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Eric Bolling Shares Emotional Video About The OD Death Of His Son, Eric Chase Bolling

By Robert Jonathan
Published on: 10:43 PST, Mar 3, 2018

While attending the White House Opioid Summit on Thursday, Eric Bolling and the Trump White House released to social media a video in which the television personality discussed the death of his son, Eric Chase Bolling. The younger Bolling, 19, a University of Colorado student, tragically passed away in Boulder on September 8, 2017, from an accidental drug overdose, the same day that his dad was let go by the Fox News Channel.

“He reportedly took street Xanax that had been laced with fentanyl. The autopsy last year revealed that he also had cocaine and marijuana in his system,” The Hill reported. Fentanyl is an ultra-potent, extremely dangerous synthetic opioid.

President Trump has previously declared that opioid abuse is a national health emergency and plans to roll out in the coming weeks his aggressive plan to combat the opioid epidemic, which may include suing pharmaceutical companies at the federal level in addition to implementing stiffer penalties for drug dealers, among other initiatives. The federal budget apparently contains $6 billion for opioid awareness and related programs.

In the heart-wrenching, three-minute video, Eric Bolling starts out by saying that he is about to describe how the opioid crisis affected his family. The former newsman described Eric Chase as a normal student who had a “fantastic” freshman year at the University of Colorado.

Bolling and his wife were in their car returning home from dinner at a local restaurant when they received the devastating phone call from Colorado that evening that their son was dead, the Daily Mail detailed.

“The first week into his sophomore year, Eric Chase died of an opioid overdose. At that moment, my wife literally fell into the road. I had to gather her up, and we sat on the curb for about an hour, crying, talking, trying to figure out what just happened. We never saw it coming. There is one underlying issue that I think parents need to understand ‘not my kid’ syndrome is terrible, is a killer, because you just don’t know. It could very well be your kid, so do us all a favor, do yourself a favor — do your family a favor, do your children a favor. Have the discussion with them. Get involved in your kids’ lives it matters. You can save someone.”

On Twitter, Eric Bolling admitted that the video, during which he briefly lost his composure, “was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” He also asked social media users to share it with anyone who has been touched by the opioid crisis.

He noted in the video that, after his son’s death, he was overwhelmed with the response on Twitter from others who have been impacted by the opioid crisis.

In a recent appearance on MNSBC’s Morning Joe, Eric Bolling also recalled how President Donald Trump called him about seven times since his son’s death to see how he and his wife were holding up, including the following day after they flew to Colorado. The president also called on Thanksgiving, when the family was dealing with the reality of an empty chair at the holiday table for the first time. He also said that the president “cares about this issue…The guy has empathy and compassion for this.”

“Bolling said he was pleased by President Donald Trump’s comments at the summit and is ‘cautiously optimistic’ that the White House is on the right track, though he’s hoping the administration focuses on the awareness side of the issue as well as the punitive side,” The Hollywood Reporter explained.

A Trump loyalist and author of the best-selling book, Drain the Swamp, Eric Bolling formerly held down the center chair on The Five ensemble on FNC and also anchored Cashin’ In on Saturdays. He stayed behind to co-host the Fox News Specialists after The Five moved from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time following the prime-time schedule shake-up after the cancellation of The O’Reilly Factor.

Along with Bolling’s departure on September 8, as a result of purported lewd text messages, FNC cancelled the Fox News Specialists, which suffered from low ratings and a general lack of chemistry among the co-hosts.

A former commodities trader and minor leaguer in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, Eric Bolling worked for CNBC and the Fox Business Channel before moving over to Fox News. At one point, he was considered for a position in the federal government after Donald Trump won the 2016 election.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prescription and non-prescription opioids caused a record 42,000 fatalities in 2016, and that about 115 Americans die each day as result of opioid overdoses.

Bolling gave a speech to the assembled attendees at the summit itself, and has also met privately with the president, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, other cabinet members, and FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb about the opioid crisis.

“Bolling has visited the White House several times over the last few months to meet with President Trump and members of his administration and has pledged his services as part of a larger awareness campaign,” The Hollywood Reporter added.

Watch the emotional Eric Bolling video in which he recalls the death of Eric Chase Bolling from an accidental overdose below, which is apparently part of a new White House digital effort called “the crisis next door.”

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