by Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he does not want his sons to serve in his administration again if he wins a second term in the White House.
“I said, ‘That’s enough for the family,’” Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier. “It is too painful for the family. My family has been through hell.”
Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, were senior Trump advisers in the White House. frequently drawing criticism for his functions in the government.
The interview was Trump’s first since he appeared in federal court in Miami last week and pleaded not guilty in the federal classified documents case. He faces seven federal criminal charges related to the more than 100 classified documents recovered from his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, in August.
As Trump runs for a second term, some members of his family have turned up at his events, but others have been conspicuously absent. Ivanka Trump said late last year that she was done with politics and would not be part of his father’s 2024 campaign. Trump’s wife Melania he has rarely been seen at his events since the launch of his campaign.
Donald Trump Jr. has remained a staunch and vocal ally of his father in conservative media, including on his own podcast. Eric Trump joined his father at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, last week as Trump delivered his first speech since his federal indictment. Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. are named in the New York attorney general’s civil lawsuit that they face legal peril as part of the Trump family business.
“Eric, my son, is a good boy. You know him very well. He is a good young man. A good student, good at everything,” Trump said in Monday’s interview, adding: “No one has gone through what my family has gone through. Ivanka had a really successful clothing line. I mean, make a fortune. When I did this, she really shut it down.”
Baier too pressured trump about his comments in 2016 that “I’m going to surround myself with only the best and most serious people.” He then listed a dozen of his former administration officials who are now running against or criticizing him.
“Why did you hire them all in the first place?” Baier asked.
“Because I hired 10 to one that was fantastic,” Trump said, later adding: “For every one you say, I’ve got 10 that love us.”
Trump also continued to insist that he had every right to the documents he was keeping at Mar-a-Lago that had gotten him in trouble and that the reason he was not ready to hand them over was that he wanted to “go through the boxes and get everything.” [his] personal things out.
