Donald Trump Jr. vigorously denied that he was referencing the Holocaust when he sarcastically cited “warming up the gas chamber” in an interview this week, saying Friday that he “didn’t say anything about the Holocaust” and that the controversy was an example of media bias.
Trump Jr. was asked about his remarks in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and insisted that he was simply making a joking reference to the death penalty, and not the Holocaust, when he said that if Republicans acted like Hillary Clinton, the media would be “warming up the gas chamber.”
“I didn’t say anything about the Holocaust. I was talking about media bias. I was talking about, if you’re a conservative, it’s essentially capital punishment. Even Jake Tapper from CNN said, listen, Donald Trump Jr. put out the same thing, he played the clip yesterday on his twitter account — I said the same thing two weeks ago, and used the term electric chair. It was a poor choice of words, perhaps, but in no way, shape or form was I remotely talking about the Holocaust,” Trump Jr. said.
He also pointed to his sister, Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism when she married Jared Kushner, and said that “half of my best men in my wedding and the bridesmaids in my wedding were Jewish.”
“I would never do that. But what it shows, unfortunately, it almost proves the point. I say something, rather than the media asking me about it, rather than saying, ‘Hey Don, were you talking about the Holocaust?’ — they jump to, ‘oh my God!” he said.
The son of the Republican presidential candidate also discussed the Trump Organization and the scrutiny over its web of international business dealing, which have raised concerns about creating potential conflicts of interest for a Trump presidential administration.
Trump said that his father would put his company in a blind trust that his children would manage, and dismissed concerns that having the children run the company would be an insufficient means of eliminating potential conflicts.
“It’s not a blind trust if you and your siblings are still running the company,” host George Stephanopoulos said.
“We’re not going to be involved in government. We wouldn’t be involved in government,” Trump replied.
Stephanopoulos countered, “A blind trust is not a blind trust if it’s being run by his children.”
“It is because he’ll have nothing to do with it,” Trump said. “He said that. He wants nothing to do with it.”
“He’s still going to know what the businesses are, where they are,” Stephanopoulos pointed out.
“No he won’t. We will not discuss it — ” Trump Jr. began, but Stephanopoulos interjected. “How will he not know that?”
“Because we’re not going to discuss it. We’re not going to discuss those things. It doesn’t matter. Trust me, as you know, it’s a very full time job. He doesn’t need to worry about the business. The business is in good hands. He trusts us with that, the 100%.”