Eric Trump slams Bob Woodward’s book as a way ‘to make three extra shekels’
Published September 12, 2018
(JTA) — Eric Trump called journalist Bob Woodward’s new book about the White House “sensational nonsense” that Woodward wrote in order “to make make three extra shekels.”
President Donald Trump’s son made the remarks, which references Israel’s currency, in a Wednesday interview on “Fox & Friends.”
Woodward’s book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” describes how administration officials work at length to thwart President Trump’s impulses, including by removing papers from the president’s desk behind his back. The book quotes anonymous sources.
“But don’t you think people look through the fact that you can write some sensational nonsense book? CNN will definitely have you on there because they love to trash the president,” Eric Trump said.
“It will mean you sell three extra books, you make three extra shekels, at the behest of the American people, at the behest of our country and a president that’s doing a phenomenal job by every quantifiable metric,” he continued.
ERIC TRUMP attacks Democrats: “Anti-law enforcement, high taxes, and elimination of plastic straws is not a message that will win in November.”
ERIC TRUMP then dismisses WOODWARD book as “sensational nonsense” he wrote “to make 3 extra shekels.” pic.twitter.com/GuTXMpPLHG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2018
The modern Israeli currency is named after currency referenced in the Bible. It is also an American and Irish term slang for money, showing up in old potboilers like Mickey Spillane’s “I, The Jury”: “Generally a runner made plenty for himself, taking a chance that the dough he clipped wasn’t on the number that pulled in the shekels.”
But on some anti-Semitic corners of the web, it is often used sarcastically to refer to Jewish money or influence.
Some Twitter users were quick to criticize Trump for using the term.
“The only people who refer to being paid off as wanting ‘extra shekels’ are Israelis speaking Hebrew and anti-Semites speaking English outside Israel. Eric Trump doesn’t speak Hebrew, so you know exactly who he has been reading online,” wrote Yair Rosenberg, a senior writer at Tablet.
Jerusalem Post reporter Amy Spiro called Trump’s reference “textbook antisemitism.”
