WASHINGTON — President Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has a lot to say about her brother in private, according to a new book by the president’s niece, Mary Trump.
And it’s scathing.
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“He’s a clown,” Maryanne is quoted saying, according to a copy of the book reviewed by VICE News. Maryanne dismisses his then-burgeoning presidential campaign in 2015 as preposterous, saying: “This will never happen.”
And that’s just for starters. Maryanne is depicted as reacting with outrage and anger at Donald’s antics on the campaign trail in private conversations with Mary. One passage notes how, as a candidate, Donald Trump began to reference his brother Fred Jr.’s struggles with alcoholism “to burnish his anti-addiction bona fides,” the book says.
“He’s using your father’s memory for political purposes,” Maryanne is quoted as telling Mary. “And that’s a sin.”
Mary Trump’s book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” takes direct aim at her uncle and the psychological origins of his “bizarre and self-defeating behavior.”
Her book traces the roots of his “fatal flaws” and “pathologies” through his family history. She focuses on Donald Trump’s damaging relationship with his parents, including “my grandfather’s sociopathy and my grandmother’s illnesses, both physical and psychological.”
Mary Trump bases her analysis on her insider position as a family member as well as her training as a clinical psychologist — and she hammers her uncle as utterly unqualified for the presidency and the challenges he now faces.
In several passages she depicts Maryanne as sharing in her negative assessments.
“We talked about how his reputation as a faded reality star and failed businessman would doom his run,” Mary writes about one private conversation with her aunt. “‘Does anybody even believe the bullshit that he’s a self-made man? What has he even accomplished on his own?’ I asked.”
“‘Well,’ Maryanne said, as dry as the Sahara, ‘he has five bankruptcies.’”
The book recounts Maryanne and Mary agreeing that the “blatant racism” displayed by Donald Trump in the infamous speech announcing his presidential campaign “would be a deal-breaker.” That was in 2015, when Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and said Mexico’s “not sending their best.”
But according to the book, when Trump’s campaign failed to crater, Maryanne reacted with outrage.
“White evangelicals started endorsing him,” Mary Trump writes. “Maryanne, a devout Catholic ever since her conversion five decades earlier, was incensed. ‘What the fuck is wrong with them?’ she said. ‘The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there. He has no principles. None!”
Mary Trump’s book is currently scheduled to be released on July 14, but is still subject to a legal dispute in the state of New York in which Donald Trump’s brother Robert Trump is suing to stop publication.
Last week an appellate court judge overturned a temporary restraining order against the book’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, saying the publishing company isn’t bound by the author’s non-disclosure agreement.
Cover: U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during the Salute to America event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Saturday, July 4, 2020. (Photo: Chris Kleponis/Polaris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
