Well, this should be
interesting. . . . Both the contents of the book and Trump's sputtering tweets about it (because he will be unable to stop himself).
In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald's only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family [only 240 pages, though] in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world's health, economic security, and social fabric.
Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents' large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. [Mary's father] and Donald. ...
She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald's place in the family spotlight ... to her grandmother's frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump's favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer's.
Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump's lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider's perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world's most powerful and dysfunctional families.
Joe Pompeo, Vanity Fair,
June 16, 2020:
Someone who knows Mary Trump and has read the book ... described it to me as follows: "The punch of the book, the real symbolic thrust, is about how Donald is really an outgrowth of this complex empire that Fred Sr. built—a pretty dark, win-at-all-costs environment. If there's going to be a big takeaway, it's about that emotional DNA of the family." The narrative, this person said, also touches on Mary's deep bond with her father, Fred Trump Jr., who died of an alcoholism-related heart attack in 1981 at the age of 42. ...
Until now, Mary Lea Trump, a trained clinical psychologist who lives on Long Island, has managed to maintain an exceedingly low profile. Prior to this week she was virtually un-Googleable, and aside from the coverage 20 years ago of a court battle and family feud over Fred Sr.'s will, there's been very little about her in the press. ...
The Daily Mail found her Twitter account—apparently hidden in plain sight—which provides some clues as to Mary's ideological leanings. Her bio reads "#blacklivesmatter…she/her/hers." On the night of her uncle's election, responding to a tweet from progressive journalist Joan Walsh, Mary wrote, "This is one of the worst nights of my life. What is wrong with this country? I fear the American experiment has failed."
I'm told Mary has steeled herself for the likely severance of some remaining family ties. ... But my source who knows Mary said she's prepared for whatever may come. "She feels very determined," the source said. "She has a very clear-eyed view of her family and the importance of what she's witnessed. I think she's been getting herself ready for this moment for a really long time."
Marie Brenner, Vanity Fair,
September 1990:
This past April [1990], when his empire was in danger of collapse, Trump isolated himself in a small apartment on a lower floor of Trump Tower. He would lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling, talking into the night on the telephone. The Trumps had separated. ... Ivana began to tell her friends that she was worried about Donald's state of mind. ...
"How can you say you love us? You don't love us! You don't even love yourself. You just love your money," twelve-year-old Donald junior told his father, according to friends of Ivana's. "What kind of son have I created?" Trump's mother, Mary, is said to have asked Ivana. ...
Donald was determined to have a large family. "I want five children, like in my own family, because with five, then I will know that one will be guaranteed to turn out like me," Donald told a close friend. ... [A] story went around that he was giving her a cash bonus of $250,000 for each child. ...
Trump spoke in a hypnotic, unending torrent of words. Often he appeared to free-associate. He referred to himself in the third person: "Trump says. . . Trump believes." His phrases skibbled around and doubled back on themselves like fireworks in a summer sky. He reminded me of a carnival barker trying to fill his tent. ...
"Donald is a believer in the big-lie theory," his lawyer had told me. "If you say something again and again, people will believe you." ...
Donald Trump appears to take aspects of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office, Ivana told a friend, he clicks his heels and says, "Heil Hitler," possibly as a family joke. ...
The phrase "Stockholm syndrome" is now used by Ivana's lawyer Michael Kennedy to describe her relationship with Donald. "She had the mentality of a captive," Kennedy told me. "After a while she couldn't fight her captor anymore, and she began to identify with him. Ivana is deaf, dumb, and blind when it comes to Donald." ...
The tactics he used in business he now brought home. "Donald began calling Ivana and screaming all the time: 'You don't know what you are doing!'" one of Ivana's top assistants told me. ... He began belittling her: "That dress is terrible." "You're showing too much cleavage." "You never spend enough time with the children." "Who would touch those plastic breasts?" ...
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