Trump says niece signed 'very powerful' NDA, isn't allowed to write a book about him


President Trump said Sunday he had no idea his niece Mary Trump was writing a book about their family, something that she is "not allowed" to do after signing a "very powerful" nondisclosure agreement.
Trump confirmed with Axios' Jonathan Swan a Daily Beast report from last week, which said Mary Trump, 55, signed a nondisclosure agreement following a 2001 settlement over the estate of her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr. This agreement reportedly forbids her from publishing anything about the litigation or her relationships with Trump and his siblings Maryanne and Robert. Mary Trump is the daughter of Trump's late older brother, Fred Trump Jr.
Simon & Schuster plans on publishing Mary Trump's book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, on July 28. It will reportedly delve into the Trump family's dynamics and also reveal that she was the primary source behind a New York Times investigation into her uncle's taxes.
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Trump told Swan the nondisclosure agreement Mary signed "covers everything," and his brother Robert is "very angry" about her writing a book, adding that she is "obviously not honoring" the nondisclosure agreement and that is "too bad." Trump said he didn't even know about the book until "just the other day," and found one of its allegations — that he "dismissed and derided" his father as he began to suffer from Alzheimer's — "totally false" and "a disgraceful thing to say."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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