Weeks ago, we talked about how Donald Trump’s niece Mary Trump had written some kind of tell-all memoir about the Trump family. I didn’t do any follow-ups on all the shenanigans around it – the Trump lawyers went to court to try to censor and disrupt Dr. Mary Trump’s book publication, but the book is still coming out in a week. The book is called: Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. Mary Trump is a clinical psychologist and she comes at her family through that lens, the lens of a mental health professional assessing her monstrous, narcissistic, sociopathic relatives. Several outlets have highlights and excerpts from the book, so let’s get going! (From here, I will refer to Donald Trump as “Trump” and Mary Trump as Mary.)
Trump sees “cheating as a way of life.” As a high school student in Queens, Ms. Trump writes, Donald Trump paid someone to take a precollegiate test, the SAT, on his behalf. The high score the proxy earned for him, Ms. Trump adds, helped the young Mr. Trump to later gain admittance when he transferred as an undergraduate to the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton business school. Mr. Trump has often boasted about attending Wharton, which he has referred to as “the best school in the world” and “super genius stuff.”
Trump’s sister Maryanne thinks her brother is unprincipled: Even at the start of Mr. Trump’s campaign, his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal appeals court judge, had deep reservations about his fitness for office, Ms. Trump writes. “He’s a clown — this will never happen,” she quotes her aunt as saying during one of their regular lunches in 2015, just after Mr. Trump announced that he was running for president. Maryanne Trump was particularly baffled by support for her brother among evangelical Christians, according to the book. “The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there,” Ms. Trump quotes her aunt as saying. “It’s mind boggling. But that’s all about his base. He has no principles. None!”
Trump is a textbook narcissist: Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, asserts that her uncle has all nine clinical criteria for being a narcissist. And yet, she notes, even that label does not capture the full array of the president’s psychological troubles. “The fact is,” she writes, “Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neurophysical tests that he’ll never sit for.”
Trump’s fragile ego: Like other critics of the president, Ms. Trump takes issue in the book with the notion that Mr. Trump is a strategic thinker who operates according to specific agendas or organizing principles. “He doesn’t,” she writes. “Donald’s ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father’s money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself.”
He’s a sociopath: Donald escaped his father’s contempt, Mary Trump writes, because “his personality served his father’s purpose. That’s what sociopaths do: they co-opt others and use them toward their own ends — ruthlessly and efficiently, with no tolerance for dissent or resistance.”
[From The NY Times & WaPo]
The Washington Post’s coverage is more heavily involved with the family saga of how Fred Trump Sr. turned his children against each other and how Donald Trump did whatever it took to please daddy dearest and all of that. I’m not *as* interested in the family drama, honestly. I’m sure Fred Sr. was a white supremacist monster who terrorized his kids. But I’m also sure that Donald Trump could have chosen to be a better person at any point in his life, but instead he’s a racist, a cheater, a rapist, a misogynist and a traitor. Talking about him in psychological terms humanizes him and makes it seem like he is perhaps unaware of just how disgusting and depraved he is. He knows. He doesn’t care.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
*Clutches pearls* I’m shocked! ….said no-one, ever.
I don’t know how anyone can NOT see what psychological mess he is. It seemed so obvious, and yet…
Then again, Hitler was a psychological mess, too, and people followed him.
Thank you @ Lauren, for the Hitler comparison; you’re absolutely correct/spot on! All in all, this FRAUDULENT MOFO needs to leave!
I heard that when Donald and Melania Trump went to Saudi Arabia and Melania saw how the women were being treated she applied for asylum.
I shouldn’t have laughed at that but I did
Me too! 🙂
I love how his sister talks. She knows, she was there. He may fool other people but she knew him as a kid and sees the real him.
Wasn’t this same sister the judge who was forced to resign or have charges brought against her fraud and tax evasions?
ETA: Yup… looked it up: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/maryanne-trump-barry-misconduct-inquiry.html
“The New York Times found that the Trumps had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings. Judge Barry not only benefited financially from most of those tax schemes, The Times found; she was also in a position to influence the actions taken by her family.”
But she also doesn’t give a damn about it and didn’t try to stop it. She’s surprised it worked even yes, he’s unprincipled.
She didn’t mind when here niece and nephew didn’t inherit their fair share of Fred Sr’s wealth, she didn’t care that they and their family would be taken off the health insurance even if Fred III’s son has cerebral palsy and needs a lot of medical care, she was involved in sketchy financial transactions at some point too: she’s about as bad as her brother but doesn’t crave the spotlight
Wow, Kaiser you should write a book with all of our comments. Same thing.
His supporters won’t care and will say it’s “fake news.” Non supporters already know all this from the countless lies he tells and the numerous reports of his cheating and scamming history. This will change nothing.
Yeah, pick and choose:
That’s not what he meant.
Fake news.
Deep state.
Democrat hoax.
Pizzagate (I do have suspicions on elite group of pedophiles but Pizzagate is ridiculous).
It was a joke.
Left wing media twisted his words.
All of the above.
Me thinks if Trump says outright he is pro-choice and recognises Palestine statehood, then he might lose some of his support.
I think even if an ex-wife or mistress comes out and says Trump held a gun to her head and forced her to get an abortion, his base would not care. All they care about is getting anti-choice judges on the courts.
@AB because it’s not about embryos or fetuses for them, or ensuring maternal health. It’s about continuing to keep men in charge of women’s bodies and lives, so if Donald did that, they’d be just fine with that.
Trump is already calling it fake news.
I hope voters in November will be more aware of what a horrible fraud DJT is. Absolutely no one is shocked by Mary’s revelations (are they even revelations anymore?).
I find it interesting that there’s very little mention of the role his mother played in the family dynamic. As a mother, wouldn’t she have had some positive influence on her child or was Fred Snr basically terrorizing the whole family including her?
Another source I read said she had a hysterectomy at some point and after that was emotionally distant from her children. Too bad she didn’t have that hysterectomy in early 1945.
BTW, my mother had a hysterectomy when I was 14 and my sisters were 9, 7, and 5. It didn’t affect her relationship with us at all. She was a wonderful person.
I read elsewhere that she portrays his mother as mostly detached.
He was not a pleasant child, from many reports. He was shipped off to military school, but apparently no nanny or teacher ever got through to him.
No accountability for three-fourths of a century…
I’ve read elsewhere he was a violent child, not only to his siblings but towards his parents and that they sent him to military school as a last resort as they could not control him. I read one story that he threw stones at a baby and tried to throw a classmate out of the window at military school.
He clearly showed signs of being a psychopath as a child.
As for his mother, she was the typical Trump trophy wife – only interested in the money and status. She is rumoured to have been cold and detached from her children and their upbringing.
Why should we assume that mothers’ influences are positives? I’d expect that anyone who’d marry Fred Trump would be as terrible as he was
I haven’t read the book yet, but Donald’s mother was a domestic servant from a very poor large family in Scotland (she didn’t learn English until she started school). The public history is murky, but her address was Fred Trump’s address before they were married so I wonder if she worked for the Trumps.
It’s quite possible that Fred Trump got her pregnant (consensually or otherwise) and his parents forced him to marry her. They didn’t seem all that fond of each other. I also think she was sick when Donald was very young, which might have caused problems. But his defects may have been congenital.
The family story was that his mother met his father while “vacationing” in the US…. The immigration records are clear. She arrived just after turning 18, intending to stay with her sisters who had immigrated before her until she found work as a domestic servant.
The former toddler in the playpen that Donald threw rocks at has confirmed the story, and also said parents in the neighborhood warned younger children to stay away from Donald Trump.
I wonder if a judge was involved in the decision to stash Donald away in a military school for five years, that actually was a common choice provided to juvenile delinquents whose parents could afford it. Businessmen like Fred Trump, son of a Bavarian draft dodger, were so unlikely to send a son to military school. If they chose boarding school, it would be one with rich kid contacts useful in business later in life.
I believe he is a sociopath. I read a brilliant book titled, The Sociopath Next Door. It has the percentage that one out of ten people have sociopathic tendencies. It came recommended by a psychologist when I couldn’t understand people’s behavior around me. It was pretty eye opening. It explains how ruthless and morally deficient these people are and they don’t give a damn, yet the rest of us look at them wondering WTF. He too is like that. Add to it the narcissistic component and there you go!
Yes, he is. Kaiser captures the essential distinction in saying he knows right from wrong, but doesn’t care.
I don’t think he considers his behavior in any way problematic. He believes he is entitled to do whatever he wants.
That is a great book–everyone should read it. I’ve known narcissists & sociopaths. Normal people have a hard time grasping how dangerous they are.
Seraphina, I read that book too, some years ago. I was trying to figure out my mother-in-law’s behavior. And ‘bingo’, there is was in writing. She’s still going strong at 98, even with Stage 4 lung cancer. Seems as if a lot of awful people live forever.
Vava, Yes, I was working with several difficult people. People who would just blatantly lie and backstab. And I was infuriated and kept asking my friend all sorts of questions about the behavior. She gave me her book and I ended up buying it so I have a copy. Right next to my Bible.
My pop-psychology:
I believe he has the “dark triad”.
Wikipedia:
In psychology, the dark triad refers to the personality traits of Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy. They are called “dark” because of their malevolent qualities.
I would upgrade his from Sociopath to full on Psychopath. I saw a talk by a psychologist who explained that Sociopaths are made, while Psychopaths are born that way. Given the fact that his father was a monster (by all accounts) and Donald’s problems began manifesting right from birth, I think it’s safe to assume he was born with all three traits. His upbringing only solidified their hold on him.
@Bella, I think this where science begins to have different opinions. The book I read clearly showed the sociopath is born that way. There are varying degrees of it of course. But even Freud and Jung differed in many ropics within psychology 😁
It quite fascinating to be able to try and understand people who don’t function with a moral compass or have no empathy towards their fellow brothers and sisters.
Agree with you. Kushner, Ivanka and Don jr are also like this. It’s astonishing how many psychos there are in this family.
@ Seraphina
You are right, there are sooo many differing points of view on these two traits (sociopathy and psychopathy). But it seems as though Psychopaths are accepted as the more violent group. In any case, I think Donald Trump is not only bereft of any empathy and conscience, he is actively malevolent ie malignant.
I’ve stopped caring about DJT. He is what he is and maybe he didn’t have a choice and was always destined to be a monster. It’s his fans and followers that i question. These are the sorts of people who if they had lived in Nazi Germany would be the types to fish out their Jewish neighbours for the Gestapo and pretend they didn’t realise what horrors they were unleashing on their neighbours.
I have a small black book and their names are in there with their specific arguments for when they deny they ever supported him in the future. I’m not American, though, so I’ve only got three names so far….lol.
Another interesting book about the “psychopath brain” is by James Fallon, a doctor whose brain scan revealed he himself is one. And like a true psychopath, he seemed quite excited to be included in this “club.”
I love that book. Everyone should read it. My father is a charming narcissist and it has helped me cope so much better and also deal with my work environment more effectively. I studied psychology but work in an entirely different field – this book should have been required reading when I attended university.
I’m interested in whether or not she included research into the brain differences sociopaths and psychopaths have from the rest of the population. Not excusing them. These creatures should still be held accountable.
You can see how Ivanka takes after him from that cover photo.
I see Eric in that cover photo and also when looking at photos of Trump in his youth, which is especially funny when it has been said that Trump always found Eric too ugly to put on the Apprentice.
Ivanka, pre-plastic surgery, looks a bit like her aunts.
Lmao…poor Eric.
the American people elected this fool. They have no one to blame but themselves. Every New Yorker knew what a scam artist bullshitter he was from the ‘80s.
By the way, as much as I loath him I believe Ivana would have been an excellent First Lady.
Get out and vote in nov people. Let’s take our country back!!
Not only NY. I’m in Alabama and I knew he was a piece of shit since the 80s when he and ivana were posing for Vogue or New York Magazine in their tacky, gold leafed, whorehouse decorated apartment. Anyone with two brain cells knew they were trash.
No, we didn’t elect him. The outdated electoral college elected him. The American people elected Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes.
This!!!
If it weren’t for that infernal Electoral College, we wouldn’t be in this boat, but don’t you know Drumpf would have used all this time to destabilize Hillary’s administration and worked his supporters up (even sooner than they are now) to a state of insurrection.
And water is wet.
I don’t see what the big deal is with this book – it confirms what most of us already know. It will have zero impact.
I wonder if Trump created the same family dynamic with his children and Ivanka was the best at adapting and it’s a sociopath too. His sons are evil too but they always seem like they are begging for his approval.
And the niece and the aunt could have spoken out, forcefully, starting in 2015…
Everybody rode that gravy train.
The niece is just cashing in before the gravy train crashes. Hopefully in four months, no one will ever want to hear about the gritting gang unless it involves words like “going to prison”.
You know that Maryanne Trump only retired as a judge to escape an income tax evasion investigation? The apple didn’t fall far from the tree on any of Fred Sr’s spawn. A possible exception might be Fred Jr, (Mary’s father) who died of alcohol-related illnesses after his siblings circled the wagons to cut him out of Fred Sr’s will. One could argue that Mary’s motivation is as much her family’s cruelty to her father as it is the American people’s welfare. Donald’s own children will likely behave like a bunch of carrion crows when he finally dies. My hope is that there is nothing but Russian mobster debt for the lot of them, Melania and Barron included.
I’m sure she’ll get a nice check for this book, but she has also been confirmed as the source behind the Pulitzer prize winning NYT investigation into the Trump family finances, tax scams, etc. She fed them all the documents. I think she knew he’d be a disaster but assumed he’d lose in 2016.
Don’t know about Trump’s sister but I don’t think it’s fair to accuse the niece of cashing in. As Lizzie above said, she was the source for the NYT tax reveals. She has been vocal about him before. But most importantly, nobody can claim that they’ve been fooled by what kind of person Trump really is and here is someone finally revealing it. The mags and newspapers covering the NY social scene have been writing about him for the last four decades. He’d always been described as a tool.
I don’t think she’s cashing in… or if she is, it’s a calculated gamble. I believe she signed an NDA when she received an inheritance from Fred Trump, and she is going to have to pay back the money since she violated the NDA with this book. I don’t know how much she received…or how much $$ the book will make.
Need to add – I cannot fully blame her for trying to recoup what his family cheated her of (significantly undervaluing Fred Sr’s estate to lessen her/her brother’s share).
The book timing is likely twofold – to capitalize while people still have great interest and animosity, and to slice his fragile ego close to his re-election. It’s undoubtedly personal, and I understand that.
“I wonder if Trump created the same family dynamic with his children and Ivanka was the best at adapting and it’s a sociopath too.”
that’s what it looks like to me. the kids apparently hate each other and are constantly trying to get that coveted “favorite kid” spot, but Ivanka will always hold it. she learned at an early age how to manipulate her dad; just look at the pictures of them together from when she was a pre-teen/teenager. but you WILL want a hazmat shower after. they’re sketchy.
I read a story about Trump
junior that echos’s what Mary says about how Fred Trump raised his kids. I read it on a blog, Pajiba?, that a friend of DJT Jr’s recalled a story when Don Jr was a freshman in college. He had to run back to his dorm because his dad, Donald, was coming to see him and was taking him to dinner. He was excited and talked about how much he admired his dad. He made it to the dorm in time, and a bunch of students gathered in the hall in front of Junior’s dorm room when the limo pulled up. Trump reached Juniors dorm room and knocked on the door. Junior opened it with a smile and Trump looked at him and punched him in the face and said, “you knew I was coming and you’re dressed like that?!?! Put on a fucking suit.” According to the friend, a large group of people saw this. Junior put on a suit and they left.
yup, Christina, I’ve heard that story, too.
I think that DJT Jr. and The Dumb One want nothing more than to have Daddy’s approval and love but will never fully have it.
Re: Donald and Ivanka: He said he would date his daughter if she wasn’t his daughter. Howard Stern asked him if he thought his own daughter was a piece of ass and he said yes. He is sexually attracted to his own daughter. I don’t even want to think too much into what exactly was going on in that household as she was growing up. And yes those photos are disturbing. They’re not normal dad/daughter poses. At all.
I believe this book would be an interesting read.
I will not in any way give one cent of my money to anyone Trump involved, ever.
Trump was known as a liar, scam artist, who did not pay his workers, went bankrupt 5x, etc., etc. all the way back to the 1970’s.
I swear he ran for POTUS to feed his ego, he never thought he would win.
Public libraries will have it.
I will buy the book. Enthusiastically. I want it to be as profitable and rewarding as possible to shred that man and his family to pieces. Plus, she’s never done anything to support his agenda. As far as we know, everything she’s ever done Trump related has been to thwart him. I will very happily encourage that.
In fact, it can’t come fast enough for me. 🙂
I will buy this book for sure. I want everyone to buy this book.
Me, too. I hope it sells 500 million copies and she becomes the billionaire toxic uncle donnie never was.
I heard on MSNBC this morning that the White House hopes we become numb to Covid and all of the deaths. I’m convinced he isn’t human. He’s some kind of demon sent from the bowels of hell to torture us endlessly.
They also said when Bush was running for re-election, his numbers weren’t great but he still squeaked by and won. My palms got sweaty at the thought of this orange…thing…getting in again come November.
Tmbg- oh just wait until the proliferation of cases prevents Americans from going anywhere outside the country. Peoplexmoght not care if grandma dies, but they’ll care when they can’t travel. We’re already banned in Europe. We’re becoming global pariahs. When that starts sinking in and people are still being forced to postpone travel abroad at Christmas, and into next year, things will start to change. People are already struggling with no summer vacays to Paris, etc. Another lost summer will get people mad. And travel companies that need those trips abroad certainly won’t get numb. They’ll put pressure on politicians to get things taken care of. Eventually, people will realize that we can’t afford to be global pariahs, if only for purely selfish reasons.
Rapunzel I hope you are right, but I fear that traveling to Europe is not high on the list of most Trump supporters. The only ones who may be affected by the ban are the extremely wealthy who vote for him for their taxes, and honestly they will still be able to travel wherever they want. The rest of his base will turn against these other countries (“how dare they ban us”) and blame them instead of Trump. He will encourage it, and will isolate us from our allies even more.
I’ve lived in NY for over 20 years but my family is all still back in Scotland and I’m so worried about not getting there and seeing them. I can’t even think about him winning again.
Louisa- valid points, but:
1. Money’s not gonna help people get around these travel bans and quarantines. Also, if rich folks use money to circumvent these bans and get people sick, other countries will be pissed. They will hate Americans if we bring outbreaks with us. No matter the money. I have faith in that… at least Europe, Australia and Canada/Mexico.
2. You underestimate the amount of Trumpsters who are retirees with income to spend on travel. I know it’s what folks like to think, but the majority of Trumpsters aren’t poor, dumb rednecks or rich 1%ers. They are comfortable middle class folks, who voted for Trump to “protect” their middle class “values”… and they travel.
Maybe preventing us from leaving the country is the point, though. That wall isn’t really meant to keep people OUT……..just sayin’
Same theory that Adolph Eichmann pushed. They can execute you for one death but they can’t execute you for a million. The numbers become too large to grasp the individual losses.
Unfortunately, none of this is news or shocking to most of us. His base won’t care so the only winner here is her bank account.
i just laughed while reading those excerpts…it explains so much, none of which is surprising but i doubt this book even scratches the tippy top of the dung pile that is trump
I just wanted to point to the news story that the federal loan/grant program under Trump has given millions of dollars to Jared’s family for their businesses to insure the employment of 41 employees. I just sifted the item and as my rage mounted, desisted. Please look into this story and report on it. It seems to me that before he’s voted out, Trump wants to unload what’s left of the economy into his and his family’s pockets. They’ll have billions of our tax dollars in their bank accounts.
They are so incredibly repulsive.
Where is the other sister Elizabeth
?
Supreme Court has announced that it will release its final decisions for this term tomorrow morning beginning at 10 AM. We will know by 11 AM tomorrow whether his tax returns must be turned over to Congress. He’s meeting with the President of Mexico today and he spent the morning attacking the CDC and people who are against wide scale opening of schools. Today and tomorrow are going to be bonkers.
I’ve been watching and reading the excerpts as they’ve filtered, and I’ve been underwhelmed, mainly because none of it is earth shattering. I know this already. Most of us KNOW this already. But fine, please get a concise collection of why orange assface is a putrid shit stain to the masses.
I looked at Trump’s Facebook page today and the people’s comments were shocking. Absolute blind fools. I had to stop reading. His supporters are the most simpleminded people I’ve ever seen. They adore him.
I’ve ordered the book. It continues to sell out. Mary was pursued by the NY Times for an extended period before she finally agreed to meet with a rep. She remained reluctant until convinced at some point to provide them with family tax returns, 19 boxes. An NYT article was published, 2019, A Decade in the Red, based on the info she provided. Again, she was pursued by a number of publishers who knew the book would be a best seller. It was suggested she follow Trump’s Twitter account and was horrified at what she read and agreed to publish. Important to me is this is a woman who has a full time career teaching and speaking. I hope she earns an enormous amount of money and speaks publicly for years to come. Trump out we need reminders not to repeat the last four years.
I don’t think I or this country can take another 4 years of him.
Please vote.
Well, this comes as NO surprise to me; I have been saying this for years and this was my impression of Donald J. Trump well before even his political aspirations.
Narcissist, habitual cheater, sociopath, no sense of morality or values, lack of empathy…
Am I surprised he came from a horrible dysfunctional family? NOPE. That’s where these disorders originate from, and when you don’t get therapeutic help, they continue and perpetuate!!
Is his sister looking for some financial payday here? Probably. Doesn’t mean any of the words she has written ARE NOT TRUE. All you have to do is look at Trump’s
behavior and juxtapose it against the behaviors of narcissism, sociopathy, adultery, racism, sexual inappropriate behavior…and know she is correct. Plus, let’s face it. She is coming from the perspective of a clinical psychologist – so THERE is THAT! LMAO!!!
We need to realize our country is in a shit load of trouble if we don’t vote this man OUT
This is not a Republican/Democratic issue anymore. He is unfit to be President. And this simply confirms every single thing I ever thought about him.
For years, even those who hated him danced around the issue of his mental state, saying that they couldn’t and didn’t want to diagnose, etc. The ones who didn’t treat him with kid gloves and said what they thought turned out to be right.
The NDA was allegedly fraud because he told the niece the estate was 1/30th of its value.
My dad is a narcissist, a sociopath and a misogynistic pig. He really does not understand why any of his 5 children don’t speak to him, it’s all of our faults, we are all the problem, eff us. He is so much like Trump, when I hear 45 talk I want to throw up. Men like this, at their age are so mired in their pathology that it is the entire world against them. They really don’t know AND they don’t care. It’s all about them, what you can do for them, what they can get out of you and it better be for free.