six years than ever before."
As Tim O'Brien, author of Trump's biography TrumpNation: The Art of Being Donald Trump, observed on MSNBC on Sunday:
"[There was] a little whiff of him throwing Eric under the bus there should any charges press further on."
He further said that Trump's statement was also untrue.
"No decision was ever made in the Trump Organization without Donald Trump approving it. I think at one point in the deposition, he describes himself as, 'The most honest man in the world,' which is, of course, not true."
You can watch his appearance below:
Trump will throw Eric under the bus in his business lawsuit: biographerwww.youtube.com
People online were dubious of Trump's claims that Eric is in charge of the family business, and critical of his decision to place all responsibility on Eric.
In the same deposition where he seemed to confer all responsibility for day-to-day operations of the family business onto Eric, Trump claimed that he had saved "millions of lives" and prevented "nuclear holocaust" during his presidency.
"I think you would have nuclear holocaust, if I didn’t deal with North Korea. I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth."
The deposition was released by Trump's defense lawyers ahead of a September 22 hearing where a judge could potentially resolve the matter before the case goes to trial in October.
A separate filing last week from New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges that Trump inflated his net worth by a staggering $2.2 billion in 2014, and that Trump also defrauded lenders, insurers, and others during the period from 2011 to 2021.
