Real Reason My Uncle Trump Renamed Kennedy Center | The Daily Beast Podcast

He is constantly trying to fill a void that cannot be filled. And the reason is actually pretty simple. My grandfather and my grandmother rendered Donald unlovable. The only thing, the thing he most desperately wants in his life is to be loved. He never has been sufficiently. He never will be. So everything else, the money, the power, putting his name on everything, that is all in service to filling a black

hole that is unfillable.

I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And imagine spending your family holidays with Donald Trump. Well, we're going to be speaking to Mary Trump, who did just that. She grew up receiving gifts from Ivana and Donald, and you'll be very surprised and slightly cringe at what they gave her.

But we're also going to be talking about his mental health. And that moment when Mary Trump saw him recently in the White House and recognized his expression because it was the expression that her grandfather had as he was beginning to lose it later in life. She's a clinical psychologist, so she brings not only her family experiences, but a clinical academic framework

through which to understand them. We're going to be talking about Donald Trump's treatment of women, his mental health, and whether or not any of his children will succeed him. So, no time to waste, let's get into it. Mary Trump, thank you so much for joining us.

So, can we talk about his mental health?

Or lack thereof, yes.

Yes, we can.

Well, you've been talking about this a lot on your own media channel, Mary Trump Media. And last time you were on the podcast, you talked about having a moment where you saw Donald Trump in the White House and you suddenly recognised a look he had in his eyes that you recognized from your grandfather who also

or who had dementia, who was diagnosed with dementia. As you're looking at the President's behavior now as a clinical psychologist, but also as someone who knows the family and knows the family history. What are you seeing?

I'm seeing more of the same, actually. For me, it's a difference in degree, not kind. And one of the things that's always surprised me is how many people have mischaracterized what I see as his lack of impulse control, his inability to rein in his temper, his inability to change or evolve or anything like that as strength. And I think his belligerence and his volume cover over a lot of sins. People mistake his being loud for being strong. And unfortunately, that's not at all the case. And we could see that in contrast to people's assessment of President Biden. He was quieter, he had a stutter. And they somehow equated

that with mental, his inability to think things through, or his weakness, or his failing cognitive health, etc. So, with Donald, again, it's more of the same, but more of the same in the sense that it's nothing new, but because anybody who has the kinds of severe psychiatric diagnosis he has, he's had them for decades, they've decline, and his psychological, his lack of psychological health are all intersecting and it's sort of this perfect storm that is accelerating the deterioration of all of them.

Okay, so to put this in perspective for us, you've written a series of bestselling books and obviously you witnessed the household he grew up in. Can you talk about the brutality of the household that he grew up in and also for people who don't know your work or who are maybe

just joining this podcast for the first time, that he grew up in and also for people who don't know your work or who are maybe just joining this podcast for the first time, the fear of showing weakness in the Trump family.

I think the best place to start is when Donald was around two and a half, which is an extremely crucial period in human emotional and psychological development. He was the youngest of four, and at that point, my grandmother had just had her fifth child, my Uncle Robert, and nine months after that, she became very, very ill, and for the next year,

was essentially absent, either emotionally or physically, because she was in and out of the hospital, she had several operations, she was in and out of the hospital, she had several operations, she was in a great deal of pain. So during this crucial developmental period, Donald was essentially without his mother, his primary caregiver.

And the only person available to step in was my grandfather, Fred, who was a sociopath, who had no interest in children, and who, like most sociopaths, believed that other people only existed to serve him. And children serve no purpose for somebody like my grandfather. So during that time, Donald was in a state of near perpetual fear and loneliness. He wasn't nurtured.

He wasn't mirrored. He wasn't held. And I can only imagine just how awful and dark that time was. Now, the problem for him and of course for all of us is that when my grandmother did become available again, she didn't really do anything to mend the rifts. So Donald developed some very powerful defense mechanisms to keep himself from feeling so constantly terrified and alone.

And those became hardened over time because, again, nothing had been done to ameliorate the breach in the first place. My grandfather, when my grandfather finally started to notice Donald because all of his attention had been on my dad, who was the oldest son and namesake and potentially heir to the empire, my grandfather came to value those things that most of us would consider negatives.

The bullying, the contemptuousness, the always believing you're right, the thinking you're better than everybody else. And then as soon as Donald, for various complicated reasons, became my grandfather's choice to take over the empire, Donald's personality was pretty much set in stone by that.

And how old was Donald at the time that his father realized that he was probably the heir to the real estate fortune that he'd begun to develop?

He was probably a teenager in his late teens, maybe early 20s, but probably his late teens. Because what happened first is that my grandfather realized, for some reasons I understand and some reasons I don't, that my father was not the right person. He tried. He, right out of college, my father went to work with my grandfather, but my grandfather

made it very clear very early on that he didn't think my dad had the right stuff. He wasn't a killer, and he was not going to give him any real responsibility. He made his life miserable, and then at that point my dad quit and decided to become a professional pilot for TWA in 1964. And even though he went back,

because my grandfather made it clear that being a pilot for TWA at the dawn of the jet age was beneath him. He referred to my grandfather as a bus driver in the sky.

A crazy description.

Yeah, considering pilots back then were rock stars, truly. My grandfather, my dad did go back to truck management, but he was never given any responsibility again. And then Donald joined the company and was made president at the age of 24, leapfrogging my dad who'd been there for 11 years.

And what do you remember your father telling you about Uncle Donald?

He didn't really talk about much. It was clear, though, especially in the early 70s, my dad had left the Trump management again, and Donald had started the Trump organization, or I should say my grandfather had started the Trump organization for Donald. And that's Donald's company in Manhattan, because my grandfather's company had been in Brooklyn. But it was very obvious that my dad had a difficult time being around Donald, especially in that brief period in the late 60s, early 70s, when they were both still working in the Brooklyn office. And I think that was one of the reasons my

dad finally just gave up and realized that there was nothing he could do to be a viable member of the business. There was nothing he could do ever to win my grandfather's respect. So he just, he left the company. And then, as I said, my grandfather sent Donald up in Manhattan,

which I guess had been the plan all along.

So what do you remember of Trump family holidays when you all got together, when it was Christmas? I mean, one thinks of Donald Trump in the Home Alone movies. What was it like growing up at holiday time?

Well, I can start here. I am so deeply grateful that I never have to spend holidays with these people again.

Oh, interesting. All right. Do tell. You are not the only family member to say something like that.

I'm sure. First of all, Thanksgiving and Christmas were almost exactly the same, with one exception. Christmas had presents. And we all had to buy Christmas presents for everybody.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. It was, I mean, it became more every year. And it was, there are very cold people. So we get there, we hang up the coats, we go to-

Wait a minute, where do you get? Do you go to your grandfather's house? Oh, I'm so sorry.

See, I'm just making an assumption

that everybody would know.

For us, Mary, set the scene.

Every Thanksgiving and every Christmas was at my grandparents' house, which we called The House in Jamaica State's Queens.

Okay.

And it was sort of this mini mansion on top of a hill and it was a very cold place, figuratively speaking. We would repair to the living room, which we never went into any other days of the year, just Thanksgiving and Christmas. And we would go and have shrimp cocktail. And then we would have dinner, which again was identical on Thanksgiving, turkey stuffing, mashed potatoes,

sweet potato, you know what most people do. One year, my grandmother had the audacity to make roast beef for Christmas. And we were carnivores. We loved us some cow. And Robert and Donald were so mean to her about it. She just like sat at the, I sat next to my grandmother, we were at the we were at the

weekend of the table. She basically spent the whole meal in silence crying because they were so mean about the roast beef on Thanksgiving. Wow, mom, how could you possibly Where's the turkey? Anyway, they were they were pretty petty. So without one exception, every every holiday was pretty much the same. And then

after dinner, we would open presents. And there were, as you can imagine, dozens and dozens of packages because we all had to buy everybody presents. And then I don't think it ever lasted more than an hour and a half or two hours, thankfully. But after...

The whole thing. The whole thing. The shrimp cocktail, the meal, and the present giving.

The present giving, and then we would end up in the room called the library, which is where we spent most of our time. It was a very small room. It was not big enough for all of us. And Rob and Donald would have a football game on or something. And yes, it was called Library, but it had no books in it until the Art of the Deal was published.

I was gonna say, and then it probably had wall to wall Art of the Deal. Just one. Just one copy. Yeah, yeah. And when you look back at those meals,

what did you all talk about?

Well, those of us on the weekend of the table didn't really talk about anything. We were, I refer to us as being the people in the cheap seats. We were just there to watch and be in the audience. The conversation was almost exclusively among Donald, my grandfather, my Aunt Marianne, and Robert.

And Robert was the younger brother.

The youngest of all five of them. Yeah. My dad was very often not there. And when he was, he sat on my grandmother's end of the table.

And your father was struggling at this point because he was struggling with alcohol.

My dad, as far as I'm aware, and I believe this to be true because I've spoken to enough people, did not have a problem with alcohol until he started flying for TWA. And it's not until he started flying for TWA. And it's not because he was flying for TWA, it's because his family was constantly

bombarding him with the kinds of insults my grandfather lobbed at him. You know, what are you doing? You're throwing your life away. You're not in the family business. You're a loser, etc. And that's when he started struggling with drinking. Also, when you're a pilot, you have three or four days off at a time.

He and my mom lived in Marblehead. There were a lot of pilots up there, so there was a lot of socializing. They also had a very young son at the time.

You'll brother.

My brother, so there were a lot of stressors, and that's when my dad started having a problem with alcohol, and it's a problem he never ever solved. And it just continued to get worse. So by the time I came around, and we were spending all the holidays at my grandparents' house,

my parents were already divorced. They got divorced, or they split up, I should say, when I was two and a half. And much of the time, because my mother was expected to go to all of the holidays, despite the fact that she and my dad were no longer together

and we were always expected to go to them and never her family. My dad very often wasn't there.

And what, do you know where he was?

I don't. I know that for a couple of years, he moved down to West Palm Beach, Florida. So obviously, he was down there. But other than that, I don't know. Which is now that I think about it, kind of sad that nobody knew, nobody asked, nobody

cared. And that he wasn't at his own family holiday celebrations. And given that your uncle, the President of the United States, has suggested this year that people just give their daughters $2 and not $30, when you were having the present exchange, were these lavish presents? Were they cheap presents? What was the sort of, you know, how luxurious did the whole event seem?

Everybody familiar with the term re-gifting?

Right.

Yeah.

It also depended on who was giving the gift and who was getting the gift. There was a real hierarchy. So my, I had to be honest, I don't remember the kinds of gifts my grandmother gave. I got a lot of clothes, I think.

And I don't remember what anybody else gave me except for Donald and Ivana. And that's for a very specific reason, which I'll get to in a second. But in terms of the way my grandmother gave presents to her daughters-in-law, and at the time there were three, there was Ivana, Blaine, Robert's wife, and my mother. My mother would get things that had been bought on sale

at lesser stores, and it was very obvious, and it was very upsetting to her how she was treated like a second-class citizen, which they believed her to be. I remember Donald and Ivana's presence because they were so hysterically inappropriate.

Right, like what, I can't even imagine what that would be.

The very first, because they didn't get together until I was about 12. I think I got married when I was 12. So the very first Christmas, Ivana stayed with us. My gift from Donald and her, and again, I don't know that Donald ever got us gifts

before he was married. Very possibly not.

Because you know. Well, it's often the wife's duty, isn't it?

Men don't have to do such things, even though we had to get all of them presents. My very first gift from them was a three-pack of underwear from Bloomingdale's called Bloomies.

Right.

Yes. Twelve dollars retail.

Twelve dollars worth of panties.

A three-pack of Bloomies underwear. Wow. But I have to say my second gift from them is my favorite of all time. It was a basket wrapped in cellophane and in the middle of the basket, and it had the kind of straw that's in Easter baskets,

was one gold lame high heel shoe filled with hard candy that was wrapped in cellophane. So I'm guessing it's something she got at a luncheon.

Right, right, it's either a goodie bag gift or, right. So it sounds like it was a promotional gift perhaps that she'd gotten at something.

Possibly, so yes, I mean one, gold lamé, high heel shoes, not really my style, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway

because there's only one of them. There's only one of them. And what was Ivana like as an aunt? I mean, one forgets about Ivana, and yet she was an Olympic Czech skier in her day.

In her day. You know, it's funny, I never considered her an aunt. She never acted like one. Really, the only time she talked to me, you know, beyond the, hi, how are you, how's school, that kind of thing. It was Christmas, and I'm sure I was admiring whatever gift she had given me. And I was sitting on the stairs in the foyer, which is where the Christmas tree was, next to my pile of presents, reading Omni Magazine,

which had just come out within the last year. It was my favorite thing in the world. As a kid, I was a science fiction fanatic. I only read science fiction, and Omni Magazine was a science fiction, science fact magazine.

It had amazing illustrations, great short stories, and as soon as I could get my hands on it, I would read it cover to cover.

And it's hard to remember how important magazines were in those days, right? Because they were like something, it was like a finger beckoning you to the future in a way that there was no other media. I mean, it was obviously pre-digital, pre-anything.

And I remember as a kid being so excited when my magazines came.

Yeah, and this would have been in the late 70s.

Yeah, so hugely exciting.

Yes, and I, you know, everybody else was doing their own thing, and I thought, okay, good. I can keep reading Omni Magazine. And Ivana comes over and she says, oh, is that yours? I said, yes, I love this magazine so much. And she said, I know the publisher

if you ever want to meet him. And I'm thinking that that is probably the coolest thing that could possibly ever happen, right? It would be not quite as good as, but close to meeting like Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury. So I tell my dad about it later,

and he says, I don't think that's such a great idea. And it turns out the publisher of Omni Magazine was Bob Guccione, who was the publisher of Penthouse Magazine. And yes, so that, I mean, I don't think it ever

would have happened anyway. She probably would have forgotten about it, but it's just as well.

Right, anyway, at least he didn't join family gatherings. So he would have probably livened things up actually to have Bob Guccione there.

Maybe.

He's such a character. So the Trump household is essentially characterized as brutal and you must not show any evidence of weakness. I'm sort of thinking about Marjorie Taylor Greene stepping back this month and also Elise Stefanik saying that she wants no more to do with it. And both of them saying that women have issues with what's going on in the MAGA movement and the Republican Party and Elise Stefanik in particular confronting Mike Johnson who

as Michael Wolff said last week on the podcast probably doesn't believe that women should actually even have the vote. Does this sound familiar to you? What have your observations been about your uncle's behavior around women?

Well, he's a hardcore misogynist through and through. He was raised by misogynists. Not everybody, but almost everybody in my family, including the women, were misogynist. My Aunt Marianne, who was a federal judge, had deep contempt for women. It was quite shocking sometimes

to hear the things she would say.

Like what?

Well, she, I hate this word, but just quoting her directly, she referred to women as bitches. She thought they were catty and gossipy and not as smart as men and not as accomplished as men.

She seemed very smart and very accomplished. Was she an exception? Why would she be the only female that was smart and accomplished?

Well, it sort of reminds me of so many of Donald's most loyal sycophants. They understand that loyalty is a one-way street, but they also believe that they alone will still be standing. Whereas we've seen time and time again people who are completely loyal to Donald, like Marjorie Taylor Gray, like Elise Stefanik, get thrown under the bus eventually, no matter what they do.

So, they all remind me of people who chain smoke, who think, yes, I know cigarettes, smoking causes lung cancer, but it's not gonna get me.

I'm the exception.

Exactly. So I think in some ways, Mary Ann did believe she was the exception, but at the same time, she also struggled with her own internalized misogyny because she was the oldest child, and it was never even a thought on anybody's mind that she would take over the family business. It took her a very long time to

get to the point where she realized that it wasn't only her purpose to get married and have children. She was in graduate school at Columbia when she dropped out, got married, had a child, and it took many, many years for her to get out of that and go to law school, become a prosecutor, etc. So in some ways, I think she does think she was the exception to the rule, but she was also deeply insecure about it as well, especially if we remember that the reason she got her

federal judgeship in the first place is because Donald called in a favor of Roy Cohn.

Is that true?

Yes, that is true.

Right, I didn't realize that.

Wow.

Roy Cohn of all people.

Right, Roy Cohn of all people. And of course, you think of all the people that worked for Donald Trump that have ended up going to jail for him too. Michael Cohen, Allen Weisselberg, I mean all sorts of people in his orbit who've literally served time, Steve Bannon.

I think about that often and I also think about all of the people in Donald's orbit who were actual pedophiles and women who have sexually harassed or assaulted women and who have committed business fraud, et cetera. And that doesn't surprise me

because I guess birds of a feather. What surprises me is how many people seem to think that Donald remains untouched by that, really as if it's just some kind of huge coincidence.

So Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elise Stefanik have both talked about the difficulties for women in the party and neither of them got cabinet positions. I think Elise Stefanik was promised the UN job, didn't get the UN job. Both she and Marjorie Taylor Greene felt let down. And then, of course, you have the picking on female reporters, the quiet piggy, the stupid, are you stupid? Does that remind you of the household in a way?

I mean, it seems to have echoes of what you're talking about, the sort of picking on people.

Oh, yeah. Yes. Again, being weak in my family was the worst thing you could be. Being a woman, actually, sorry, being weak was the second worst thing. Being a woman was the worst thing you could be. Yeah. So that's partially I think why Marianne refused to succumb to what she thought in her twisted way were the negative qualities of being a woman.

So. And did she and Donald get on?

I think in her mind, she believed that as his much older sister, I think she was nine or 10 years older, he respected her and he listened to her. I don't think that's actually true. But there was a time during the first administration, she told me that she had called him

before he was going to see Kim Jong-un. And she said he needed to prepare, and she told him he needs to stay off Twitter, he needs to stay away from Dennis Rodman, and she listed all of these things she told him to do, and he did exactly the opposite of what she told him to do.

So I think that was just her way of feeling like she had some authority in the family. I think she fancied herself the matriarch after my grandparents died, but that doesn't mean it was true. I don't think she actually did have any authority

over him, certainly.

So among your cousins, Don Jr., Ivanka, Tiffany, Eric, Barron. Who do you see as the sort of natural successors to Donald?

None.

None?

None.

Explain.

I mean, I guess it depends what we're talking about. If we're talking about in terms of any kind of political dynasty, absolutely not. None of them has any charisma. none of them is tapped in. Donnie has tried to out-MAGA MAGA, but again, he has no charisma and he has no,

there's just no, and this sounds weird because I understand we're talking about Donald, but he does have charisma and there are people who do see him as a strong leader, which is shocking, but tens of millions of people.

But he can present like that. Yeah, he's very much a performer in that vein.

Yes. And he understands in a sort of lizard brain way how to tap into people's insecurities and rage and fears.

And he also presented a huge reality show for 14 seasons.

Yeah, exactly. And that shaped further the myth my grandfather started about him in the 70s. Right. Or late 60s. None of them has any of that. When it comes to the business interests, it's a nightmare that is unfolding in America.

The corruption is just extraordinary, but they are more than happy to profit off of it, possibly because they know that once Donald is no longer in the White House, that all comes to an end.

So with your training as a clinical psychologist, can you explain to us the sort of, I mean, your uncle is a charismatic leader in the very traditional sense, the Max Weber sense of someone. You yourself said he was a nihilist last time you were on

and he'd pull the whole house down with him. Can you sort of explain his relationship with the children? Does he not want them to follow him? And why don't they have more charisma?

It's interesting because in this way, Donald is very different from my grandfather. My grandfather believed in his legacy. His legacy was more important than anything else to him. And that's why he was so interested in having what he considered to be the right successor. It wasn't my dad for many reasons.

He thought it was Donald. And yet as soon as my grandfather dies, what does Donald and his siblings do? He sells off the Trump empire so it no longer exists. Right. Destroys my grandfather's legacy like that. Donald doesn't care about legacy at all

because as I've said last time, he does not, it's not only that he thinks that nothing can succeed him, nothing can live beyond him. It's unfathomable to him that anything should. And picking a successor means admitting that you think somebody is worthy or as worthy

as you, and he can't do that because he's better than everybody else. So this is something he does have in common with my grandfather. For Donald, his children are there to be of use to him.

And I...

His children are there to be of use to him.

Yes. And every single relationship he has, including with his children, and this works for them as well, is transactional. So we've seen Ivanka stepping back. We never, I haven't, I don't remember the last time

I heard anything about her. Her being associated with her father was no longer of use to her.

Right, and she said it was politically, she found politics cruel.

Oh, really? Wow. That's a statement coming from her. But anyway, considering how integral a part she was of the cruelty of the first Trump administration. That's quite something.

Yes, I think she's solely interested in rehabilitating her standing in the world of the obscenely rich or something, I don't know. I don't travel in those circles. But it is all transactional with them. And I think that on some level, at least,

Donald understands that none of his children is capable of or shares any of the qualities he has, not that they're valuable qualities, mind you, but they've gotten him pretty far.

Right. So the last time you came on, the Kennedy Center had not yet been renamed the Trump Kennedy Center. I want to get your thoughts on that. And then again, with your clinical psychologist hat on, what does it say about your uncle that he's putting his name on everything? I mean, huge institutions now, the Donald Trump Peace Institute, we're

used to him slapping his names on rental buildings, but big national institutions, a memorial for a president who was assassinated. What were your immediate thoughts? And then what's your sort of deeper understanding of why he feels the need to do this?

I'm sorry, I'm trying to contain my contempt. I find it absolutely obscene. First of all, it's illegal. He can etch his name into the facade of a building, but it doesn't mean that that's what it's called now because that's up to Congress. Also, last I checked, you're not really supposed to be naming things after living presidents,

current or former.

And also the juxtaposition of Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy feels very jarring.

It's very jarring just as it's very jarring having his face next to George Washington face on entry tickets to our national parks, etc. etc.

Is that what he's doing now? Yes. Oh, I missed that.

Yeah. Well, how can we keep up?

Right. Exactly. How can we keep? No, he floods the zone. Floods the zone.

And that's intentional. That's definitely intentional. But to your point about slapping his name on everything and the obscenity of it, the Institute of Peace is not associated with the executive branch. And it underwent a hostile takeover, by which I mean armed guards were sent to remove the employees of the Institute of Peace. So the gall of naming this after him, that's quite something.

The Kennedy Center is even more offensive. If you look at some of the things that President Kennedy had to say about the importance of the arts and what we should aspire to as a country, many of those quotes etched on the facade of that building. It just underscores how egregious this is.

Donald cares nothing for the arts. He and his administration have underfunded or defunded them. He wants to turn every public space in America into some version of WWE or Ultimate Fighting, and it is just grotesque, that he thinks that somehow this legitimizes him or gives him the same stature and standing as somebody like President Kennedy.

But that's partially why he's doing it for himself. You know, same reason he's building that ballroom and he's going to build an arch in his honor for the 250th anniversary. It's truly l'état c'est moi for him. But here's the thing.

It's never going to be enough.

Ever.

Right.

He is constantly trying to fill a void that cannot be filled. And the reason is actually pretty simple. Even though Donald was the preferred child of my grandfather, and by preferred, I mean most useful to him, most useful in advancing his own agenda,

my grandfather and my grandmother rendered Donald unlovable. The only thing, the thing he most desperately wants in his life is to be loved. He never has been sufficiently. He never will be.

That is an impossible thing for him to achieve. So everything else, the money, the power, putting his name on everything that is all in service to filling a black hole that is unfillable. And I think if we can take a step back, and detach ourselves from the horror this man has horrors this man has committed and continues to commit. That is a

tragedy. It is a tragedy to say about another human being. I'm not saying we should care about him or have any compassion for him. I have a lot of compassion for that child, though. And the truth of the matter is that because of that, because his needs will never be met and he can never grapple with them in a real way because he's just a terrified little boy who cannot face the truth about himself,

all of us are suffering.

Do you think he has any awareness of that?

He doesn't have any conscious awareness of that, but he certainly understands it on a deep unconscious level, and that's why so much of his psychic and emotional energy is spent protecting himself from that knowledge. It's a full-time job.

Do you have any sense of why he doesn't read anything?

I don't. I think at its most basic level, it's because such things weren't valued in my family. As I mentioned, there were no books in the library. My grandfather read the New York newspapers, and that was it.

Culture wasn't valued. We never ever went to museums together. Like my mom took us to museums and Broadway shows and stuff like that, but the Trump family, no museums, no libraries, no bookstores, nothing.

There was no cultural life in my family at all. And that's another sense in which it was a brutal household and it was devoid of comfort. There was no music in the house. My grandmother would get books from the library once in a while,

and she'd read, I was the very popular romance novelist at the time.

You've had legal battles with the family. Can you talk a little bit about how the Trumps have always used lawyers and are in a constant state of conflict with both each other and the outside world, contractors, people they're doing business with, other business partners. And now you see this very much in Donald Trump threatening to sue everybody around him.

Yeah, I think historically for Donald in particular, it was just a manipulative power play. He has all the lawyers, he has all the money. If a contractor wants to get paid for services rendered, Donald just isn't going to pay him, and if the contractor sues, Donald will just drag it out, so the contract either goes bankrupt or has to settle for pennies on the dollar.

That's just, it's a way of being really cheap and a way of making it clear that your business practice involves treating people who do work for you horribly, which is one of the main reasons I was so horrified by his ability in the 2016 campaign to present himself as some kind of champion of the working people of America. That to me was just unbelievable that the media allowed him to get away with that, you know, right up there with letting people think he was a successful businessman, despite the

six bankruptcies of casinos, of all things.

Right. Well, casinos, water, university, steaks, champagne.

Yes, pretty much everything, an airline.

Right, the airline, right.

So, and the other thing that people don't seem to know is that while all that was going on, he was allowed to continue to live his lifestyle because the banks were worried that if he didn't,

that it would further devalue anything associated with him. because the banks were worried that if he didn't,

that it would further devalue anything associated with him. Like that's how bad it was. And yet, nope, brilliant, brilliant, seven businessmen.

Well, and then remade as a brilliant businessman on The Apprentice by Mark Burnett.

Yes, thank you, Mark Burnett.

America's businessman.

Yeah, unbelievable. The strategy is different now. Although the impulse is the same. I'm going to use my endless supply of lawyers and now he doesn't have to pay for them anymore.

Right, because it's the Justice Department.

It's the Justice Department or even between his two terms, it was Republican voters donating to his campaign or to the RNC. So, he's never been on the hook for any legal bills or if he is, he just doesn't pay them because who's going to make up.

So what is it like being in a family where you have lawsuits going back and forth because you've been involved in lawsuits with the Trumps.

I still am, as a matter of fact.

So how long have those been going on?

Well, there's only one left. Right. Luckily, in the first was, well, the first was a very long time ago, but just in terms of recent times, my family sued to prevent the publication of my first book.

Luckily, I had extraordinary lawyers who made sure that the book was published. And then...

It went on to be a huge bestseller.

It did well. Yeah.

You were allowed to own it, Mary.

Yes, it did well. Well, what I like to say, and this is just for a very specific reason, in one day it sold more copies than Donald's Art of the Deal sold in 30 years. That's fun for me to say.

Bravo.

Bravo. Thank you. That feels like a very Trumpian thing to say.

And you know, I pride myself on being nothing like them.

But you can take the girl out of the family, but you can't take the family out of the girl.

And it bothers him. So there you go. So it's fun for me. But then I learned through the brilliant investigative reporting of the New York Times that was published on October 2nd, 2018, that I had actually been defrauded out of my inheritance by my aunts and uncles.

So that was in, I think, the fall of 2020. A year later, Donald sued me for $100 million for breach of contract or something. And sadly, my case went nowhere, So he is still suing me for $100 million.

And how do you sort of handle that? What do you, what is he expecting you to settle for 10 in the way that he goes after media institutions? How does this resolve?

Again, I can't talk much about it, but I think he probably, let me put it in these terms, I think there's a class of lawsuit he's engaged in now in which there are two goals, complete capitulation and or silencing of the person. So we've seen that with Tish James, James Comey and Adam Schiff, and I'm sure there will be many, many others.

So instead of using lawsuits as a tool to get out of paying what he owes people, he's using them as a tool of retribution, of silencing, and probably maybe even more importantly to him, maybe not as important as retribution and vengeance, but also important, just making the other person bend the knee. This is the thing, again, there's no end of lawyers

who'll represent him, there's no end to funds, or again, the funds aren't his anyway, and in what universe does Donald Trump think that he can't get away with everything? Because he has, and he does.

Oh, yes he does. Well, yes, he does. Well, he hasn't got away with everything because you're his niece and you've proved a feisty opponent.

Well, I guess that's true. Hence the lawsuit.

So, the other thing that's happened since we last saw each other was the release of the Epstein files or the beginning of the release of the Epstein files or the beginning of the release of the Epstein files. Do you have any thoughts on whether or not that impacts him at all?

It does feel like Jeffrey Epstein is the one person that gets under his skin and it's the one story that he can't out-dodge. He's so good at driving the narrative forward, but the Epstein story has continued to dog him.

This is perhaps the one misstep we can point to. Running in 2024 on the promise to his hardest core constituents who believe that the Epstein files will implicate globalists and people at the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, that as soon as he's in office,

he's going to release them. He comes into office, he doesn't release them. The DOJ says that they are real, and then the DOJ says that there are no consequences whatsoever. Instead of ordering their release, he makes Congress go through this arduous process of forcing a vote on the House floor after months to force Mike Johnson, to force the DOJ, et cetera, et cetera, when at any moment, Donald could simply have said, Pam Bondi released the files.

Now, this clearly got a lot of people's attention. Do I care? Do you care if the Epstein files are released?

Yes.

And no matter who's implicated, Democrat, Republican, is irrelevant, anybody who is complicit in those crimes needs to be exposed, period, end of story. Does Donald care that you and I want the Epstein files released? No. His base wants the Epstein files released though.

So he has painted himself into a corner and in trying to get out of that corner, which is an impossible task, he has made himself look extraordinarily guilty. Now, do I have any special knowledge about whether, well, we know he's in the Epstein

files.

Do I have any? And we know that because Elon Musk told us that apart from anything else, right? Remember when they were having a spat, Elon tweeted Trump is in the Epstein files. And then a day later, I think he deleted it.

That's right. Well, actually, Pam Bondi also told us this. His name is mentioned several times. Now, that could be completely innocent. I don't know. He's best friends with a monster for many, many years.

So, who knows? However, whether or not he's implicated in Epstein and Maxwell's crimes remains to be seen. It wouldn't surprise me, given who he is and the kind of person he is and the kind of relationship he and Epstein had. But he acts as if there is something damning in those files. One thing Donald is very adept at is leading people who support him to believe

that his crimes are actually a bonus, that they give him street cred and make him strong. So for example, we know that a jury of his peers found him liable for defamation and sexual assault, and that increased his popularity among the Republican base. So I'm not saying he's not concerned that if indeed he is implicated in some of the horrific crimes that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell committed, that that won't cause him problems. But I also wonder if some of the things in there may just be things that are going to

humiliate him, because that's what worries him more than anything else, being humiliated, being mocked, being seen for the pathetic, incompetent loser he is.

So are you spending time looking at the Epstein files when they come out and they're dribs and drabs?

No, because there is literally no reason to trust this so-called Department of Justice. It is wholly in service to protecting Donald Trump and going after his political enemies. There is no reason for us to believe that anything they release won't be vetted or redacted or used either to shield him or implicate people he considers enemies.

Wow. Well, Mary Trump, what are you planning to do for the holidays?

Well, I'm actually taking some time off. I don't think I've had more than a day off in, which century of the Trump regime are we in? So I'm taking the three days off and then we're going to London for New Year's. Oh fun, fun.

Yes, very much looking forward to that.

Well, have a wonderful holiday and please come back in the New Year and let's continue this. The more I talk to you, the more I have an understanding of why his personality is, I think, formed like it has.

And your point about no matter how many times he puts his names on the most sacred of American buildings or institutions, it still won't fill the hole that was left.

Right, it won't.

And I think this is something that's really important for the rest of us to remember, because I know this can be very demoralizing and it is a desecration. As soon as he's out of the White House, it's all coming down.

Will he manage to carve himself onto Mount Rushmore before he goes?

Well, I don't know. He's so busy with the ballroom.

He's so busy with the ballroom, it's true. Well, I'm very much looking forward to the ballroom being built. Do you have a date when you think it'll be finished, Bea?

Well, it is his priority. Not feeding Americans, not lowering inflation or prices or, I mean, he's also busy destroying our reputation around the world as long as, as well as liberal democracy. But I think the ballroom will probably be done by spring.

Oh, wow, you think he can get the ballroom up that fast?

And he's got $400 million to do it with.

Right, right, right, right. Well, Mary Trump, thank you very much. Have a fabulous holiday and thank you for bringing us. I hasten to say this is not really good cheer, but it is a good explanation of the man swinging his legs from the chair behind the Resolute desk.

Thank you. This was wonderful. I appreciate it. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. I could listen to Mary Trump all afternoon. She's got such insights. And I think her training as a psychologist has really helped her understand this very strange man that's emerged from her family. And of course, that wounding moment when he was two-and-a-half years old and his mother basically disappeared because she was ill and in pain, and he really lost his central caregiver. Anyway, I always find her fascinating.

Her books are riveting. I really recommend them. If you're looking for a last-minute Christmas gift, go on Amazon and order them. And then perhaps you can pre-book tickets for Melania, the documentary,

who was, of course, her aunt-in-law, or just aunt, actually, I documentary, who was, of course, her aunt-in-law, or just aunt, actually, I guess aunt. Anyway, if you have been, thank you for joining us. Have a very happy holiday if you don't tune in to Inside Trump's Head tomorrow, but you really should, because Michael Wolff and I will be back discussing the news of the day.

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