Jimmy Kimmel recklessly antagonizes “tweedle-even-dumber” Eric Trump
Thursday marked exactly a month since Donald Trump’s $250 million civil fraud trial began in New York. While the former president was not in court for the occasion, his two eldest sons – and co-defendants – Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were. And both took the stand to testify about what they know (and more often, what they don’t know) about some troubling irregularities found in financial reports filed by the Trump Organization.
Jimmy Kimmel, for example, said that the brothers would make an impressive duo. “I haven’t seen a more likeable group of brothers on court since the Menendez boys,” said the host of the siblings, whom he dubbed “The Stinklevoss Twins.”
The day marked Eric’s big debut on the witness stand, where his sworn testimony about his knowledge of some of his father’s financial dealings appeared to be in direct contradiction to previous statements he had made regarding the Trump Organization.
“Things started slowly when they asked Eric to raise his right hand,” Kimmel said of Eric (aka “Tweedle-even-dumber”). “He couldn’t for the life of him figure it out, and he tried.” Like Don Jr., who ended his second day of testimony just before his brother took the stand, Eric very often responded to attorneys’ questions with, “I can I can not remember”.
“Eric kept saying, ‘I don’t focus on the financial side of things…I pour concrete.’ He said that several times. He said, “I’m not a money guy, I’m a construction guy.” He’s a construction guy, just like the guy in Village People. He is a construction worker. He owns a yellow hat.”
Don Jr. certainly did not escape scrutiny or ridicule when he claimed to have had nothing to do with the information contained in the statements he signed and asserted that the information contained therein was true. But Kimmel seemed more amused that the former president didn’t want to appear in court at all.
“Donald Trump not showing up to watch his children testify in a fraud trial is really the Trump family version of not showing up to their school play,” Kimmel noted.
At Late at night, Seth Meyers wasn’t about to let the Trump brothers get away with it. During Thursday night’s “A Closer Look,” Meyers accused both brothers of claiming to have little understanding of the financial aspects of their family business, despite both regularly signing statements to the contrary. “You can’t claim you didn’t know what was in it and then get away scot-free,” Meyers said. “That doesn’t work for anyone else. That would be like John Hancock saying: ‘Independence from England? I never agreed to that!'”
Eric is scheduled to wrap up his testimony on Friday, then his father will likely testify in his own defense before Ivanka Trump is sworn in on Monday.
