President Trump’s sister said she begged her brother to stop tweeting, and wishes someone would just make him stop.
“Cut off his Twitter account,” Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, said in a recording obtained by VICE News. “I said that to him about, six months, a year ago. ‘Get rid of Twitter. Stop this.’”
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The comments came in a conversation with Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, who surreptitiously recorded them sometime between late 2018 and early 2019. The existence of several hours worth of Mary Trump’s private audiotapes was first revealed by The Washington Post on Saturday. But the Post didn’t include the audio of Maryanne talking about begging her brother to let go of his famous Twitter habit.
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The recordings are emerging weeks after Mary published a damning tell-all book about President Trump’s family history and mental state that relies heavily on direct quotes from her aunt, Maryanne.
The recordings reveal Maryanne bashing her brother as “cruel,” and lamenting the separation of asylum-seeking families at the U.S. southern border. “You can’t trust him,” Maryanne can be heard saying on the tapes.
“His goddamned tweet and the lying, oh my God,” Maryanne says on the tapes. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”
In the recordings, Maryanne Barry Trump agrees when Mary says she hopes Trump’s presidency will end soon. “I hope so,” Maryanne replies.
Mary Trump made the recordings while attempting to uncover inconsistencies in the settlement of the family’s estate after her grandfather died, according to Mary’s spokesperson, Chris Bastardi.
The recordings also include Maryanne Barry Trump asserting that President Trump got someone else to take his SATs for him.
Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal judge, has maintained a stony silence about her brother in public. But she’s expressed outrage over his controversial presidency in private conversations relayed by Mary Trump.
President Trump dismissed the significance of the recordings in a statement sent to VICE News by the White House that also referenced the recent death of his younger brother, Robert Trump.
“Every day it’s something else, who cares,” President Trump said. “I miss my brother, and I’ll continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before.”
Attempts to reach Maryanne Trump Barry for comment were unsuccessful. The Post reported that it did not receive a response from Maryanne.
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.”
The book traces the roots of Trump’s “fatal flaws” and “pathologies” through his family history, and hammers him as utterly unqualified for the presidency.
Cover: Donald Trump with sister Maryanne Trump Barry and brother Robert Trump attend the Trump Taj Mahal opening April 1990 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (Photo by Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images)
