Donald Trump to Sean Hannity in 2023: “Could you imagine” if my family had received money from China

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the December 8, 2023, edition of Fox News' Hannity

DONALD TRUMP (GUEST): So if you look at the kind of money they're getting where Hunter from sitting on a board -- a board, he's sitting on a board, he's getting $168,000 a month, they say, and he got $3 million payment and he knows nothing about energy, it's an energy company.

But you take a look at the kind of thing that's going on, the kind of money, you know one of the most egregious was because I always put myself in a -- can you imagine if I did it? He never painted a painting in his life, a picture, a painting, never painted in his life. And they're selling paintings for $500,000 a piece. And I got wise to it because the White House people called me, they want to do a painting of me and they gave me the 10 great artists. Here, you know, these are really high –

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Was Hunter on the list?

TRUMP: No, Hunter wasn't on the list.

HANNITY: Just checking.

TRUMP: That was the good news. He could have been on the list, but they want -- and these are real artists. They make you look better than you look, even better. The only good artists, they have to make us look better. If it's a painting, we have to look better, right?

But these are great artists, the money they get -- they get is a fraction of what this guy did for modern art where they throw some stuff and they say next, next, and he's getting a half a million dollars. And I hear, maybe it's wrong, but I hear that China bought a lot of those paintings, okay?

And -- but when I heard the 500, I said, you know, that's one that's never going to go and now, people take it like it's okay. Could you imagine me doing that or my sons doing that, or my sons doing that –

HANNITY: No.

TRUMP: Or the great Ivanka Trump doing that -- do we like Ivanka? I think we like Ivanka a lot. And -- no, but can you imagine Eric or Don or --

HANNITY: I say this --

TRUMP: The concept is incredible. He's getting a half a million dollars a painting and nobody can even check it. You know, they haven't really checked it, but I hear the numbers are staggering.

Meanwhile:

Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China.

...

Using documents produced through a court fight, the report describes how foreign governments and their controlled entities, including a top U.S. adversary, interacted with Trump businesses while he was president. They paid millions to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.; Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas; Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York; and Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza in New York.

...

“By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous commander in chief,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, wrote in a foreword to the report.

Among the countries patronizing Mr. Trump’s properties, China made the largest total payment — $5.5 million — to his business interests, the report found. Those payments included millions of dollars from China’s Embassy in the United States, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Hainan Airlines Holding Company.