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Eric Trump sat down (virtually) with Steve Bannon for an interview today and I thought it was so good I wanted to share it with you.
I’ve broken it up into two parts and added subtitles for you in case that’s helpful.
STEVE:
Welcome back. Um, I have, according to President Trump, and I’m quoting President Trump, “Eric Trump may be the most subpoenaed human being in the history of our country. Eric never once left my side, but stood tall, unshaken, and unbroken.” Eric Trump joins us.
Eric, I want to, just for a moment, read from this. It’s a masterpiece. It’s a classic. Number one, it’s so action-oriented and so, you know, moment by moment you’re kinda hanging, ’cause people don’t know the inside story.
Yeah. But it’s also beautifully written. I want to read from the moment that Eric Trump and his father and the family — because this is about a family unit — understood they had won the presidency and had revenge on the stolen election of 2020.
“Under siege, but never broken. There were moments, many of them, when the night seemed endless, the noise deafening, the weight of history unbearable. We didn’t ask for the battle that was brought to our doorstep. We didn’t choose the persecution or the hatred that tried to divide not only our family, but this great country.
But we never ran from it either. Over the past 10 years, we stood tall, not just as individuals, but as a family — a family that refused to bend, refused to retreat into the background, and refused to let the soul of America be rewritten. For the first time in American political history, it wasn’t just one man running for office, it was a family effort — not because we wanted it that way, but because we had no other choice.
Because at the end of the day, we only had each other. And through it all, through every firestorm and every late-night war room, we held onto three things: our love for God, our love for our country, and our love for the Constitution. These were our compass. These were our guides.”
Eric Trump joins me now. Talk to me about that. That is a magnificent passage that really — it’s at the end of the book, but it kind of flashes back over the 10-year epic journey that you and the family took, sir.
ERIC TRUMP:
You know, Steve, there’s a lot of people that write books, right? And there’s a lot of people who use ghostwriters and go out, and I wrote every word of this book. I mean, I wrote every single word.
I deeply care about this mission. In fact, I’ll tell you this — in terms of return on time, it’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done because I put so much time into it. I care so much. They tried to destroy us, and the world needs to know about it.
But when I say “us,” I’m not just talking about me, I’m not just talking about my father, I’m not just talking about our family. We are the tip of the spear. But listen — they tried to destroy you, Steve. I mean, there’s very few people who took as many arrows as you did.
They tried to destroy so many people watching us right now. I mean, we were the siege. All of us right here were the siege, and we won. And we won against the greatest corrupt media this country has ever seen.
We won against the establishment. We won against the DOJ and the FBI and everybody who was trying to take us down — people who were spying on our campaigns, people who were making up dirty dossiers.
We won against the Clinton family. We won against the Obamas, who were making up Russiagate, as you see every single day coming out. We won against Robert Mueller and Jack Smith and Letitia James and — I could go down the list. We won.
And it is you that won, it’s us that’s won, and by default, it’s our nation that won. And I mean every word of that.
What were we fighting for, right? We’re a family that did not need to do this. So what were we fighting for? We were fighting for our Constitution. We were fighting for religion. We were fighting to keep men out of women’s sports.
We were fighting to end DEI and wokeness that was destroying our companies and our culture in this country. We were trying to restore family values, the American dream, the United States military — everything that makes our nation great.
That’s what we were fighting against. And we were fighting against unthinkable evil — unthinkable corruption, unthinkable amounts of cheating. And that’s really what the book Under Siege is all about — our mutual victory.
ERIC TRUMP (continued):
And, Steve, it’s so ironic that the book comes out on a day like today, right? A day where we just had Middle East peace. And people come up to me all the time and say, “Eric, was it worth it? You became the most subpoenaed person in American history for not doing anything wrong. You’ve never had a traffic ticket. Was it worth it?”
And then I watch my father get on that stage in Israel, and then I see him fly over to Egypt, and I see all the worldwide leaders around him, and they’re all praising him. They’re saying, “You know what? Thank you. You stopped war. You stopped death. You stopped destruction. Thank you, Mr. President.”
And by the way, this isn’t like a conflict where one person’s happy and another person’s distraught, right? This is a conflict where everybody came out of it as winners. The world is coalescing around peace and prosperity.
They’re doing it together, and everybody’s happy, everybody’s rejoicing. And America has its standing back. The fact that Under Siege is coming out on a day like today — it made every arrow we took, every bullet we took, the hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees we had to spend — it made it all worth it.
We live in the greatest country in the world. Our standing is back, and I could not be more proud of my father. He’s — I mean, what a job the guy has done.
STEVE:
If you look at yesterday, we played twice now the president coming back at 3 o’clock in the morning. First off, we covered it here on Real America’s Voice in War Room Sunday. We decided to do the whole thing live.
We saw him take off, and it was a day trip. We were live at 2 o’clock in the morning. He gets off the plane, does all those great events, including staying with the hostages’ parents and families for an hour — not making that a big TV production, just sitting there, passing the microphone, listening to their stories.
Then that great speech in the Knesset, then to Egypt — everything he had to do there, the great talk, the signing of the document — and then the flight back at 3 a.m.
And today, it’s just Malay on a $20 billion financing for hemisphere defense, for Argentina — and then the Charlie Kirk presidential medal. I mean, the energy!
The key part of the book — I want you to talk about this scene. I don’t want to give too much away because I want everybody to read it and share it. It’s the perfect Christmas gift, especially for people in your family who, if you mention Donald Trump’s name, they spit on the floor.
They’re the ones who need to read this. When you get in the car — I think it was in New York — the president turns to you and says, “Hey, it’s gonna be one of two things: it’s either back to the White House, or it’s gonna be jail,” right?
That’s such a powerful moment. Tell us about it.
ERIC TRUMP:
I wouldn’t leave his side. I mean, Steve, I would not leave his side. And by the way, I hate that as a business guy — I felt powerless, right? You just feel powerless in courtrooms. But I would not leave his side.
He had to have somebody that loved him right next to him. And I went to that courtroom every single day. I drove down with him in the morning, I came back with him in the afternoon.
And by the way, because my father was gagged so often, I was the guy out there on the courthouse steps, yelling and screaming to the media about what a sham this whole trial was. My father got convicted of 34 felonies by a judge whose daughter was one of the largest digital fundraisers for the Democratic Party — and the guy wouldn’t recuse himself.
It was crazy. The whole trial was crazy. But that whole point was crazy. So 34 felony convictions get read aloud — we’ve overturned every single one of them since.
But I’ll never forget: he stood up, turned around, I was right there, shook my hand, we walked out proudly. In the car he goes, “Honey, I’m not sure how, but I’m gonna win this thing. We’re gonna win this thing.”
He meant the case, but also the presidency. And I said, “Dad, it’s either 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — the White House — or we’re both in jail.”
That was the dichotomy of life, right? These highs and lows — Steve, I can’t even describe them. Butler was one of them — seeing my father’s head almost get taken off by the gunman, and then exactly two days later, 48 hours later, I was the Republican delegate from Florida voting to make my father the nominee for President of the United States.
You had these weird highs and lows in this process. That car ride — “It’s either the White House, or they’ll lock us up” — that’s what they wanted.
And you know what? God came through in this story in a very big way. We always felt His presence — like we were being guided, being protected. Every single day, there’d be a dark moment, and then a little light — this little opening, this sea would part, and suddenly there was opportunity, hope, energy.
I can’t tell you how many times we felt that. I felt it in the car. I felt it after Butler. And that was an amazing moment — it shows how fragile this process was. It was either 1600 Pennsylvania or prison. And I truly believe they would have locked us up for doing nothing wrong — just because that’s how weaponized the system had become.
STEVE:
It comes through in the book — but do you believe your father’s a providential figure? That God works through him as an instrument?
ERIC TRUMP:
Yeah, I do. I do. And the first time it really came to my attention, it was from maybe an unlikely source — Mike Huckabee.
It was during the 2016 debates, the primaries. Huckabee was on that stage, and I was backstage at one of the debates. He comes up to me and says, “Eric, I can feel the hand of God on your father’s shoulder. And I think he’s gonna win this entire thing.”
Now, this is somebody who was running against my father at the time — saying that against his own interest! He goes, “I can just feel it. I feel like he’s being guided into doing something remarkable for the world.”
And it’s kind of ironic that Huckabee was on that stage yesterday, obviously as ambassador to Israel — and we have the greatest peace deal of all.
But I felt it at Butler. I felt it when we beat Hillary Clinton. Steve, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. You were there in the first campaign, side by side with me virtually every day.
I didn’t know what a damn delegate was! I built skyscrapers for a living. I got really good at building tall buildings — probably better than anybody. Same with golf courses, commercial buildings, etc.
We didn’t know what a delegate was. I remember you literally asked me to call all the delegates from Pennsylvania — a state I knew well — because we were winning states, but Ted Cruz was eating our lunch on delegates, because we didn’t realize we had to wine and dine them!
This wasn’t like — what do you mean, you can win the vote of a state and still not pull ahead in the delegate count? We didn’t know what the hell we were doing.
And yet somehow — that was Hillary Clinton, the greatest political dynasty. It was 100%. God was with us. Absolutely.
STEVE:
Eric, hang on one second. You’re gracious enough to stay for the next block.
The book is Under Siege by Eric Trump. This book will open number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It sold so many copies, they can’t stop it.
Steve Bannon:
2016. That’s when it became evident to me that President Trump was a providential figure because we had a plane, we had a message, and we had a man. We didn’t have a lot of organization. We had no money.
And we were going up against one of the toughest political dynasties going — the Clinton mafia.
But Eric, and this is why this book is important to be purchased by everybody in the MAGA movement and read — but also shared — or more importantly, buy a couple extra copies and give them to people who are not MAGA, people who don’t understand President Trump.
There’s no book about his presidency that can help you understand the man, the character of the man, better than this one. And here’s why.
I make the case all the time that Trump is a providential figure. And the stealing of the 2020 election — which was stolen — and President Trump’s decision to come back, understanding that all the subpoenas were going to come for Eric Trump, understanding they were going to try to destroy the family, understanding they were going to try to put him in prison — they’ve done everything possible, including stealing a presidential election, to keep him from the White House. They would do everything to make sure he never returned.
And that’s why this book shows you the character. As I call President Trump, the American Cincinnatus — just like the famous Roman general who returned from the plow to save the Roman Republic again.
You read this book, and the odds are so long when you see the potential comeback — because the entire force of corporate America, the entire force of the technology industry, the entire force of the Capitol, Wall Street, and particularly the government and the state and this radical Democratic Party and their donors — it all converges not simply to make sure he can’t return to the White House, but to destroy the family.
To set an example that anybody else who steps out of line — we don’t care how famous you are, we don’t care how powerful you are, we don’t care how wealthy you are, we don’t care how many people like you or consider you good people — it doesn’t matter. You will be destroyed.
That is what comes through the pages of this.
And leading up to Butler, you understand that the story of Trump — the American Cincinnatus — could not be written unless you had to go through this. That is why the stealing by the apparatus of the 2020 election — it’s totally logical.
And President Trump’s moral courage — I say if you take Jack Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage, which at that time in the late 1950s took every great moral victory of politics — you know, he and Sorensen had ten examples — if you take that book and triple it, it’s one-half of President Trump’s moral decision to come back and say, “I don’t care what they try to do to me, including putting me in prison. I’m going to fight this because if I don’t fight it, we’re not going to have a republic.”
Eric Trump, your thoughts?
Eric Trump:
No one’s stronger. No person I have ever met in my life even compares to that man in his courage, in his tenacity, in his fight every single day.
But Steve, I remember how bad it hurt when we were sitting in the Blue Room in the White House in 2020, and we quote-unquote “lost.”
We didn’t lose. Everybody knew.
I mean, no one actually believes that Joe Biden got 16 million more votes than Barack Obama did in 2012. Give me a break. Universally, on both left and right, everybody knows that’s BS.
But honestly, it’s the greatest thing that ever happened to us. As painful as it was at the time, we know we didn’t lose. We fought our butts off. We were tired.
We had that won. The enthusiasm gap was 10x. It wasn’t even close. I would counter-narrative his rallies. I would talk across the street, Steve, and literally I’d have a thousand people, and he couldn’t fill his little yellow circles.
But it’s a law of unintended consequences, and I really do believe that God guided all of that.
Think about it — the media is dead. The mainstream media is dead. No one likes them. No one trusts them.
You have a Republican Party that’s willing to fight. You’ve got the Senate. You’ve got the House. You’ve got a 6–3 majority on the Supreme Court. You obviously have the executive branch. You have a killer cabinet of phenomenal people. You’ve got great ambassadors all over the world.
You’ve got people like Steve Wykoff in there doing incredible jobs. None of this would’ve been possible. You wouldn’t have had the Senate. You wouldn’t have had the House. You wouldn’t have had the same majority.
You would have had so many people from the old cabinet — plenty of fine people — but you wouldn’t have had the baggage of all of them.
It honestly took us coming out for four years and being at the lowest part on the totem pole to realize who our true friends were. Who was there in the bad times? Who was there when we were weak?
Steve, I talk about it a lot — and my father talked about it in The Art of the Deal and The Art of the Comeback — when he wrote his original business books about the days where the phone stopped ringing.
You better believe after 2020 the phone stopped ringing.
I’m not talking about the American people who absolutely adored my father. I’m talking about the establishment and the people you otherwise thought were your friends.
Having those four years in those courtrooms — knowing who was sitting by your side, who was your friend, who was showing up every single day — being able to empower those people to sit next to you in government — you could never have that same experience again because those people are all tested.
They’re all battle-hardened.
Those people are willing to go out there and fight. And the establishment is weak. My father is strong.
People understand these people for who they are. And there are only so many times you can cry wolf before people get it. America gets it.
My father is strong. He’s making transformational change. The Democrats are weak.
And honestly, as painful as it was, those four years were the best thing that ever happened.
Steve Bannon:
Clearly when you read the book Under Siege — and I recommend that everyone gets it for themselves — because although we covered it day in and day out, I remember on the afternoon of January 20, 2021, when Boris Epshteyn was at Andrews when it left and we played “My Way” on the show and talked about it — there was never any doubt.
This audience doesn’t want to hear Ron DeSantis. They don’t want to hear any of it. Nikki Haley — forget it. It’s destiny.
It has to be Trump. The American story demands that it’s Trump.
He’s a man of destiny.
The book is great about the years in the wilderness and the great fight to come back.
Today, when you see things that happen like yesterday — which your father nailed — it’s three thousand years of vendettas. Three thousand years.
And this even transcends religion. It started even before Islam. It’s deeper. It started before Christianity.
The hatred over there, the mistrust — it’s been thousands of years.
And you see, for the first time, an architecture where you actually could have peace — people working together and pulling together. Particularly, that’s why I thought the meeting in Egypt was breathtaking.
In thinking that through, and you being the guy that was there every day — as a man of destiny — where do you think this takes us, not just in the second term, but where do you think he takes America and the world?
Eric Trump:
Well Steve, it’s kind of interesting when you say that because I think for the longest time, Americans almost glorified war.
Look at the Gulf War with Norman Schwarzkopf and everybody — a lot of patriotism about going in, kicking bad guys’ butts, and doing everything.
And now, I think peace is actually being glorified in the world for the first time ever.
I don’t think it’s something people spend a lot of time talking about, but I actually think society is changing — from a lot of hard-lined American people who go in there, pump their chests, want to kick butt and take names — and God bless, I’m a red-blooded Republican, no one likes that stuff when it’s warranted more than me.
At the same time, now all of a sudden you’re seeing a lot of people saying this is senseless. Spending twenty years in the Middle East at the cost of trillions of dollars that could’ve been invested in our schools, roads, and infrastructure is senseless.
The military complex in this country — it’s crazy. It’s run away from us in ways we can’t even imagine.
The senseless spending, the death and destruction, the maimed kids coming back from sitting on ridges in Afghanistan for months getting mortared every day — we don’t want it anymore.
America doesn’t want it.
We want to invest in ourselves. We don’t want to be the police force of the entire world.
And by the way, all these other countries don’t want it either. It doesn’t benefit anyone.
So let’s stop the wars.
I was personally in the room with Cambodia and Thailand when my father stopped that conflict.
I remember him calling both people, and that conflict stopped virtually right away.
He’s ended — what is it — the seventh or eighth war?
There are kids in the world alive because of his actions — a lot of them.
The world is a better place.
I just love the fact that people are rejoicing around the world in peace.
I hate the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize can’t get their arms around it and they’re politicized and won’t do the right thing.
But universally, when you have every side of every conflict coming out and saying, “President Trump got this done and it wouldn’t have happened without him, and we’re thankful to him” — that’s a proud moment.
It’s a really proud moment.
Steve Bannon:
This nation has been blessed with three individuals that are extraordinary because they defined their time — General Washington in the revolution and founding of the nation, Abraham Lincoln in the rebirth of the nation, and Donald Trump in the rebirth and reclamation of this nation.
You cannot understand — there are lots of books written about Washington, even more about Lincoln.
There are very few books written about President Trump where you actually understand the man and the character of the man and his family.
This book is by far the best — Under Siege. I strongly recommend it to everyone in this audience.
It’ll be the journey you took for four years. You’ll understand the details. It still has a powerful impact when you see it from the inside.
But what you need to do is share this book with your family and friends. Get copies for them — particularly the ones around the Thanksgiving table or at Christmas — the ones where you can’t mention Trump’s name without them getting into a mood.
Have them read this book.
Then talk to them afterwards.
Eric, where can people get you on social media and where can they get the book, sir?
Eric Trump:
Well, it’s number one on Amazon right now. Go to Amazon — we’re winning every category. We’re the number one book on all of Amazon and in every category — government, politics, nationally, etc.
I’m incredibly proud of that.
I never thought this would be my calling, but it certainly has become.
Go follow me — “Eric Trump” is my handle on virtually all social media.
You can go to Barnes & Noble and everywhere else.
Number one book in the country right now, Steve — incredibly proud of that. And that says a lot about our movement and the love of all the people who support my father and our family — the most amazing patriots this country has ever seen.
Steve Bannon:
Eric, you said at the beginning that you didn’t know whether it was worth the time — it’s definitely worth the time.
And people know I’m a big reader. We’ve talked to a lot of authors on this show — this is a beautifully written book. It’s powerful.
There are a lot of books that are just typing — this is writing.
I keep telling people — if you have one thing to do to help your family come together — buy this book and give it to the people that hate Trump the most.
Give it to the people that hate Trump the most.
It’s a beautiful, magnificent character study.
Eric Trump, thank you for taking time this morning to do a couple of blocks in The War Room.
Eric Trump:
Thank you, my friend. Good seeing you.
Steve Bannon:
Thank you, sir.
Boy, Eric was right about 2016 — and he’s right about this.
Here’s the thing: this audience — you guys know, particularly those who’ve been with us for years and years — how dark those days were.
I call them the years in the wilderness.
But particularly those days — remember January, February, March, and April of 2021?
Until things like President Trump’s CPAC speech, or the county vote in Arizona — which was totally screwed up — but people put their shoulder to the wheel.
People out there in Arizona were magnificent.
You started to see the ability of MAGA to hang together — and not give in to Fox News and Rupert Murdoch’s email saying they were going to make Trump a “non-person.”
You didn’t allow it.
If you want to know what was going on behind the scenes and why that fight was worth it — get the book Under Siege.
Extraordinary.
And I know Eric pretty well — I’ll be honest, I didn’t know he was this kind of writer.
But it’s a beautifully written, very powerful book. That excerpt I read — extraordinary.