Arab-American comedian sits next to Eric Trump on flight, talks Muslim rights
A prominent Arab-American comedian found himself sitting next to Eric Trump on a flight to Scotland, and quickly used the opportunity to discuss what will happen to Muslims under the Trump administration.
“Good news guys will not have to check in and get IDs,” Mo Amer wrote in a Thursday Facebook post, which also had a picture of him sitting down next to the son of the president-elect. “That’s what I was told.”
Amer discussed the encounter in an interview with Buzzfeed. Amer said he was unexpectedly bumped up to business class after booking the trip “last minute,” and was shocked to be sat next to Eric Trump, who was wearing a light-blue Trump sweater.
“I was just walking in and he was just sitting there with his Trump shirt on and I was like, ‘is this real’?” Amer said. “Is this real? Is this a setup? I mean, I’m an Arab Palestinian, everything is a conspiracy, right? So when I walked into the plane I was like, ‘what is this?’ This is obviously from Allah, Allah is just trying to hook me up right now. That’s what’s happening.”
Then the two got to talking. “When I sat down I said: ‘how you doing?’ Trump says: ‘I’m doing good’. And I said: “you have no idea how fantastic this is for me right now. My name is Mohammed. Salams. I’m a standup comedian. This is fantastic for me.”
Amer then told Trump he would not be “getting that ID s*** done,” a reference to Trump’s proposed registry of people from Muslim countries. “You gonna really make my people get ID cards and all this? You know we’re not doing this s***.”
Trump told Amer not to worry, and to not “believe everything you read.”
“Do you really think we’re gonna do that?” Trump continued, according to Amer.
The two then discussed the election results. “[Trump] basically acknowledged the fact that his father played this thing like a mad genius and that’s how he got elected and he admitted it,” Amer said. Trump then told Amer that the president-elect is a “good, good man.”
According to Amer, who said the discussion was largely pleasant, Trump seemed “disconnected from the reality of race attacks and violence. The vibe that I got, this was a game to them and they had no regrets and they did it to win and they will most likely keep doing it.”
Trump, Amer told Buzzfeed, then ordered a pork chop, which Amer thought was perhaps a slight against his Muslim heritage, before falling asleep.
Once Trump was asleep, other people on the plane began taking selfies with him, and Amer jokingly said Muslim prayers over him.
Amer’s Facebook post quickly went viral, with many asking him questions about the interaction. “As a comedian it’s my responsibility, it’s my duty to find out as much information as possible to provide an accurate commentary,” Amer said.
