That you brought that issue up because im not at all saying that donald shouldnt be held accountable. He does on some levels know what hes doing. I think one of the reasons hes sort of unraveling a bit now is because what hes always done in the past that used to work isnt really working as effectively anymore. So it has him scrambling a bit. But, you know, knowing, not knowing, educated, not educated, ultimately it is irrelevant, l although in the grand scheme of things, its irrelevant to whats hes doing. Thats what we need to focus on. The two go together. Theres a conflation because hes acting on what he knows and doesnt know. I have to believe he knows masks are helpful, i have to understand he knows were in the middle of a pandemic and he just sees his best opportunities and ignoring that because thats bad for him. His problem is more of an ethical and a moral one, not an intellectual one. Whats your take on that. Yeah, i actually write about how easy it would have been for him to be the hero in this story. Still could. As crazy as politics is and how short peoples memories are, he could still be a hero by putting together a plan that puts this country in a better place. Between now and november is a long time. Continue. And you hit on something really important. He could theoretically but he cant constitutionally. Its not because he is rabidly antiscience. Its because those things work for the narrative he needs to sp spin. So it would require him to admit in one way or another that hes made a mistake, a huge mistake thats cost many, many tens of thousands of lives. He cant do that. So all hes got left is creating division and thats a place in which hes very, very comfortable. You depict in many different ways and scenarios what the feeling about what Donald Trumps character was within the family. As a general assessment, how was he regarded . You said he was confident. He was certainly the favorite child, but on these kind of primary color issues, you know, credibility, compassion, good person, bad person, families talks. What was the rap on him . When i was growing up . Yeah. None of those were ever issues in my family. Never. You mean they werent relevant considerations . Thats right. My grandfather was running the show and they were totally irrelevant considerations to him so they didnt matter to them either. A little cold blooded there. Yes, quite. What was that like for you . You know, again, when youre growing up in an atmosphere like that, its very hard to understand that its not normal or that its dysfunctional or aberrant in any way. I wouldnt have thought anything of it necessarily, but on the other hand i did witness particularly how it affected my dad. And even though i didnt understand it at the time, i certainly understand it now. And being in a family that did not value the things we were just talking about and also not being able to subscribe to them, not being able to be the killer, not being able to be the person who is uncaring or unflinching, it was brutal. Your father passed at a young age, 42, i believe, yes . Yes. And the president has referred to him having struggles. He usually talks about it in terms of alcohol. Did he have a compassionate relationship with your father in terms of his addiction . No. No, he wouldnt have. My dads alcoholism, which, you know, has a very significant genetic component and his disease was looked upon as a weakness and a moral failing, you know, a failure of character. So there was no compassion. Did they have a close relationship ever in your life . No. And part of that is the age difference. They were seven and a half years apart. I know that doesnt always mean that brothers cant be close, but they were really living very different lives, you know, by the time when donald was in high school my dad was married already with kids. And when donald was in college, my dad was flying so, you know, their paths crossed certainly but i wouldnt say they were close. Im not entirely sure donalds capable of being truly emotionally close with anybody. Two criteria questions in terms of why you approach this the way you do. The president and people around him have a pretty Straight Line analysis on you, which is shes out to get him, shes never liked him, shes the odd ball in the family and this is about bitterness, shes upset about her dad and what happened with the lawsuit. Are those fair criticisms that you dont like donald trump for reasons that are personal to you and you are projecting them on to him as a president . No. Am i upset with how my dad was treated in the family . Of course. I mean, i was 16 when he died and nobody in the family made an effort to compensate for that in any way, so that was hard. Im not entirely sure anyone wouldnt be upset that her uncles and aunts, who were also her trustees misrepresented things so, you know, the financial arrangement we reached was essentially fraudulent. I think anybody would be upset about that. As i said, this is not a vendetta, this is not revenge, this is not a settling of scores. If donald had continued to be a private citizen, we wouldnt be having this conversation. You know, youve seen whats been going on with covid19, youve seen whats been going on with racial strife in this country, the problems are getting exacerbated every day. We are in serious trouble here, and a large part of that is because donald is incapable of leading and hes being enabled by people who apparently are only interested in using him towards their own ends, and im afraid that those ends are not the best interests of this country. One of the things that is most interesting to me about you as the writer is of course everybody will seize upon the fact that youre family and you know this man. Yes, thats interesting to me. But more interesting to me is that you are family, you know this man and you are a clinician. I get suggestions all the time from people in the therapeutic community, theyre psychologists, theyre really well pedigreed people, i never have them come on the show and talk about the president because they dont know him, they dont have access to people around him. Theyre purely speculating. Youre different. Youre a clinician who actually knows the person were talking about. When you look at him through that lens of psychology and how you would frame this individual, what would that diagnosis be . What would that insight be . How would you describe him in psychological terms . You know, i dont directly diagnose him in the book because, as i said earlier, there is a point at which its irrelevant. You know, we need to deal with the problems that are being caused by his behaviors. Yes, except one thing, mary. I agree with you, youre making a larger, more virtuous point than i am, but im thinking politics and youre thinking humanity. In politics, understanding a person is fundamental to a voter. They will go over to feel over fact nine times out of ten. I just like marys face better than cuomos, i just like the sound of her voice. She just seems smarter than he does. Doesnt matter all those things happen to be true, but even if they werent true, in politics it matters. Right. The president benefits greatly from traits of his being ascribed as strengths when to me they scream out as weaknesses. You no who he is at his core when there is no camera around and the people who have been around him in his formative stages. Give some context to me about what that means to you as a clinician. The simplest way i could put it, which may be one of the more effective ways to put it is that donald is a psychologically deeply damaged man based on his upbringing and the situation with his parents. He is not going to get better, and he is without question going to get worse. Why is he going to get worse . Hes already in his 70s. Isnt he kind of fully cooked . Well, it depends on what you mean. In terms of his character, yes. His habits, yes, because i dont think hes interested in changing them but, no. I mean, illnesses untreated deteriorate over time. So not just damage, you think hes got sickness . Yeah, i do. And i think, you know, a lot of people have diagnosed him and, you know, without knowing him personally but, you know, there is plenty of evidence to support some of those diagnoses, and hes untreated, hes not interested in being treated, he has no insight, he has no psychological awareness of his situation and, again, one of the most devastating things is that people who claim to care for him arent helping him. If they truly cared for him, the last place in the world they would want him to be is the oval office. And yet they do nothing. The clinicians always use the term narcissist, but cant that apply to just about anybody and anything . Why do you think that attaches to him . Well, theres the colloquial sense in which we mean narcissism, which means full of one se on ones self. He is a politician. Theyre rarely about everybody else all the time. Yes, but he didnt just become this way, whenever he started being a politician, im not sure because hes run for president many times. But hes been this way since he was a teenager at least. So its not as if there is new evidence to support the diagnosis. But again, i think that when youre looking at somebodys pathologies, its not just how they come across, its also how it affects them and their daytoday functioning. So although, again, thats also hard to suss out because hes, as i say in the book, institutionalized to some degree. Hes protected by the fact that he doesnt really need to live in or support himself in the real world. And how does that change the analysis stream . It just makes it very difficult to see how his functioning is affected because the context in which hes functioning is so small. You know, he doesnt have to negotiate the real world like the rest of us do. And, quite honestly, he never really has had to. Hes gone from my grandparents house to my grand fathers business to the Trump Organization to the oval office and those have all been fairly contained, controlled environments, in which his needs have been entirely taken care of by other people. Its just tremendous insight into a family and we are how were raised, right . Were seeing that in realtime now. What concerns mary trump most about her uncle less than four months out from election day. The conversation continues. Youre going to want to hear it next. Its an easy way to earn cash back on the stuff im already buying. Sometimes its 3 sometimes its 8 but youre always getting cash back. So its like getting free money. Go to rakuten. Com and sign up today for a 10 bonus. Whove got their eczema under control. With less eczema, you can show more skin. So roll up those sleeves. And help heal your skin from within with dupixent. 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That he be allowed to continue unfettered throughout this extraordinary confluence of crises were facing at the moment and that do not seem at all to be improving and, in fact, every day seem to be getting worse. Its very, very concerning and i truly hope that the American People see it that way and, you know, make the right choice when were able to make that choice in november. Is it hard for you to say this about your uncle . Its not something i lets put it this way, i wish i didnt have to, but somebodys got to say it and i believe that im the only person in my family who is willing to, and im one of the few people who has the insight in order to be able to. How do they feel about what you did . I dont know. I havent spoken to anybody. I can only speculate based on donalds statement. I would guess theyre not happy about it, but well, there was the lawsuit to try to stop the book. Yeah. That was brought by your other uncle, not by the president. Right. Do you believe the president was aware of the legal effort and in favor of it . Oh, i believe he was the driving force behind it. They just had somebody else carry the ball. Yes. And thats exactly what happened 20 years ago. Now thats important. Its not fair for you to say theyre not talking to you because theyre mad because you just pissed off the whole family by writing the book. You had already had a major break with the family 20 years ago. Right. When you say because youre the only one who would do it, is that because you share an opinion about donald trump that the rest of the family doesnt . I think most importantly its because im not afraid of him, and i dont feel loyalty in a way they may. Because i believe that loyalty is a twoway street and i dont see the benefit in pledging loyalty to somebody who would never pledge a loyalty to me. So, you know, im unhindered by either of those considerations but much more importantly, you know, thats not enough of a reason to be doing this. It simply means that im free to. The reason to do it is because of the incredible seemingly out of control crisis were in the midst of. Why didnt you do it when he was running . I thought about it. I thought about it long and hard, but there were three crucial reasons. One is there was absolutely no reason for me to think it would make a difference. Theres a concept called learned helplessness, and it runs very deep in my family when you just sort of feel trapped by circumstances and no sense of empowerment at all or sense that anything you do would matter. So there was that. So what changed about that . Well, most importantly what changed is that thanks to suzanne craig, without whom none of this would have happened and russ butner, i finally had something concrete. Before the election it would have been my opinion, my assessment, my complaining, my being bitter, wanting revenge, what have you. After the New York Times article, like i had solid proof that there was something concretely wrong with his behavior and things he had done. And that made an extraordinary difference in not my willingness certainly but my ability to feel like i could make a difference. What does it mean to you that there is a good chance that his base will disregard the book completely . I know its selling like crazy, but there are plenty of people in this country who have an appetite, an insatiable appetite to are negative things about the president , but his base will likely dismiss it. What does that tell you about the power that your uncle does have over people . You know, i think that that base exists regardless of whos in the white house, and i never thought for a second that i could sway any of those peoples opinions. I mean, after everything this countrys gone through if, you know, charlottesville didnt change their minds, if kids being kidnapped from their parents and caged on the border didnt change their minds, i mean, the list is endless and could go on. And now we look at the fact that tens of thousands of people are dying because theres no federal leadership and people arent being asked to do the most simple thing to save their lives and the lives of other americans. Theres absolutely nothing i could say that would change their minds. The idea that when the stuff happened at the border not the wall stuff fan that was an obvious and easy political play for your uncle. The kids in the cages, he said he didnt like it. He said it would stop and then we wound up reporting out information that they were doing just the opposite. And that messed with my theory that he knows better and that there is a human being in there, which means there is somebody in there who has compassion, it just selective to his own interests. But then i read your book and you say, no, no, no, i remember the guy dropping the n word in my house, this is a guy whos had bigoted feelings. I had given him the benefit of the doubt that he was a demagogue but not a bigot. You say no, youve heard him use language and express ideas that are bigoted period. Oh, yeah. To me thats one of the least surprising things here. You know, to be frank about it, whats worse . He is endangering through his rhetoric and through his actions the lives of africanamericans in this country every day. And you think he does so with animus, that he has a problem with black people . Yes. Also, he thinks it will work with his base. Its operating on both levels. But you believe its in his heart as well. Its not just in his head as i need these people to vote for me, let me just say what i want them to say. Yes, it not jus not just a thats true. How did that go over in the family, that kind of talk. Was that just a vibe in the trump household . Yeah, you grew up in queens. You know there were some neighborhoods, jamaica states being one of them, it was like 100 white and probably until the 60s 100 christian. There was no tolerance for difference. When the first Italian American family moved into the neighborhood, it was a scandal and my grandfather was horrified by it. So, yeah, it was the atmosphere in which we grew up. Thats why we were all over in holliswood, across 188th street. Thats why im extremely grateful i grew up in jamaica, which was a world away from jamaica states. So youre not surprised he has taken these, whether it charlottesville, thats not just political opportunism, youre saying the guys a racist, he has a problem with them. Yeah. The only thing thats shocking is so many people dont think thats a line they can cross. It so disturbing. There were stories about him when we were investigating him years ago about his net worth that he had the same kinds of prejudices with jewish people as well, that thats how had to count his money and notions like that that we had largely dismissed because we felt like that cant be true. Youre saying, no, theres a character flaw in there. Im saying that it was perfectly acceptable in my family, starting with my grandfa