Eric Trump defends his father's frequent golf outings since taking office, saying they're a way for President Donald Trump to de-stress – and do diplomatic "bonding."
In an interview with the Irish Independent, the younger Trump said "being able to go to Mar-a-Lago, it is my father's Crawford, Texas."
"Crawford was [former President] George W. Bush's ranch and Bush brought foreign leaders from all over the world" there, Trump said. He would go down to the ranch and they would drive a truck around and they would have fun and they would eat and that was his way of bonding."
"Mar-a-Lago is an amazing estate that has been a very effective tool for [my father] to go down and get to know somebody while not sitting - no different to you wanting to sit next to me on this couch today - not sitting across a wooden partition, which instantly makes a relationship more strenuous," he said.
"If he can befriend people and find common respect, common ground and friendship – if you can have a good time together – then you are always going to see somebody in a very different light than you would [across a table] … or a relationship over the phone, and that's an immensely powerful tool," he added.
Eric Trump also defended Irish golfer Rory McIlroy for playing a round at Trump International in Florida.
"[H]ey, if you played with Hillary [Clinton] and she had won then he would have gotten backlash for that as well," he said. "That's the nature of politics. It is what it is. But do you know what the great thing is? He [my father] is not a politician so it doesn't matter – they can still go out and have a fun time together."
"No matter what side it is with, you are always going to get backlash," he said. "You are going to have a few people who have nothing better to do than to sit behind a computer and send a mean tweet. It's unfortunate, but it's the nature of the game."
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.