Eric Trump says he is 'part of' the LGBTQIA+ community hours before the big debate, people panic

Hours before his father was due to participate in what (unsurprisingly) turned out to be an utter joke of a presidential debate, Eric Trump blurted out a rather astonishing claim on Fox & Friends. His appearance on the right-leaning morning talk show nearly gave members of the LGBTQIA+ community a heart attack when the 36-year-old appeared to call himself a "part of" the community. Trump's shocking claim came in response to a question about a supposed letter sent to the network by an allegedly gay Trump supporter who wished to remain anonymous as "it wouldn't go well" with her colleagues at work.

"There are a lot of people that might be voting for your dad that might be admitting it. So are you counting on this person? The 'secret voter?'" host Ainsley Earhardt asked Trump. "I’m telling you, I see it every day, the LGBT community, they are incredible and you should see how they’ve come out in full force for my father every single day. I’m part of that community and we love the man and thank you for protecting our neighborhoods and thank you for protecting our cities," he replied, sparking a flurry of panicked jokes from actual members of the LGBTQIA+ community on Twitter.

Unfortunately for the alleged Trump supporters in the community, Trump later clarified the same day that he is NOT a "part of" the community. A friend of the Trump family told The New York Post that the President's son "misspoke" when appearing to say what he did. False alarm, folks. Eric Trump did not just come out on live national television. Phew! To be fair, some on social media had already figured out that bit as they pointed out that he may have been attempting to quote the so-called gay Trump supporters as having said: "I'm part of that community and we love the man. Thank you for protecting our neighborhood. Thank you for protecting our cities."

Eric Trump himself released a clarification supporting this hypothesis, explaining that he had merely been trying to paraphrase what these supposed Trump fans have said about his father. "To clarify, many of our close friends are part of the LGBT community, which was the intent of my statement — the left has taken that vote for granted for a long time and support from the gay community for my father is incredible," he said. "As to me personally, as I think you know, I am a happily married man to my wife, Lara," Trump added, referring to his wife and Trump campaign adviser, Lara Trump with whom he has two children.

Putting the matter to rest for good, Trump also affirmed that he is not bisexual. As Out points out, the father-of-two's comments on his dad's purported LGBTQ support follow the president and his campaign's recent attempts to falsely establish that he has a large number of supporters among queer and transgender people. This concerted effort first began when Hornet, a social media network and dating app for queer men, released the results of a survey and rather theatrically announced that 45 percent of gay men plan to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming election.

However, this report was quickly deemed "clickbait, sloppy" journalism by experts as it was conducted on a small sample of just 1200 men who used the dating app. "To hold up this poll as evidence that the LGBTQ community is somewhat split on its support for the presidential candidates is like someone saying the users of Farmers Only represent the ideological spectrum of all farmers or that Christian Mingle users represent the ideological spectrum of all Christians," said Jason Turcotte, an associate professor of communication at Cal Poly Pomona. "To tout a Hornet poll as evidence of LGBTQ support for Trump is clickbaity, sloppy journalism."