Not every 36-year-old real-estate heir without government experience gets to fly to Iraq with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or take responsibility for bringing peace to the Middle East. Not every 35-year-old can hold a West Wing office, a security clearance, and assets in an eponymous fashion brand she started in her mid-20s (while also eschewing a government salary—something a $740 million net worth makes possible). Nor can any pair of 39- and 33-year-old brothers receive the keys to a business that will be boosted by its affiliation with a sitting president. But Jared Kushner, Ivanka, Don. Jr., and Eric Trump are not the usual set of thirtysomethings. And the youngest of the bunch is the first to admit that.

“Nepotism is kind of a factor of life,” Eric acknowledged in a new interview with Forbes, published Tuesday. While a “factor of life” is not technically a phrase—a “fact of life” may be what he was searching for—nepotism has, indeed, worked in his siblings’ favor. As mentioned above, Kushner, his brother-in-law, is a senior adviser in the White House tasked with liaising with foreign officials and a whole slate of domestic issues. His sister and Kushner’s wife, Ivanka, is an assistant to the president and is working closely with her husband on business initiatives and advising her father on women’s issues, among other undefined areas. Eric and his brother Don took over the Trump Organization’s vast real estate and branding holdings while their dad, Donald Trump, leads the White House.

Still, Eric is confident that while he and his siblings got to where they are because of their last name, they still earned their place. “We might be here because of nepotism, but we’re not still here because of nepotism. You know, if we didn’t do a good job, if we weren’t competent, believe me, we wouldn’t be in this spot.”

Their father didn’t always have that kind of confidence in their abilities, Eric explained. In fact, until recently, he did not. “I don’t know if he could have done the presidential thing four years ago. Certainly eight years ago, he couldn’t have. I think we probably would have been too big of question marks for him.”

Now, though, the brothers have “earned their stripes” and he believes that “that’s ultimately why we’re in the seat we’re in.”

It is no small task to preside over the Trump Organization in their father’s absence, as they have been doing since January. Serving as co-executives at the family real-estate concern requires a new sort of thinking for the brothers, who have always had dad upstairs to rely on. (They have contended that they will not talk to their father about the business while he is in office, though they will still give him quarterly financial briefings as part of an ethics arrangement.) Apparently, though, Eric has yet to take the time to do that thinking. When asked by Forbes about his vision for the Trump Organization, Eric stated that that’s a question he doesn’t think he’s ever been asked, “which is kind of rare.” He managed to come up with an answer to that unusual ask anyhow.

“We’re not a company that sells assets. We buy things. We make them beautiful.” In short, they make America great again. That’s just a factor of their life.