Joy Behar Corrects Don Jr.'s Claim of Trump's Wealth: 'Not That Rich'

Joy Behar doesn't suffer fools -- including the president's son.

Donald Trump Jr. appeared on The View Thursday to promote his book as well as the exaggerated claims of his father's wealth. But Behar wasn't taking the bait.

"I understand with full disclaimer that I'm the son of a rich guy from New York," Trump said. Behar, seated to his left, quickly interjected, "Not that rich." The first son appeared thrown by Behar's dig and then began laughing himself.

Trump Sr. has devoted his career as a businessman and a politician to inflating his net worth and the means with which he accrued it. While Trump Sr. has proclaimed that his fortune exceeds $10 billion, Forbes estimates it is closer to $3 billion -- although, of course, the president has refused to release his tax returns to confirm this information.

While $3 billion is no small potatoes, it still places Trump Sr. on the low end of the Forbes billionaires list: number 715. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who is frequently attacked by the president on social media for his company's ownership of The Washington Post, ranks number 1.

The president has often described himself as a "self-made" billionaire, although a 2018 report from The New York Times showed that he had received hundreds of millions from his father, a real estate mogul, through questionable wealth transferrals "since he was a toddler."

This inherited fortune was increased through "dubious tax schemes" and fraud, the Times reported. Meanwhile, many of Trump Sr.'s most high-profile business ventures have failed. His Atlantic City casinos "tumbled one by one into bankruptcy," while his father's fortune repeatedly bailed him out.

In the 2003 documentary Born Rich, Ivanka Trump corroborated reports of her family's unsteady finances. She recounted how, when she was around age 9, her father pointed to a homeless man in front of Trump Tower. "That guy has $8 billion more than me," he told her. "Because he was in such extreme debt at that point," she explained.

Trump Jr.'s new book is about the media's attacks (i.e. fact-checking) on the first family -- and he used his time on The View to return the favor. As the hosts grilled him on issues like Ukraine and his father's mocking of a gold star family, Trump Jr. began attacking his questioners.

"We've all done things that we regret," he said. "I mean, if we're talking about bringing the discourse down..."

Trump Jr. then accused Behar of blackface (she once said she dressed as an "African woman" for Halloween many years ago but without black makeup) and dredged up a 2009 quotation from Whoopi Goldberg allegedly excusing the rape charge against Roman Polanski.

The president's son has been going on a right-wing rampage through the talk show circuit this week in promotion of his book, Triggered. On CBS This Morning, he went on a tirade against transgender athletes. When cohost Gayle King tried to steer the conversation in another direction, Trump Jr. ignored the tack and continued on his transphobic rant.

However, Behar, unlike the Trump Jr. and his father's administration, is a longtime ally of the LGBTQ community. The host won a GLAAD Award for Excellence in Media in 2010 and is embraced for her liberal views and cutting comedy, as exemplified in the clip above.