A Muslim comedian sits next to Trump's son, has a 'good, decent conversation'

By
GEO ENGLISH
|
A Muslim comedian sits next to Trump's son, has a 'good, decent conversation'

When Mohammed Amer figured he was going to be sitting next to US president-elect Donald Trump's son, the comedian made sure he spoke out. But what followed was a rather interesting conversation.

"I'm not gonna do that Muslim ID thing," Amer told Eric Trump, the third oldest son of the New York business tycoon who takes over from Barrack Obama as the president of the United States.

During his election campaign, Trump had called for expanded surveillance of American Muslims, including tracking them in a database or giving them "a special form of identification that noted their religion".

But Amer, who was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents and came to the US as an asylum-seeker and became a US citizen in 2009, made sure he told Trump's son he was not going to stand for any of that.

The comedian was on his way to Scotland for a tour and had been upgraded at the last moment.

"I put my bags up, I sat down, introduced myself as Mohammed," said Amer. Then he got straight to the point. "I'm a Muslim. I'm not gonna do that Muslim ID thing. That's not gonna fly."

Amer told the Huffington Post that Eric's response solidified his earlier belief about Trump's election campaign.

"He said, ‘Come on, man you really think we’re going to do that? We’re not doing that.’ That’s what he said. ‘We’re not doing that.’ I was like, ‘OK, fantastic.’”

Amer said his earlier opinion was that Trump had a shot at winning the US presidential election, but that he would never follow through on a lot of the scarier promises that he made during his election campaign. And Eric's replied, he said, solidified that belief.

“The vibe that I got was that it was all a game" to the Trumps and that they "played the media like a fiddle,” he said.

And Eric agreed.

“He was like, ‘Yeah, he did.’”

"I just know we had a good, decent conversation, and I think that proves that we can talk to each other, and I think that’s what’s most important," said the Muslim comedian.