Mary L. Trump | |
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 Trump in 2021 | |
| Born | Mary Lea Trump (1965-05-03)May 3, 1965 (age 59) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Tufts University (BA) Columbia University (MA) Adelphi University (PhD) |
| Occupations |
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| Political party | Democratic[1] |
| Children | 1 |
| Parent(s) | Fred Trump Jr. Linda Clapp |
| Relatives | Trump family |
YouTube information | |
| Channel | |
| Years active | 2024–present |
| Subscribers | 214,000[2] |
| Views | 19 million[2] |
Mary Lea Trump (born May 3, 1965)[3] is an American psychologist and writer. A member of theTrump family, she has been critical of her uncle, U.S. PresidentDonald Trump. Her 2020 book about him and the family,Too Much and Never Enough, sold nearly one million copies on the day of its release. Two further books followed,The Reckoning (2021) andWho Could Ever Love You (2024).
In September 2020, Mary Trump sued her uncle Donald, auntMaryanne, and the estate of her late uncleRobert, claiming that theydefrauded her of tens of millions of dollars from her interests in her grandfatherFred Trump's real-estate portfolio. The lawsuit was dismissed in November 2022. Donald Trump sued Mary for at least $100 million in September 2021 for providingThe New York Times with financial documents which it used as a source for a 2018 exposé abouthis wealth and the family's finances.
Mary Trump was born in May 1965 toflight attendant Linda Lea Clapp andFred Trump Jr., eldest son of real-estate developerFred Trump (Donald Trump's father). Mary's older brother isFred Trump III.[4][5]When Mary was 16, her father died at 42 of aheart attack caused byalcoholism.[6]
Mary Trump graduated from theEthel Walker School in 1983. She studiedEnglish literature atTufts University, earned amaster's degree in English literature atColumbia University, for which she studied the works ofWilliam Faulkner and his dysfunctional fictionalCompson family,[7][8][9] and holds aPhD inclinical psychology from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies[10] atAdelphi University.[5][11][12]
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Fred Trump Sr.'s will left the bulk of his estate, in equal shares, to his surviving children,[13][14] while each of his grandchildren was left $200,000.[15] In 1981, when Mary's father predeceased him, Fred Sr.'s lawyers had recommended amending his will, to leave Fred Trump Jr.'s children larger shares than the grandchildren with living parents, writing that "Given the size of your estate, this is tantamount to disinheriting them. You may wish to increase their participation in your estate to avoid ill will in the future." However, Fred Trump Sr. refused to do so.[13]
Fred Sr. was diagnosed with "mild seniledementia" in 1991[16] and about two years later began to suffer fromAlzheimer's disease.[17] Donald Trump, at the time facing financial ruin, sought control of his elderly father's estate, leading to a family fight whichThe Washington Post described as "epic".[16] When Fred Trump Sr. died in 1999, Mary Trump and her brother,Fred Trump III, contested their grandfather's will.[7][13][18]
Shortly after Fred Sr.'s death, Fred III's wife gave birth to a son named William, who hasepileptic spasms, a rare and debilitating medical condition requiring a lifetime of care.[13] Fred Sr. had established a foundation that paid the medical expenses of his family. Mary Trump and her brother filed suit against Donald Trump and two of his three living siblings,Maryanne Trump Barry andRobert Trump, for exerting undue influence on the elderly Fred Sr.'s will.[19] In response, Donald, Maryanne and Robert cut Mary and Fred III's medical insurance off , including coverage for William.[13] The lawsuit wassettled in 2001, with Mary and Fred III selling their interests in the family business (which included ground leases for two of Fred Sr.'s major properties).[19]
Mary Trump provided financial records, including someTrump family tax returns, toThe New York Times for its 2018 exposé on Fred and Donald Trump's finances, which alleges that Fred and the siblings of Fred Jr. – especially Donald – "participated in dubious tax schemes ... including instances of outright fraud", effectivelyavoiding over $500 million ingift taxes.[20][21]
Mary Trump sued her uncle Donald, aunt Maryanne, and the estate of her late uncle Robert in September 2020, claiming that they defrauded her of tens of millions of dollars from her interests in Fred Sr.'s real-estate portfolio by undervaluing her interests and coercing her to sign a settlement.[22][23][19] The defendants' lawyers asked for dismissal of the lawsuit, claiming that she had waited too long to file suit.[24] Trump's lawyers responded that"[r]easonable diligence would not have uncovered the fraud" more than a decade earlier.[25] In a January 2022 hearing, lawyers for Donald Trump, Maryanne Trump Barry, and the estate of Robert Trump asked for Mary Trump's lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that she had waited too long to file her lawsuit because she had had access to the relevant documents since 2001 and that asix-yearstatute of limitations imposed by the 2001 settlement had expired.[26][27] The lawsuit was dismissed in November 2022 on the basis that Trump's 2001 settlement agreement had "unambiguously released defendants from unknown claims, including fraud claims".[28] She made an appeal request, which was denied on June 22, 2023.[29]
In September 2021, Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against his niece andThe New York Times (namely the authors of the 2018 exposé)[30] for over $100 million.[20] The suit accuses Mary Trump and the threeNew York Times journalists of utilizing confidential documents in an "insidious" conspiracy against Donald. Mary called the suit an act of "desperation".[31][32] In a January 2023 hearing, a lawyer for theTimes argued that the truthfulness of the exposé outweighed other considerations. Donald's lawyerAlina Habba singled out Mary's use of aburner phone to communicate with theTimes, the counsel for which argued was merely toprotect its source.[30] ANew York Supreme Court justice dismissed theTimes from the suit on May 3, 2023, and ordered Donald to pay its legal fees (which neared $400,000) on the basis that his assertions lacked constitutional merit and that, owing to theFirst Amendment, "reporters are entitled to engage in legal and ordinary news gathering activities without fear oftort liability".[33][34] A ruling the next month allowed Donald to pursue his claim against Mary who appealed the ruling. The appeals court ruled in May to let the case proceed, stating that there was "a substantial basis in law" for breach of contract but that the duration of the confidentiality agreement needed to be determined and that Donald had to prove whether the disclosure had caused him any damages.[35]
Mary Trump worked for one year at theManhattan Psychiatric Center while working on her PhD research.[10] She is a contributor to the bookDiagnosis: Schizophrenia, published byColumbia University Press in 2001.[36] Trump has taught graduate courses in developmental psychology, trauma, andpsychopathology.[9] She is the founder and CEO of The Trump Coaching Group, alife-coaching company, and has also owned and operated a number of small businesses in theNortheast.[1]
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Mary Trump's first book,Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, is anunauthorized biography of Donald Trump published on July 14, 2020, bySimon & Schuster. According to Mary Trump's note at the beginning of it, all accounts in the book come either from her own memory or from recorded conversations with family, friends, and others. Other sources are legal, financial and family documents, email correspondence, and theNew York Times investigative article byDavid Barstow,Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner.[9] The book details how Mary Trump was the anonymous source who providedThe New York Times with Trump family tax returns. TheNew York Times report won the2019 Pulitzer Prize.[37]
Upon the announcement ofToo Much and Never Enough in June 2020, Mary's uncle Robert Trump attempted to block its release, stating that she signed anon-disclosure agreement as part of the 2001 lawsuit settlement.[38][7][13] The filing of a temporaryrestraining order against Mary Trump was dismissed by a New York court for a lack ofjurisdiction, and the book was published on July 14, 2020.[39][40]
The book surpassed one million copies on its first day of sales.[41][42] It went Number 1 in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland, and No. 2 in Australia.[41]
Trump's second book,The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal, was published bySt. Martin's Press on August 17, 2021.[43] Drawing fromAmerican history, Trump posits that the country has suffered trauma from its inception because of its inclusion of systemicracism and its failure to address the existence ofwhite supremacy, especially byRepublicans in recent decades.[44]
Trump's third book,Who Could Ever Love You (2024), is a memoir of her experiences related to her father's contempt in the eyes of Fred Sr. and resultant downfall.[45][46]
Trump has a podcast, titledThe Mary Trump Show, on which she discusses politics and other matters. On February 1, 2022, she announced that she would be removing her show fromSpotify to protest allegedCOVID-19 misinformation being spread onThe Joe Rogan Experience,[47] which was exclusively distributed on Spotify.
Mary Trump supportedHillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.[1]
In 2018, David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner ofThe New York Times published "an exhaustive 18-month investigation of Donald Trump's finances that debunked his statements ofself-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges", for which they were awarded the 2019Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.[21][48] Trump has stated that she was a key source of information for that study,[15] having come into possession of Donald Trump's tax documents during thediscovery process in the dispute over her grandfather's estate.[49]
On July 15, 2020, Mary Trump said in anABC News interview conducted byGeorge Stephanopoulos that Donald Trump should resign as president, as he was "utterly incapable of leading this country, and it's dangerous to allow him to do so".[50] In an interview later that month onThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Mary Trump stated that Donald Trump exhibitedsociopathic tendencies but not at a high-functioning level like his father. She said the president was institutionally insulated from responsibilities throughout his childhood and was never held accountable for his actions.[51]
After the2021 U.S. Capitol attack, Mary Trump said her uncle should be "barred from ever running for public office again."[52]
Mary Trump is openly lesbian. InToo Much and Never Enough, she makes a brief reference to the fact and states that "Nobody in the family knew; they'd always been spectacularly uninterested in my personal life ... and never asked about my boyfriends or relationships." She wrote that her grandmother,Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, once referred toElton John as a "faggot",[53] and consequently, Mary Trump decided not tocome out and tell her grandmother or other immediate family that she was going to marry a woman, with whom she would later raise a daughter.[54][55] She has since divorced, and lives onLong Island, New York, with her daughter, who was conceived byin-vitro fertilization via asperm donor.[9][56]
Both lawsuits were filed by Fred Trump III and Mary Trump, the children of Donald's late brother, Fred Jr. They offer a rare window into one of New York's most prominent families, a world where alliances and rivalries are magnified by power, money and the tough-nosed tactics of Donald Trump. "When [Fred 3rd] sued us, we said, 'Why should we give him medical coverage?'"
The Daily Beast alleges that within days of the news breaking about the book on Sunday, the President had begun considering legal action against his niece. The news outlet states that 'two people familiar with the situation' attested that Donald Trump has 'told people close to him that he's getting his lawyers to look into the Mary Trump matter'.
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