Mary Trump blames Trump's 'sociopath' father for creating his 'dangerous presidency'
President Trump's niece has some harsh criticism of his erratic and "dangerous" behavior — and everyone else who helped him get there.
Mary Trump's memoir, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, paints a damaging picture of Trump's upbringing and rise to power, and has become an immediate bestseller based on preorders alone. And when discussing the book with The Washington Post's Ashley Parker, Mary Trump was not afraid to name names and assign blame.
Mary Trump blames Fred Trump, her grandfather and the president's father, "almost 100 percent" for Trump's beliefs and ultimate election. A clinical psychologist, she describes Fred Trump as a "sociopath" who led a family full of "a knee-jerk anti-Semitism, a knee-jerk racism." "Growing up, it was sort of normal to hear them use the n-word or use anti-Semitic expressions,” she added.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It was Fred Trump who raised the president to have "an unerring instinct for finding people who are weaker than he is," while also somehow being "eminently usable by people who are stronger and savvier than he is," Mary Trump continued. But while Fred Trump was the president's "chief enabler," Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner are largely to blame now that he's in the White House, the Post writes. They're just like Trump's "chiefs of staff who went along thinking that they could have some kind of influence, only to find that they didn't," Mary Trump said.
Read more from The Washington Post's interview with Mary Trump here.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
Pipe bombs: The end of a conspiracy theory?Feature Despite Bongino and Bondi’s attempt at truth-telling, the MAGAverse is still convinced the Deep State is responsible
-
The robot revolutionFeature Advances in tech and AI are producing android machine workers. What will that mean for humans?
-
Health: Will Kennedy dismantle U.S. immunization policy?Feature ‘America’s vaccine playbook is being rewritten by people who don’t believe in them’
-
Senate votes down ACA subsidies, GOP alternativeSpeed Read The Senate rejected the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, guaranteeing a steep rise in health care costs for millions of Americans
-
Abrego García freed from jail on judge’s orderSpeed Read The wrongfully deported man has been released from an ICE detention center
-
Indiana Senate rejects Trump’s gerrymander pushSpeed Read The proposed gerrymander would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
$1M ‘Trump Gold Card’ goes live amid travel rule furorSpeed Read The new gold card visa offers an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for $1 million
-
US seizes oil tanker off VenezuelaSpeed Read The seizure was a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
-
Miami elects first Democratic mayor in 28 yearsSpeed Read Eileen Higgins, Miami’s first woman mayor, focused on affordability and Trump’s immigration crackdown in her campaign
