But, no, there was just the one, a gold lame shoe with a fourinch heel filled with hard candy. Both the individual candies and the shoe itself were wrapped in cellophane. Where had this thing come from, i wondered. Had it been a door prize or a party favor from a luncheon . Donald came through the panty from the kitchen. As he passed me, he asked, whats that . I said, its a present from you. Really, he said . He looked at it for a second. Ivana, he shouted into the foyier. She was standing on the other side of the Christmas Tree near the living room. Ivana what is it, donald . This is great. He pointed at the shoe, and she smiled. Maybe he thought it was real gold. It had all started in 1977 with a threepack of bloommys underwear, meaning bloomingdales underwear, retail 12. My very first Christmas Present from donald and his new wife, ivana. That same year, they had given my brother fritz a leatherbound journal. It looked as though it were meant for somebody older b you it was really nice. I felt a bit slighted until we realized that the journal was two years out of date. Well, at least the underwear they gave me wouldnt expire. The president has been trying like mad to make this book not appear in print, but here it is. A bunch of other journalists, including me, got an advance copy today. I read the whole thing cover to cover, including the prologue, the epilogue, and the acknowledgements. The book is called too much and never enough how my family created the worlds most dangerous man. And its a family story. I mean the president is one of five siblings. There were three boys and two girls in his family. His two older sisters are elizabeth and mary ann, more on mary ann in a second. The president also has a younger brother, whose name is robert. You might have seen robert in the news recently because it was in roberts name that basically the president has tried to stop this book from being published, by using his antifirst amendment lawyer to bring a lawsuit against this books publisher. Well have more on that in a minute as well. But the president also, once upon a time, had an older brother as well, an older brother named fred, who died years ago at the age of 42 after years of alcoholism. Well, freds daughter, mary, who is now 55 years old, she has a ph. D. In clinical psychology. Her name is mary trump, and she is the author of this book, which comes out next week. I can tell you tonight some of whats in it because i am not embargoed from telling you some of what i have just read here. So im going to tell you some of what ive just read here. Honestly a lot of it is a family portrait like the story about the random gold lame shoe. Whats that . Its my present from you. You know, family portraits can be either just weird or maybe interesting depending on your level of interest in that particular family. But when the Family Member in question here is now the president of the United States, who is currently at the helm of, i think what is inarguably the most disastrous presidency in modern american history, a family portrait of him and how he became who he is and who he has long been, it can send a chill down your spine even when its also sometimes funny. For example, given the president s current somewhat terrifying relationship with the u. S. Military, which recently includes him ordering what he called heavily armed u. S. Troops into u. S. Streets to deploy against u. S. Civilians and, you know, him requesting military parades in his own honor, given the unnerving nature of his relationship with the u. S. Military, it is additionally unnerving to read the family story version of him and the military and how that touches perhaps on these current concerns. On page 169 of mary trumps new book, it is a little bit unnerving to read about how the president threatened to disown his own son if his son joined the military. Quote, when my brother fritz and i pointed out that all our cousins would still benefit from the will, our uncle rob told us, quote, any of them could be disowned at any time. Donny, meaning donald trump jr. , was going to join the army or some bs like that and donald and ivana told him if he did, theyd disown him in a second. The president threatening to disown his son if he joined the military. Casts a shadow, looms a little bit over what we understand about his bizarre relationship with the military and his perception of their role in his administration, i guess is the nice way to put it, now that hes president. Then theres the family lore and the lived experience of the author when it comes to our president s feelings about women and the way he talks about women and what he thinks is important about women. And this is, i guess, in keeping with a lot of other things that we have learned about him over the time. But, still, its additionally unnerving. This is from page 150 of the book. Quote, the next day, i spent the morning exploring the property. There were no other guests, so the entire place felt empty and strangely quiet. I took a quick swim before lunch which was scheduled for 1 00 p. M. As formal as maralago was in some ways, it was also much more casual than our usual Family Gathering places. So i felt comfortable wearing a bathing suit and a pair of shorts to lunch, which was being served on the patio. Donald, who was wearing golf clothes, looked up at me as i approached, as if hed never really seen me before. Holy bleep, mary. Youre stacked. She was his niece. He had known her since birth. Holy bleep, mary. Youre stacked. The reason that mary trump was at maralago for that barfy little seen in the book is because the president by that point has asked his niece, had asked mary trump to ghostwrite one of his books for him, one that was to be called the art of the comeback. And mary trump details in chapter 9 of the book the difficulty she had in trying to prep material for writing that book because even though she describes being set up with an Office Inside trump tower and getting basically full access to the operations of the trump organization, even though she was even invited to listen in on speakerphone to lots of mr. Trumps phone calls that he was on all day, she says she could never actually figure out what he did in terms of work. He didnt really seem to do any work, so she couldnt figure out exactly what she was going to write about him. What she thought was going to be her saving grace for ghostwriting this book came when her unk the, donald trump, volunteered to her he had started writing something for the book himself, and she could use it. She says he was very excited about it. Quote, one night as i sat at home trying to figure out how to piece together something vaguely interesting out of the uninteresting documents id been poring over, donald called. He said, when you come into the office tomorrow, rhonas going to have some pages for you. Ive been working on material for the book. Its really good. He sounded excited. Finally i might have something to work with, some idea about how to organize this thing. I still didnt know what he thought about his comeback or how he ran his business or even when role he played in the deals he was currently developing. But the next day, rhona handed me a manila envelope containing about ten typewritten pages as promised. I took it to my desk and began to read. When i finished, i wasnt sure what to think. It was clearly a transcript of a recording donald had made, which explained its stream of consciousness quality. What it was was an aggrieved compendium of women he had expected to date but who, having refused him, were suddenly the worst, ugliest and fattest slobs hed ever met. The biggest takeaways were that madonna, the pop star, chewed gum in a way donald found unattractive, and that katarina wit, a german floik figure skater, who had won two gold medals and four world championships, she had big calves. Mary trump concludes that chapter by saying, quote, i stopped asking him for an interview. This theme about how how the president talks and thinks about women extends in weird fashion even to other members of his immediate family. At the very beginning of the book, were treated to a scene where the author, mary trump, the president s niece, is among a number of trump Family Members who are invited to the white house for a family dinner in the spring of 2017, just a couple of months after the president was first inaugurated. At that dinner at the white house, the president , surrounded by his surviving siblings and his nieces and nephews and his own children and their spouses, the president , according to mary trump, says this. Quote, then, diet coke glass in hand, donald made some perfunctory remarks about my aunts birthdays, after which he turned to his daughterinlaw. Lara, he said, i barely knew who the f she was, but then she gave a great speech during the campaign in georgia supporting me. By then, mary notes, the president s son and lara had been together for almost eight years. Who the heck is that . My daughterinlaw . I didnt even know who the f she was honestly. In mary trumps telling, he does not say f. He says the f word. I didnt know who the f she was honestly. He says this honestly in front of the whole family, in front of his son to whom this young woman is married, and he says it in front of her. He said he didnt know who the f she was until she gave this seem about him, and then he noticed her. Theres also a bizarre scene in which the author, the president s niece, mary trump, is introduced for the first time to the president s third wife, the current first lady, melania trump. And the way in which that scene is bizarre is because in mary trumps telling, the president lies about his niece. He tells a big, weird lie about mary trump right in front of mary trump, right in front of her. He lies about her while introducing her to his new wife. He tells mrs. Trump, melania, that his niece, mary, had a terrible drug problem that she has bounced back from. And mary says she said in the moment, whoa. No, no, no. Ive never done drugs in my whole life. But he continues, and he continues to insist that she had a terrible drug problem that she bounced back from. And he continues to insist this in front of her. She says, quote, he slid me a look and smiled. He was embellishing the story for effect, and he knew that i knew it. A fairly close member of the president s family has just written this book that in part is about its like if theres sort of a theme in the book, its definitely a psychological analysis of the president and his father and how he became the type of person that he is. But the sort of plot point that you keep coming back to in like every anecdote about him, both with the family and in dealing with the public and in business, is just about how easily he lies and that he will do so for any effect. And in this part of her familys history, shes suggesting that he does it basically for pleasure, that its one of the ways he enjoys himself is to tell lies even in front of the people about whom those lies are being told and continuing to do it even though at least one of the people present while hes telling the lie knows hes doing so. He likes it. Its unnerving, right . Its unnerving, you know, in a pandemic when thats the president. Did you see today that he started hyping hydroxychloroquine again from the white house as a coronavirus miracle cure . Does that give him pleasure . Mary trump says again, he slid me a look and smiled, knowing that he was lying and knowing that i knew it. Since the book started sneaking out from under wraps today, if you have heard one thing about it, you may have heard the allegation that mary trump makes that the president paid somebody to take his s. A. T. Test to get him into college. Heres how that is spelled out in the book. Quote, since september 1964, donald had been living at his parents house and commuting 30 minutes to Fordham University in the bronx. His attendance at which he would avoid mentioning in the years to come. Donald was determined to secure a degree commensurate with his new ambitions at his Fathers Company even if it only secured him bragging rights. Aware of the reputation of the Wharton School of business at the university of pennsylvania, donald set his sights on upenn. Unfortunately, even though his older sister mary ann had been doing his homework for him at fordham, she couldnt take his tests and donald worried that his grade point average, which put him far from the top of his class, would scuttle his efforts to get accepted at penn. To hedge his bets, he enlisted joe shapiro to take his s. A. T. S for him. That was much easier to pull off in the days before photo i. D. S and computerized records. Donald, who never lacked for funds, paid his buddy well. Now, it should be noted that the white house is vehemently denying that the president paid somebody to take his s. A. T. S. It should also be noted that the president has gone to Great Lengths to make sure that his transcripts and all of the records from his schooling have been all kept secret from high school and college and all the rest of it. So even the ambient details here are hard to check. But as for his sister maryanne, who mary trump says did his homework for him when he was in college, mary trump also alleges that donald trump pulled political strings to get his older sister maryanne appointed as a federal judge. She recounts how donald trump had his personal lawyer at the time, roy cohn, call and lobby reagan attorney general ed meese, that his older sister should be nominated to the federal bench. And she of course was. She got a federal seat and became a fairly respected Appellate Court judge in the federal judiciary. But that brings us to some of the most interesting stuff here of all, and honestly on to something that were waiting on right now from the u. S. Supreme court in a decision that could come as soon as tomorrow. It has always struck me as one of the great overlooked, jawdroppers of the scandalridden trump era that just one of the things thats happened since hes been in office is that his older sister, federal judge maryanne trump barry, really did have to give up her lifetime seat on the federal bench in order to avoid a judicial ethics inquiry into a massive, multimillion dollar alleged, yearslong tax fraud scheme that she reportedly engaged in with her family, including with her brother, who is the sitting president. I mean we dont even think of that as one of the trump scandals, but like thats bigger than any other president ial scandal of my lifetime. Its one of the forgotten scandals of this presidency. I mean, you know, there was billy carter, right . There was roger clinton. There was what was the neil bush, right . I mean there are president ial sibling embarrassments. But since when has a president ial sibling had to resign from the judiciary to avoid scrutiny of the things she did with the president with taxes and their family money . This from page 193 of the book. Quote, this is mary trump speaking in her own voice. Quote, i met with maryanne, her aunt, the president s older sister. I met with maryanne again shortly after the article ran. She denied all of it. She was just a girl after all, she said. When a piece of paper requiring her signature had been put in front of her, shed signed it no questions asked. She said, this article goes back 60 years. You know thats before i was a judge. She said this as if the investigation had also ended 60 years before. She seemed unconcerned that there would be any repercussions. Although a Court Inquiry had been opened into her alleged conduct, all she had to do was put an end to that was retire as a judge, which she did, thereby retaining her 200,000 a year judicial pension. Well, the article in question, mary trump says i met with her again shortly after the article ran. The article in question, the one that caused the president s sister to resign her lifetime appointment as a judge because that was the only way she could preclude the judiciary from running an inquiry into what she allegedly did the article in question was of course the Pulitzer Prizewinning gigantic investigation into the president s financial past that the New York Times published in october 2018. That is where we learned from the times reporting and from a ton of documents they exclusively obtained thats where we learned that the president had received hundreds of millions of dollars from his father, not the 1 million loan that he had long publicly claimed was his sole inheritance from his father. Thats where we learned about the president and his family running this reported scheme by which they systematically undervalued their assets to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars basically to cheat on paying taxes. Thats where we learned that the president and his family created a went so far as to create a fake company to siphon money out of their Fathers Company without having to pay taxes on it. The scheme worked by marking up building and Construction Costs but then President Trump and his siblings reportedly just pocketed the difference without ever paying any tax on that money. That reporting from the New York Times is also in part how mary trump, the author of this new book, learned that the settlement she and her brother agreed to concerning trumps fathers estate thats how she learned that the settlement that she and her brother agreed to with regard to that estate undervalued that estate by hundreds of millions of dollars, thereby she says cheating her and her brother out of millions of dollars of their share of it. She also says that fraud, that deliberate undervaluing of the fathers estate, is itself a fraud. That means she doesnt have to abide by the confidentiality agreement she signed as part of that settlement. That confidentiality agreement is part of how they are trying to stop her from publishing this book. Shes saying, yeah, i signed it, but i signed it as part of a deal that was a fraud because weve learned from the New York Times and other reporting, thanks to documents that i gave them, that the estate that was being settled by me signing that piece of paper was being drastically misrepresented as a way of cheating me. So am i going to abide by the confidentiality agreement . No, im not. Im publishing my book. And whether a restraining order pursuant to that confidentiality agreement still applies to her is still being litigated. But the book itself now is in journalists hands. And, you know, family lore, family legend, family grudges, family fights about money, you know, take it for what it is. But the reporting on this particular familys fortune and the reporting on the family tax schemes, and the reporting on whether or not the presid