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- [00:00]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
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Mary Trump
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
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- [01:35]
Mary Trump
The Trump regime is going to continue to double down on its tactics. It's going to become increasingly violent, and nobody in the executive branch, particularly not Donald, is going to do anything to rein them in. And we see also how the very first instinct of every single person in charge, from Donald to Noem to Homan to Bovino, is to attack and defame the victims of the crimes perpetrated against them by federal agencies.
- [02:12]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I'm Sarah Ewal Weiss, political reporter for the Daily Beast. I'm filling in today for Joanna Coles, who is the host of the Daily Beast podcast. I'm very grateful to be taking this opportunity while she is out of town. Today on the podcast, I interview Mary Trump. She is a renowned author, a clinical psychologist, and also the writer of the substack the Good in Us Today. On the podcast, we discuss the horrific shooting in Minnesota and President Donald Trump and his administration's response. We also talk about the Trump family and their relationship with military service after President Donald Trump disparaged NATO troops on the world stage. We also got into President Trump's relationship with his mother after he fondly remembered walking with her past what he called an insane asylum as he looked back on his life during a press conference. Mary Trump, thank you so much for joining me. We are coming at this today at a time of very deep tensions in the United States. The country does feel like it's at a bit of a breaking point with the latest killing by ICE of Alex Preddy, that ICU nurse who worked at the VA in Minneapolis. The president really does thrive in chaos, and we are seeing that chaos play out on the streets of the United States. But I wanted to ask you what you fear about how it is playing out in this moment.
- [03:42]
Mary Trump
Well, first of all, Sarah, it's great to be here with you. It has been just this last week in particular has felt indeed like some kind of either turning point or a worsening of the situation we find ourselves in, in the sense that we're on a precipice and I'm still not quite sure where we're going to land. And that, of course, is in the context of this country feeling like it's fallen off a cliff since January 1st. And that's, that's in the wake of what was, up until now, one of the worst years we'd ever lived through in 2025. So there's so much to be concerned about. And I think what I'm most worried about in the context of what's happening in Minneapolis and with ICE in general, is that the Trump regime is going to continue to double down on its, its tactics. It's going to become increasingly violent, and nobody in the executive branch, particularly not Donald, is going to do anything to rein them in. And we see also how the very first instinct of every single person in charge, from Donald to Noem to Homan to Bavino, is to attack and defame the victims of the crimes perpetrated against them by federal agencies.
- [05:12]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I do want to ask about that, because it does feel like every instance that we see these horrific, tragic events and these violent events perpetrated by the administration, there's an immediate jump to go on offense. They're not defensive. They're not defending their actions in the same way as they're going after the person who, in this case, they shot multiple times and killed. And I want to find out from you, is that the typical Trump playbook? Has that been his playbook as you've known him throughout his life?
- [05:47]
Mary Trump
Yeah, precisely. And it's funny, I had a conversation with my Aunt Marianne, a few years ago during Donald's first term, and I was remarking on how incapable he, Donald, is of taking responsibility for anything. And I was sort of shocked to see that what used to be considered an admirable quality in adult human beings, taking responsibility, apologizing, had been turned on its head. And now it became sort of a sign of your strength and masculinity to deny all wrongdoing and never take responsibility. And she said, oh, he learned that from your grandfather. Because apparently my grandfather also never took responsibility for anything. It was always somebody else's fault. And it's the second part that is creating the problems. Now, it's one thing to say, hey, I had nothing to do with it. It's another thing entirely to go after other people and blame them for your transgressions. And we see that happening with increasing frequency. Yes, but with increasing vitriol. I mean, we have a man, two people actually were murdered by ICE agents in the last two weeks, and right out of the gate were being told by the Department of Homeland Security and representatives from ICE and representatives in the White House that they are domestic terrorists who deserved what they got.
- [07:14]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I want to talk a little bit about that, because the George Orwell quote from 1984 has been circling online to reject the party told you to reject what you see with your own eyes and ears, the evidence. And we've seen this quote come up after the killing of Renee Good with all the videos that came out with that, and now we're seeing the quote circulate this week in response to the administration saying what it said about the killing of Alex Preddy. And I feel like this administration has been empowered in ways to lie without. With impunity, with no real hesitation, no concern for consequences. And I want to ask you what you think that is in Dynamic 2. Is this really all an audience of one? Is this all for Donald Trump? Is it all to save their own hides? When you look at that, what do you think about this constant lying when we have video evidence that contradicts what they're saying to us on national television?
- [08:16]
Mary Trump
I think people in Donald's inner circle understand exactly what it is they have to do to stay there. And some of them are like him. You know, they. They are perfectly comfortable lying like they breathe. They are perfectly comfortable blaming victims. They're. They're. They are solely interested in maintaining their own power and proximity to power. And Donald has modeled this behavior for decades now. You know, be a bully, be a thug, be disrespectful. And then complain when other people behave or complain when you think other people are behaving the same way. In fact, in Renee Good's. In the aftermath of Renee Goode's murder, Donald actually said, well, she was being disrespectful towards law enforcement, as if that means that she deserved to be killed. So I think the broader problem here is that from the beginning, and I mean from the beginning of his adulthood, if not earlier, Donald was never, ever held to account for anything. And he was enabled at every turn. And eventually that creates a monster. And we see that happening with increasing impact. We've got the corrupt, illegitimate Supreme Court of the United States super majority, the Supreme Court of the United States of America, basically saying to Donald, you're an imperial president. As long as you can claim that you're acting within your official capacity, you can get away with anything. And that trickles down to other people in the administration. So we now know that you can be a participant in an insurrection against your own government. As long as you are in support of Donald Trump, you're going to get pardoned. If you're an ICE agent murdering American citizens in cold blood, as long as you are doing that in service to advancing Donald Trump's agenda, you're going to get pardoned, you are going to be given absolute immunity, which is a thing that doesn't even exist, and they're not even going to allow local and state law enforcement to be part of the investigation. So we're never even going to get the truth. And just one more point to the don't believe your own lying eyes thing. Donald has been doing this for a very long time, just most recently in terms of the economy. He's literally telling Americans, no, prices are going down, not up, inflation is going down, not up. You are not struggling. You still, your paycheck checks are going further than they ever went before. And none of that's true. So we see it here, and it is, it is a dangerous mix of delusion and propaganda.
- [10:58]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I do want to ask, in terms of that, do you believe that your uncle, the president, fears any consequences in the future for his administration's actions at this point?
- [11:09]
Mary Trump
Point, no. I. And I. He has no reason to because he's gotten away with everything. Not because he has any special powers or because he has any particular strengths. Again, he's like the weakest person I've ever known in my life. It's because his enablers find him useful still, and they also have their own agendas, like the corrupt, illegitimate super majority of the Supreme Court. You know, they believe in this ridiculous, what used to be fringe theory of the unitary executive. They believe that a president, as long as it's a Republican one, should have almost absolute power. And the same thing with the Republican Party. So far, the Republican Party still believes that Donald is the only person who can retain the base and be successful electorally. So, again, given the track record, why on earth would Donald fear any kind of accountability at this point? We know he got away with inciting an insurrection against his own government. He got away with stealing highly sensitive classified documents. He got away with massive amounts of business fraud. And to date, he has not paid Eg and Carol a dime, even though he was adjudicated to be a sexual assaulter and defamer. So I think for him, though, the bigger issue is as he gets older and weaker and we see serious cognitive decline and psychological deterioration, the. His ability to protect himself against the reality of who he is is weakening. And I think that's one of the reasons we're. We're seeing him engaging in increasingly hostile and belligerent behaviors on.
- [12:57]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
On that front, in terms of his cognitive abilities, it feels like a lifetime ago. But just last week, he appeared on the world stage at Davos in Switzerland and gave an address where he rambled a lot. He circled back to talk picks repeatedly. He appeared to mix up Greenland with Iceland multiple times throughout the speech, which is not the first time he has done this. And he attacked allies multiple times while praising dictatorship. I'm curious, when you see his performance on the world stage at this point in time, what are your thoughts, particularly when everyone's eyes are on him at a place like Davos?
- [13:39]
Mary Trump
Well, I think at the very least, it's deeply shameful and embarrassing and humiliating to the United States of America. And we have to remember this, that when other world leaders listen to Donald, when they see how he's behaving vis a vis Venezuela and Greenland and Mexico and the Panama Canal, they're not just blaming him, they're blaming America because tens of millions of people put this deeply unqualified, corrupt man back into power, despite all the evidence that he shouldn't be in power. We have a Republican Party that continues to cede their own constitutional authority to increase. Increase Donald's power. And again, the. The Supreme Court just at every turn, siding with him, increasing the strength of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches, actually. So we can maybe, if we have the opportunity, turn things around in America. But Donald is unleashing forces in the world that we can't, as Americans, control. So humiliation aside, and quite frankly, I think at this point, America deserves it. We are watching him unravel the post World War II order. And that's again, something that we. We may not get back or we may not be able to participate in. And that is. I did. I never actually thought that we would get to this point. And the fact that it's happened so quickly is also alarming because how do we put the brakes on that? So basically, the only people who can do that is Europe, who is increasingly inclined to see us as a bad actor and a country that can no longer be trusted. Because it's one thing to put some as somebody as morally bankrupt as Donald in charge once, but to do it again means that there is no reason for any country we are currently allies with to trust us going forward.
- [15:52]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I wanted to ask you, because you talk about the dynamic with our closest allies. We did see the Prime Minister of Canada sort of give a pushback, a strong pushback on the President and the direction the United States is taking without specifically naming the president in his own address. And the president lashed out at the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, and attacked him on the world stage during his address at Davos, also on social media. And it's been a regular occurrence where someone says something critical and he lashes out. But do you see that the way that the Prime Minister of Canada responded, trying to take a stand in some way, even though Canada has a huge relationship with the United States in terms of trade, highly dependent, very obviously we share a northern border. We are allies through and through in most cases. Is that the only way to respond to the President? Is there any way you can navigate this besides just a harsh reality check?
- [16:57]
Mary Trump
Yeah, Sarah, it's such a good point. Because time and time again, we've seen white shoe law firms, universities, corporate media organizations and countries engage in appeasement, an appeasement strategy. And the end result of that, every single time, is for Donald to end up with more power and the ability to extort entities and individuals to get what he wants. Because again, it's not just institutions, it's also individuals he goes after. So I think finally, hopefully, the EU and other countries that are, at least for now, our allies, are beginning to understand that Donald Trump, and then, therefore, the United States of America is the enemy of democracy. As you mentioned, Donald is enamored with dictators and authoritarians. He clearly wants that kind of power for himself. His ridiculous board of peace is stacked with authoritarian regimes and weakened democracies that are on the brink of becoming authoritarian regimes, countries like Belarus and Hungary, etc. And I think his. His attacks or threats, I should say, against Greenland and Denmark, his absolutely vile and crazy remarks in Davos are maybe pushing people like Carney and Macron etc, to the point where they understand the only way through here is to present a united front against Donald and seek other avenues. We know for a fact that Canada is engaging in trade talks with China which will redound to China's benefit and be much to our disadvantage. So I hope it's a turning point, because otherwise, what incentive would there be for Donald to stop?
- [19:07]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I want to talk to you, if you could put your hat on as a clinical psychologist here maybe, and discuss the Board of Peace signing ceremony, the visuals that we saw from it. What I saw was a president surrounded by strongmen, not our close allies. Our close allies snubbed the event. But he also appeared very isolated and alone and upset during that event, like it wasn't the prestigious grand operation that he had hoped for. He did not get the response he was hoping for from many world leaders. There were small players on that stage with him. What does that do to someone when you're snubbed by the big players, if you will, at something like this? What does this do to someone like Donald Trump?
- [19:52]
Mary Trump
Well, it's incredibly humiliating, which is good because you should feel humiliated. The problem is, though, that almost all of Donald's psychic energies over the last decades has been used in service to protecting himself from ever feeling humiliation. So he. That's why he always has to spin everything as a win is the greatest thing that's ever happened. It's like nothing you've ever seen before. Right. But I think, again, because of his deterioration in other areas, that's getting harder and harder and harder for him to do. The question remains, though, does he. Is he able to recognize it? Because there is so much evidence now that there are times when he doesn't even seem to be oriented to time and place. And as you mentioned, he has difficulty keeping facts in his head. Calling Greenland, Iceland once. Okay, I get it. They're not far from each other. They're both remote, icy islands. Fine. But four times when Greenland is at the forefront of your thoughts, that's problematic. And we've seen many other instances of this and his rambling and his deteriorating ability to. For impulse control and his aphasias and all these other signs that all is not well with him.
- [21:18]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I wanted to ask you about that as well. I mean, you've mentioned how you watched your grandfather deteriorate over time. And can you speak a little bit in the context of just the past couple of weeks we've seen with things as obvious as. As Greenland being. He wants to invade or take over this territory, but still mixing it up with another, with a. Granted, Iceland, as you said, geographically similar, but it appears to be getting worse in these moments. And I want to ask you what your experience with the family has been like regarding this.
- [21:53]
Mary Trump
Yeah, you know, with my grandfather, it was slow and then fast. Right. But so there are a lot of similarities that, dear. The headlights look Donald gets once in a while, his forgetfulness. And again, sometimes it seems like he's not quite sure where he is or who he's around, that those are all things I saw happen with my grandfather. The difference, though, is that my. My grandfather's personality changed in a way Donald's isn't.
- [22:29]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
It's.
- [22:29]
Mary Trump
It's as if Donald is. Is sort of leaning into the worst things about himself in. In an attempt, I think, to. To stave off the reality of his situation. His cognitive decline, his aging, his physical health, or his deteriorating physical health, I should say. My grandfather, actually, who was a sociopath, let's be clear, became docile. This was a man who had been in complete control of his world, which consisted of his business and his family. And all of a sudden, he was just this gentle man. And I've said this before, that my grandfather was never nicer to me than he was when he forgot who I was. So, yeah, see, I mean, he had bouts of. Of rage and tantrums, but usually late at night when he was alone at home, but among people like, he just was a completely different person. Donald, on the other hand, is getting to. To be more of a bully. He's getting more aggressive. He is doubling and quadrupling down on the tactics he's always used, but in a way that's becoming more. I don't even know how to describe the fact that he and others in his administration are so willing to call American citizens who've been murdered at the hands of agencies they control, domestic terrorists, et cetera. But he's not exercising any kind of restraint. He's exercising no discrimination whatsoever. And I think part of the problem with that is that he never felt the need to. But in strategic moments, he was able to. And now that's all gone. And again, that is just permission for everybody underneath him to engage in the same kinds of behavior. I mean, we're looking Bevino, Noem, Patel, Homan, what these People are doing is so destructive to civic life in America. It's difficult to quantify.
- [24:53]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
You talk about them following his lead, but also there's this element of them enabling him, the administration and those around him enabling him. So it's kind of a top down, but also the people he's chosen to surround himself up situation here. Has there ever been a time in Donald Trump's life where there was a clear enforcement entity that was not an enabler? I mean, we could talk about his first administration, like maybe some of the officials he surrounded himself, kind of kept some things on the tracks. We heard from people like his former chief of staff, Mark Kelly, after the fact, or, excuse me, John Kelly after the fact, but across his entire lifetime and the time you've known him growing up, was it all mostly enablers to a person?
- [25:35]
Mary Trump
To a person, Basically, when as soon as my grandfather decided that Donald, not my father, was going to be the heir to the empire, despite the fact that my dad was the namesake and eight years older, almost eight years older, there was no turning back. Donald was made president of Trump Management at the age of 24, despite my dad's having 11 years of experience. And he, My grandfather financed his lavish lifestyle because, you know, my grand, my sorry, Donald was working for my grandfather, which means that any money he was getting was from my grandfather. And we know from the New York Times that over the course of Donald's lifetime, until my grandfather died, he received approximately $416 million in gifts and loans that were never paid back. We know that. Yes, there was a time when he was struggling in the 90s, despite the fact that he owned casinos, that the banks reined him in a little bit. But I don't know. Personally, I don't really think giving somebody a $450,000 a month allowance is really punishment for anything because they needed him to maintain the facade of that lifestyle in order to trick people into thinking that the brand was still worth something. So, no. And then it's just been this fascinating cascade from my grandfather to the New York media to banks, to NBC to the Republican Party to the Supreme Court, and here we are, and it isn't working out well for anybody except Donald.
- [27:21]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
That is interesting. I mean, it feels like in some ways, maybe most ways, Donald Trump has been a tool for others to use his entire lifetime. And at the end of the day, he's the one coming out on top with all of these different folks and entities that had tried to use him over decades.
- [27:45]
Mary Trump
That's absolutely right. I think I wrote about this in my first book. Donald has always been of use to men more powerful and smarter than he is, and that remains the case, except for, of course, he has more power now. But it's still working out for these other people, like the tech oligarchs who are getting billions of dollars in government contracts as long as they donate money to the obscene ballroom, the corporate media entities like Paramount plus, who also are raking in billions of dollars, as long as they stay on Donald's right side, as long as they do his bidding, as long as they put unqualified hacks like Barry Weiss in charge of, you know, make her editor in chief of CBS and dismantle that once legendary news organization. So there's a lot of quid pro quo going on, because what Donald has has made very clear to people even in, during the first administration, although, as you mentioned, he was reigned in a little bit then he's for sale, and not even to the highest bidder, quite frankly.
- [29:01]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
When it comes to who Donald Trump trusts, though, if anyone, it does feel like it's still in the family. And I was curious if you could speak towards the dynamic within the family to the best of your ability at this point. I know you haven't spoken with them in some time, but you see folks like Jared Kushner, who is on the stage at Davos presenting the future plan for Gaza. He doesn't have a government position, he's not confirmed by the Senate. There's no title there. He's not accountable to anyone. But he's being placed in these top roles by the president to pitch at Davos the rebuilding of Gaza. We saw him next to Steve Witkoff speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin as they talk about the Ukrainian peace deal. At one point, there was this argument he's being brought in to deal with, with the conflict in Gaza because he had experience there, but now it just feels like he's showing up places. And is it still the dynamic that this president puts family members in these positions because he trusts them, he thinks they're loyal to him? What is, what do you see as the dynamic here when you see that playing out these days?
- [30:16]
Mary Trump
I didn't vote for Jared Kushner for anything, that's for sure. And yeah, it is just another abuse of his power that the Republicans in Congress are not clamoring about this because it's just not done. You know, this is not the way things are supposed to work. But, no, there's no loyalty or trust in this family. Every single relationship is transactional. And, you know, we've seen some people in the family kind of recede from view and that's because they have made the calculation that being publicly linked to Donald in any way does not redound to their benefit. Jared Kushner is back in the picture, clearly, because he sees an opportunity here to make money and Donald sees that Jared is an avenue for him to make more money. So because you know, Jared Kushner has has connections in Saudi Arabia that may be closer than Donald's own connections. And Donald's busy, you know, he's busy destroying the post World War II order and civic democracy. So he needs somebody else to kind of lay the foundations for these corrupt deals in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, etc. It is again, has nothing to do. There's no, there's no love among these people. It is purely what can you do for me? And what can I do for you, Mary Trump?
- [31:55]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
Pause right there. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors.
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Mary Trump
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Mary Trump
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- [34:07]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
And we're back with Mary Trump discussing President Donald Trump, her uncle, as well as the administration actions. When you say that we know from the New York Times that the president made about $1.5 billion off of his first during his first year in office. He's profiting off the presidency at the end of the day. Is this all about the President's own personal bottom line? Is that what you're saying here?
- [34:36]
Mary Trump
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Power is secondary for sure. Although, you know, money is power. I mean, I think the simplest way to think about it is that money in my family was the only currency, literally and metaphorically speaking. So it stood in for everything else, love, affection, et cetera. If you were valued in my family, you were given more money. So we know how much my grandfather gave Donald. He did not give that to his other children. He certainly didn't give any of it to my dad. So that's how you know what you're worth. And if you have less than that, if you give something away, you're worth less and the other person is worth more. So we know that Donald has, doesn't have a charitable bone in his body. The only reason my grandfather ever gave money away was to get the tax breaks. So it is, it should be anyway, an object lesson for future, future elections that you never, ever put in power somebody who believes that the only thing that matters in this world is money and his own wealth. Because you end up with somebody in power who is willing to abuse the system, take advantage of the system, to steal from the US treasury, to empower his oligarch friends, and to grift off the American people in a way that is utterly shameless. But again, do we blame Donald for this? I don't think so, because there are mechanisms in place to rein this kind of thing in, and nobody's doing anything about it. Republicans in Congress.
- [36:28]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I'm curious, in terms of you were talking about your grandfather and money is powerful, did he ever discuss with you or were you around for any conversations? Were you ever discussed his relationship with the government? Did you grow up in a family where it was you revered the president and the presidency or the principles on which this country was founded? Did that ever come up in your conversations growing up in the Trump family?
- [36:57]
Mary Trump
No. No. I think my. My grandfather cared about nothing other than his business and making money, truly. So, you know, they were Republicans, but sort of in that way, people were Republicans back in the 40s, 50s and 60s. And it was less about politics than it was about connections, like how my political connections can help me get this funding or what have you. So my own, My grandfather's only interest in the government was getting government grants in order to get funding for some of his bigger real estate projects at, like, Trump Village. So that sort of that, plus, despite how my grandfather was probably worth about a billion dollars when he died, or his, you know, empire was worth that much, much of that money came from the government. On the other hand, though, the one thing my grandfather hated more than anything, except perhaps my parents, was paying taxes. So he and his children, surviving children, because my, my dad wasn't around at that point, did everything in their power to rig the system so that they didn't have to pay taxes, especially when he and my grandmother died. So that was the extent of what I knew about how my grandfather felt. And honestly, like, I think that if my grand. If my grandfather had been of sound mind, I'm not entirely sure he would have thought that Donald's being president was a good thing because he. He wanted his children, surviving children to keep the empire going. And, of course, shortly after he died, they sold the whole thing off. So, so much for legacy in terms.
- [38:50]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
Of the thinking in the family. Also, I'm going to bring up military service because the president disparaged European NATO troops serving alongside the US In Afghanistan while he was in Davos. He basically said, paraphrasing that they weren't on the front lines, which is simply not true. The only time Article 5 was invoked was in defense of the United States. And we lost European troops on the front lines in Afghanistan, hundreds of them. And so this was met with condemnation from world leaders, specifically the prime Minister of the UK but other European leaders as well. We had, obviously, Danish troops were killed in action, and it brings back the reminder that the president was also accused of calling service members suckers and losers who were killed on the battlefield. And I wanted to ask you what the Trump relationship was with military service, based on your experience in the family growing up, because he says one thing that obviously is a lie about the reality on the ground. And this isn't the first time he's disparaged troops. And I wanted to find out what was happening. What was the conversation in the family about military service as you recall it?
- [40:13]
Mary Trump
Yeah, I mean, his comments are just depraved. And they, that, that should be the line, you know, I don't think anybody should listen to anything else he has to say after that. It's so disgraceful that a man who got five or six deferments so he didn't have to serve in Vietnam, although somebody had to serve in his place, should have anything to say. The fact that he's a commander in chief is just. I don't know. I don't know why anybody thought that was a good idea. So on the one hand, you have somebody who, as you said, disparages troops, lies about their service, and then on the other hand, seems to want to bask in the glow of the generals and US Military power, which he is throwing around in ways that are deeply troubling and in some cases in contravention to international law and the U.S. military Code of justice itself. So it's, it's a weird dichotomy, but in my family, I from especially my grandfather, military service was disparaged also. It was not seen to be a. A good use of one's time, you know, when you could just be in doing real estate and making lots of money. Like, why would you do something that useless? They don't understand service. They don't understand honor or anything like that. So there was one exception to this, however. My dad was in ROTC when he was an undergrad at Lehigh, and upon graduating, he became a second lieutenant in the National Guard. I don't know how many years he served because sadly, he didn't talk about it much. But I think that service was.
- [42:04]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
Thought.
- [42:05]
Mary Trump
About in the same way my grandfather and my dad's other siblings thought about his being a professional pilot for twa. My grandfather called him a bus driver in the sky and a chauffeur, you know, so neither one of these things, both of which in their different ways, were very honorable professions to be engaged in, was valued. And I think that was one of the things that, that destroyed my dad, that anything he did, if it was outside the context of working for the. For Trump management, was disparaged and looked down upon. And I know that, you know, he was in, he was in the National Guard long enough to worry that he was going to be called up to serve in Vietnam. At the time, he was married and he had a very young child, so I think it's unlikely that would have happened. But the fact that he was worried about it suggests to me that if he had been called, he would have gone, because that's the kind of man he was.
- [43:10]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
And in terms of how your family would have viewed deployment, that would have been a negative, despite him serving his country.
- [43:23]
Mary Trump
Absolutely. Yeah. I. I mean, the way my grandfather always talked to you, if you did something that he thought was useless or a waste of time, like this is exactly what he said to me when I told him I wanted to go back to college. I had. I had taken a break, and I wanted. I desperately wanted to go back to school. And he said, that's stupid. What do you want to do that for? That's exactly what he probably would have said to my dad.
- [43:49]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I know we've talked a lot about your grandfather. I want to discuss your grandmother and her relationship with Donald Trump. And I bring this up because we saw the president last week, also felt like an age ago, do a press conference at the White House to mark his one year back in office. And he spoke for 80 minutes straight. Well, shuffling papers and getting basically engrossed in some of the images he was looking at. It was a very bizarre event to watch as he came out and stumbled through his remarks and repeated himself over and over again before finally getting to about 20 minutes of questions at the end. But in that time, he did bring up his mother once during this 80 minutes, and it was in a very bizarre context because he brought her up while talking about the idea of bringing back insane asylums. And he said that he used to walk through Queens with his mom and they'd walk by Creedmoor.
- [44:47]
Mary Trump
But I said to my mother, mom, she would be there, always there for me. She said, son, you could be a professional baseball player. I said, thanks, Mom. I said, why are those bars on the windows? Big building. Big, powerful building. It loomed up over the park, actually.
- [45:06]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
But then he also went on this tangent while talking about insane asylums. And it devolved into him also mentioning that she said he could be a professional baseball player because it was on his way to and from Little League. It was a really all over the place couple of sentences. But it related to him and his mother's conversation. Him fondly remembering his mother in this weird way, but also saying how she lavished praise on him in a backhanded way while talking about insane asylums. And I wanted to find out what is the Trump relation. What was the Trump relationship with his mother, to your extent, having observed or also being told about it?
- [45:46]
Mary Trump
Yeah. Well, firstly he also said that she was always there for him, and that is not at all true. So as I mentioned, I think the last time I was on my grandmother for about a year, when Donald was starting, when Donald was two and a half, was very ill and was not available to him physically or emotionally. That is a critically important developmental period. And we are still suffering the consequences from what happened to him during that year because the wounds he suffered then were never healed. Like, my grandmother never did what she would have needed to do to repair the breach in that relationship. So in my family it was very weird. It was, I mean, I think, I don't think it was unusual in the 40s and 50s for, you know, mothers to deal more with daughters and fathers to deal more with sons. But in my family it was like a red line in between them. My grandmother had almost nothing to do with her sons. Every year she would go to see family in Stornoway and she always brought my two aunts, but as far as I'm aware, never the boys. So it was almost like she just didn't think she had any role in raising them other than cooking for them and doing their laundry. So there was no relationship. I mean, as an adult, Donald had a sort of very contemptuous, paternalistic attitude towards my grandmother. He never sought her counsel. And the fact that he has her saying that he could be a professional baseball player is kind of funny to me because I don't even know, like, how would she know? She grew up in the Outer Hebrides and probably didn't know much about baseball. But the whole Creedmoor thing, the only way he would have known about Creedmoor is if my, my grandparents belonged to a country club and it was farther east. So Creedmoor is right next to the Grand Central Parkway. So we all know where Creedmoor was because we drove past it a lot. Cunningham park, the park where he claims he played Little League, is nine miles away. It's a walk from where my grandparents house was. But it's a. You can't get there without getting in your car. So maybe he was referring to Alipond park, which is right next to Creedmoor. But the, the fact that he conflated these experiences is very bizarre. And as you know, he seems to be obsessed. Like he's constantly telling us that insane asylums in Mexico, in Central America are releasing all of their sickest patients to flood the United States of America. He seems to have a close personal relationship with fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter. And, you know, he's talking about Creedmoor. First of all, Creedmoor, as far as last I checked, is still functioning. It's just much smaller. I did an externship there many, many years ago. So it's a modern psychiatric hospital now. But yes, back in the day, it was vast. It had thousands of patients. This is before psychotropic drugs were invented. It spread over acres and it was a sort of looming presence. But he seems obsessed with it in a way now that is almost inexplicable, except again, for the fact that I alluded to earlier. The barrier between his. Between his conscious and unconscious seems to be eroding. And he seems on some level, at least, to be gaining some. I don't want to say insight because that's. That's giving him too much credit, but some sense that all is not well and that he's losing control not just of the narrative but of himself. So, yeah, it was wild to hear him talking about Creedmore and my grandmother in the way he did. And, you know, he maybe is also thinking about what happened to my grandfather.
- [49:50]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
It does seem like he is a little reflecting in some way on his life. He brings up God more often than he has, to my recollection. In his first term, he talks about his life as he's now remembering it. Maybe it's revisionist history more publicly at times. Mary, we're gonna hold it right there for a moment while we take a listen to our sponsor.
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
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- [52:26]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
And I'm back now with Mary Trump as we continue our conversation about President Donald Trump. But you also mentioned that your grandfather had these moments of rage. He became docile, he said, but there were moments of rage. And that reminded me perhaps a little bit of the president who does rage post on social media at all hours of the night. And I'm curious in terms of when you look at that specifically. I mean, he's we've seen the outbursts in general, but he also uses social media. So it's very different, obviously, than how your grandfather would have gone through his experience. But what do you make of these moments where he's posting 50 posts one after another, or reposting, I should say, and throwing in these wild posts at 2am and what are your thoughts on his cognitive ability when you look at those moments late at night, alone at the White House, when no one in his family is there?
- [53:33]
Mary Trump
Right. Well, I mean, it's another sign that his impulse control is deteriorating, although it's not necessarily anything new, like he's been posting unhinged tweets for years now. But I think the the frequency and the volume have increased and the detachment from reality have increased. But we also do see in in many of them what his priorities are. So just quickly with my grandfather, because again, this, this typically happened at night when he was home alone with my grandmother and his alzheimer's was advanced, so they had a guard there too, because on a couple of occasions he had left the house in the middle of the night, you know, and in his pajamas. And also I, I don't know why anybody thought it was a good idea for my grandmother to be alone with him in his condition. So he fixated on this idea that, that my grandmother was stealing from him and hiding his checkbooks. And he was absolutely obsessed with being poor. So we see. Similarly, Donald is telling us what his priorities are in the wake of the murder of Alex Preddy. He was posting about his ballroom, you know, so he again, is deeply concerned about anything that in his mind is sort of a monument to his greatness, his ballroom, his, the balance in his checking account, et cetera. And that that is becoming impossible to ignore to the extent that we could have ignored it anyway. Right. So I think most of it is just delusional and grievance and an attempt to gain the upper hand. But a lot of it is he's just telling on himself.
- [55:44]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
I'm glad you did bring up the ballroom because as you mentioned, he was posting on Truth Social about his beautiful ballroom in the midst of this chaos happening in Minnesota, this horrific shooting by ice agents, and he's talking about a ballroom and he does that quite often. He was posting about his ark and giving out possible, it looked like it was potential examples of what it could look like as he goes to build this ark of Trump, if you will. And I wanted to ask you.
- [56:19]
Mary Trump
Where.
- [56:20]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
Does this obsession stem from? You discussed kind of making himself the grandness, the power of Trump, but where does it stem from? Where did you see it growing? And is it also deeply rooted in how he was perceived by the family?
- [56:38]
Mary Trump
Yeah, I think my grandfather is solely responsible, not solely, but largely responsible for creating this particular monster because despite all evidence to the contrary, he put Donald on a pedestal. He perpetuated the myth or created the myth that Donald was some genius, some savant, some self made man. And with the exception probably of my dad, whose opinion they didn't care about anyway, everybody else in the family, understanding upon which side their bread was buttered, went along, you know, and family meals. Donald sat next to my grandfather, sat on his right side, and everybody else just listened and chimed in and, you know, when necessary. But clearly Donald was the focus, and clearly Donald was the one with the power. So that just got worse over time as my grandfather bankrolled more and more of his projects and continued to bail him out. Even during the Atlantic City years when Donald declared bankruptcy so many times. And then, you know, the. My. It's almost as if it sort of feels like a parallel to the government now. It's like the entire family and my grandfather's business was in service to propping Donald up and enriching him. Definitely. That feels like, you know, the Trump regime right now, that's from the DOJ on down, everybody in this administration is in service to enriching and protecting and enabling Donald. So, I mean, he comes by it honestly, at least.
- [58:20]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
My last question for you, because we discussed that in terms of enabling and putting him on a pedestal, the reality is, at the end of the day, we also have this other history, if you will, that will be written about Donald Trump, and it's the reality that he is a convicted felon. And I bring this up because last week we had former special counsel Jack Smith testifying about his own investigations into Donald Trump and in two indictments, which in the end were dismissed or thrown out because he became president again, not because Jack Smith didn't think that they had a case to go to trial. But that's the reality that the president is now living with, is he's trying to boost himself on the world stage, make a name for himself in these ballrooms and slapping his name on things. But you also have the first convicted felon president of the United States, and he was watching the testimony of Jack Smith because he was posting about it as it was happening, which is what we were seeing in real time as this man went before Congress. And so I wanted to ask you, last but not least, what does that alternate title that the President holds, do you think, mean for his psyche as he looks at his life, as he's slowly starting to reflect? In some ways, Yeah.
- [59:45]
Mary Trump
I mean, I'm not entirely sure he's reflecting so much as reluctantly recognizing certain things. But either way, he is aware that he is not completely in control of things on some level. Right. So the fact that he's paying attention to Smith, I think, is of a piece with how he pays attention to other people who stand up against him. I don't know that he feels threatened by it because, again, he got away with it. It's more that he's just looking for another scapegoat. He's looking for somebody else that he can stick the DOJ on, just as he did with James Comey and Letitia James and others. So I think this is something that's. That. That's difficult for people to wrap their heads around. You know, just as we often say how. How can people be voting against their own self interest? Well, that suggests we know what other people's self interests are. Sometimes people's self interest is to promote any administration that will act according to the needs of white people. For example, their self interest is white nationalism or Christian nationalism, what have you. Not so much the economy or the social safety net. In the same way, I think things like being a convicted criminal would make some, most of us ashamed. Donald wears that as a badge of honor. We know that as certain revelations came out, the Access Hollywood tape, the accusations from Eugene, Carol and others, his numbers went up among his base. So calling him a rapist or calling him a criminal, those are things that increase his street cred. That doesn't bother him at all. What bothers him is being called a loser or having his worth called into question, being called weak. He likes being called a bully. He likes being called a thug. So I think we need to recalibrate how we go about trying to dismantle or weaken him. And it is not by calling him a criminal or a bully or a thug, because again, that that is a badge of honor for him. Those things are a badge of honor for him.
- [62:21]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
Mary Trump, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us.
- [62:25]
Mary Trump
Thank you so much. This was great.
- [62:32]
Sarah Ewal Weiss
One of the most interesting moments to me from our conversation was how Mary Trump described her father's military service versus how the Trump family, including her grandfather and her uncle, President Donald Trump, viewed military service versus it being unworthy of their time while they were going to make money and could be doing what she said they thought were better things than serving in the military. For more from the Daily Beast, you can subscribe to thedailybeast.com, you can follow us on social media. Please feel free to leave comments. We love hearing from you on what you found most interesting about our conversation. Thank you so much for watching.
- [63:10]
Mary Trump
Hi.
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
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Mary Trump
And I'm Matt Wilstein and we are.
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
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Mary Trump
So make sure you subscribe to us.
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
On YouTube at the YouTube channel. Make sure you follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
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Mary Trump
Just search for Obsessed the podcast and.
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
We will see you there. Bebeast. Big thanks to our special bebeast tier of members. Here they are, Yvette Johnson, me thinks Batsio Farrell Mills and Lynns Shelby, Max Cubitt, David Sherry, Thomas Moore, Maria Voltaine.
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Mary Trump
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
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Mary Trump
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
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Mary Trump
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Sarah Ewal Weiss
Episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the first best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline.
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Mary Trump
Head to thedailybeast.com membership podcast and sign up today.