Thursday marked exactly one month since Donald Trump’s $250 million civil fraud trial began in New York City. While the former president was not in court to mark the occasion, his two eldest sons—and co-defendants—Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were. And both took the stand to testify about what they know (and more often what they don’t know) about some troubling irregularities found in financial statements filed by the Trump Organization.
Jimmy Kimmel, for one, thought the brothers made for an imposing duo. “I haven’t seen a more likable set of brothers on trial since the Menendez boys,” said the host of the siblings, whom he dubbed “the Stinklevoss Twins.”
The day marked Eric’s big debut on the stand, where his sworn testimony about his knowledge regarding some of his father’s financial dealings seemed to directly contradict previous statements he made regarding the Trump Organization.
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“Things got off to a slow start when they asked Eric to raise his right hand,” Kimmel said of Eric (a.k.a. “Tweedle-even-dumber”). “He couldn’t figure it out for the life of him, and he tried.” Like Don Jr., who finished up his second day of testimony shortly before his brother took the stand, Eric offered an awful lot of I-can’t-remembers in response to lawyers’ questions.
“Eric repeatedly said: ‘I don’t focus on the financial side of things… I pour concrete.’ He said that several times. He said, ‘I’m not a money guy, I’m a construction guy.’ He’s a construction guy like the guy in the Village People’s a construction guy. He owns a yellow hat.”
Don Jr. certainly didn’t escape scrutiny, or mockery, when he claimed to have nothing to do with the information contained within the statements he signed asserting that the information contained within them were true. But Kimmel seemed more amused that the former president opted out of coming to court at all.
“Really, Donald Trump not showing up to watch his kids testify in a fraud trial is the Trump family version of not showing up for their school play,” noted Kimmel.
On Late Night, Seth Meyers wasn’t about to let the Trump brothers get away without a good ribbing. During Thursday night’s “A Closer Look” segment, Meyers laid into both brothers for claiming to have little understanding of their family company’s financial inner workings, even though both regularly signed statements to the contrary. “You don’t get to claim you didn’t know what was in it, then just walk away scot-free,” said Meyers. “That doesn’t work for anyone else. That would be like John Hancock saying: ‘Independence from England? I never agreed to that!’”
Eric is scheduled to complete his testimony on Friday, which is when his dad will likely testify in his own defense before Ivanka Trump is sworn in on Monday.
