Donald Trump’s youngest son has been mocked on social media for claiming Americans were offering to buy him dinner as an apology for last week’s FBI search on Mar-a-Lago.
The younger Mr Trump told Sean Hannity on Monday night that he and his wife Lara had got into an “argument” with two people who wanted to buy their dinner at a restaurant on Sunday night.
He added that both diners wanted to pay for Mr and Ms Trump’s meal because of “what the US government has done to our family”, in reference to the FBI’s execution of a search warrant on his father’s Florida home.
“Last night, I had an argument between two people in a restaurant who were trying to buy Lara and I dinner to apologise for what the United States government has done to our family,” Mr Trump said.
“I mean, you wouldn’t believe the energy out there,” he then claimed. “I’ve been through all of these firestorms over the year. I’ve never seen America more mad than it is right now.”
While 37 per cent of registered voters polled by Politico/Morning Consult last week expressed their disapproval over the FBI’s search on Mar-a-Lago, a far higher number – 49 per cent – approved the search.
On Hannity, Mr Trump also suggested that his father’s “poll numbers have absolutely gone through the roof” and no other possible Republican figures were “in the equation” for 2024.
Another Politico/Morning Consult poll found that the FBI’s ssearch gave the former president a 10-point boost over Ron DeSantis, who remains a contender in the GOP primary race for 2024.
On Twitter, many commentators and critics ridiculed Eric Trump for his appearance on Fox News and expressed doubt in his claim about being offered dinner.
“Of all of the things that never happened to Eric Trump, this is the thing that happened least of all,” wrote former Democrat strategist and writer Holly Figueroa O’Reilly.
“The believable part is that some people tried to buy him dinner and he managed to get in a fight with them,” argued University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket.
Political Satirist Jeremy Newburger meanwhile tweeted a picture of two beavers with the caption: “The couple that offered to buy Eric Trump dinner last night.”
On Monday, the US Justice Department told NBC News that it had returned three passports belonging to the former president which were siezed by agents last Tuesday, when several boxes of allegedly classified material were removed from Mar-a-Lago.
FBI agents were investigating potential violations of three different federal laws, including one covering the loss of defense information under the Espionage Act, the Associated Press reported of the search warrant.
A source close to the investigation into the files meanwhile told The Washington Post last that week the search was in connection with nuclear documents thought to have been stored by the former president without authorisation in Florida – a claim he denies.
An inventory of items taken in the search meanwhile include a “leatherbound box of documents,” and information about the “President of France”, the Justice Department revealed last week.
The Trump family and Republican allies have accused the FBI and Justice Department of “political weaponisation” despite the bureau’s chief, Christopher Wray, being a Trump appointee and the release of the FBI search warrant.
