Family business: Trump fears latest damning
memoir – this time by his liberal niece
Mary Lea Trump’s book is imminent – and maybe no
perceived betrayal will sting like one from his own flesh and blood
Donald
Trump with Ivanka in April. Trump has been compared to a mob boss, regarding
family as a means to enforcing his will and expanding his power.
David Smith
David Smith
in Washington
@smithinamerica
Published
onSun 21 Jun 2020 11.00 BST
It was
election night 2016 and Donald Trump, having stunned the world by winning the
American presidency, paraded beaming family members in the ballroom of a New
York hotel.
“This is
one of the worst nights of my life,” the president-elect’s niece, Mary Lea
Trump, wrote on Twitter. “What is wrong with this country? I fear the American
experiment has failed.”
She has
presumably had many more bad nights since. It emerged this week that Mary, a
clinical psychologist from Long Island, is to publish an unflattering memoir
about her uncle entitled Too Much And Never Enough: How My Family Created the
World’s Most Dangerous Man.
There have
been many damning insider accounts about Trump, most recently by his former
national security adviser John Bolton, but perhaps no perceived betrayal will
sting like the one that springs from his own flesh and blood.
“I think
he’s freaking out,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of Never Enough: Donald
Trump and the Pursuit of Success. “He will treat her savagely.”
For Trump,
life has always been a family business, and it is impossible to tell where
family ends and business begins. Framed photos of his late parents loom over
his shoulder in the Oval Office; the death of his elder brother casts a long
shadow; his children, perhaps the only people beyond suspicion of disloyalty,
work for his company or his campaign or in the White House.
Mary, 55,
is the daughter of Fred Trump Jr, the president’s older brother, who died in
1981 at the age of 42 from a heart attack linked to alcoholism. She has
bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature, as well as a PhD in
clinical psychology from Adelphi University in New York, according to Forbes.
D’Antonio
commented: “It makes her someone that Donald would fear on a very elemental
level. She thinks for herself, she’s analytical when it comes to humans and she
can express herself, so this is a nightmare for him.”
I think
he’s freaking out. He will treat her savagely
Michael
D'Antonio
Mary, also
a certified professional life coach, joined Twitter in December 2012 – her bio
currently states, “#blacklivesmatter, 🏳️🌈,she/her/hers” – and is following accounts that
would do any New York liberal proud: Planned Parenthood, Greenpeace USA, the
National Center for Transgender Equality. She also follows Democratic
politicians such as congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and liberal actors
including Stephen Fry, Mark Ruffalo and Kerry Washington.
Her
antipathy towards her uncle long predates his foray into populist rightwing
politics. When Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr, died, his will distributed his
estate among his children and their offspring with the exception of his son
Fred Trump Jr. The children of Fred Jr objected that they had been included an
earlier will, written before Fred Sr was diagnosed with dementia, and took
legal action.
Mary told
the New York Daily News that her aunt and uncles “should be ashamed of
themselves”. And soon after the lawsuit was filed, Trump changed a health
insurance policy so that Fred Jr’s grandson, who had cerebral palsy, lost
coverage. Eventually the lawsuit was settled and the child regained health
insurance.
The
president is now reportedly considering suing Mary over the memoir, due to be
published on 28 July by Simon & Schuster. It is expected to disclose Mary
was a key source of confidential documents for a Pulitzer prize-winning New
York Times investigation into Trump’s personal finances.
Publicity
material states: “She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle
Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivanka’s penchant for regifting to
her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald,
Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb
to Alzheimer’s.”
Trump’s
relationship with his father, a tough man who preached that winning is
everything, has always been a source of endless fascination. In a rare moment
of self-reflection, Trump wrote in his 2007 book, Think Big: “That’s why I’m so
screwed up, because I had a father that pushed me pretty hard.”
His mother,
Scotland-born Mary Trump, is understood to have been somewhat distanced and
detached but no less consequential. D’Antonio said: “They are more of a
psychologically profound presence than a reality-based influence. The idea of
his father’s demanding expectations got into his head and his mother’s many
absences when he was a boy left him with a yearning, and it’s probably one of
the injuries that has never healed in him.
“This is
something that I know Mary L Trump is going to be addressing in her book and
it’s accurate: his mother was sick a lot and not very attentive. The insatiable
drive for attention, I think, comes from that absence and then this concurrent
desire to live up to his father’s expectations,” he added.
As a
patriarch himself, Trump has been compared to a mob boss, regarding family as a
means to enforcing his will and expanding his power.
His
daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner – known as “Javanka” – are senior
advisers at the White House. His sons Don Jr and Eric stepped in to run the
Trump Organization, the family business, when Trump was elected and are
prominent surrogates for his reelection campaign.
D’Antonio
added: “It also reminds me of organisations where everybody in it has committed
something ethically, morally or legally wrong, and so everyone has the goods on
everyone and no one breaks away because everyone is vulnerable. He likes the
family to pose, but where are his brother and two sisters?
“Throughout
his presidency, I don’t recall ever seeing a photograph of them with him. He’s
not capable of the kind of close attachments that you would expect.”
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