Eric Trump accused of using anti-Semitic word live on Fox News

Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump, has been accused of making an anti-semitic remark live on Fox News.

The 34-year-old appeared on his father's favourite TV show Fox and Friends to praise the president's response to Hurricane Florence and discuss November's mid-term elections.

After watching a clip of Democrat Maxine Walters, where she calls for an impeachment to be made against Trump, Eric retorts with a speech on why he feels the Democrats won't win in November.

That isn't the problem here. The controversy arises when co-host Steve Doocy asks Eric about the situation involving the anonymous New York Times op-ed and a new book about his father's administration.

Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward has already become a best-seller and details the dysfunctional atmosphere of Trump's White House.

Eric's response was to bash CNN and use a word which has links to anti-semitism. He said:

Don’t you think people look through the fact, you can write some sensational, nonsense book, CNN will definitely have you on there because they love to trash the president.

It’ll mean you sell three extra books, you make three extra shekels, at the behest of the American people, at the behest of our country, that’s doing a phenomenal job by every quantifiable metric.

Is that really where we are?

A shekel is the ancient and modern-day currency currently used in Israel.

Although no one in the studio seemed to bat an eyelid at Eric's use of the word, he was immediately called out for it on Twitter, with some highlighting how the word can be used in an anti-semitic context, while others also accused him of using it as a rallying cry to members of the alt-right.

In a statement given to the Huffington Post, the senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, Keegan Hankes, confirmed that the word can be used as a slur by certain hate groups.

Shekels is a derogatory term used by white supremacists that ties into the myth that Jewish people only care about money.

[The term is] used constantly by the extreme right and particularly neo-Nazis.

He added that it "certainly seems like a dog whistle".

HT Mashable

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