Donald Trump's estranged niece, Mary Trump, issued a warning about the former president's mental state on MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on Thursday night.
Mary Trump has been a vocal critic of her uncle as he campaigns for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election while juggling four criminal indictments and two civil cases. Trump has plead not guilty to all charges and claims they are politically motivated. Mary holds a unique perspective not only as a member of the Trump family, but as a clinical psychologist.
She told host Lawrence O'Donnell last night: "This is a person who has untreated psychiatric disorders, and any untreated disorder of any kind worsens over time as long as it remains untreated. So, it makes perfect sense that somebody who is as unhealthy as he is who is under the extraordinary amount of stress he's under would have a harder time holding it together cognitively.
"The other thing that I think is interesting," Mary continued. "Donald was always quite good when he was younger at sticking to a point and he knew certain things about his business, so he could say perfectly reasonable statements...with confidence.
"Let's be fair, he was very good at being in the media and that's one of the main reasons my grandfather chose him to be his successor because he had that kind of presence."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment. It also reached out to Mary Trump via Facebook and her Substack, a subscription network for bloggers, via email for comment.
Long before Trump became president in 2017, he built his name as a real estate tycoon in New York City. In 1971, Trump took over the real estate company built by his father, Fred Trump, which became known as the Trump Organization.
Both Trump's and President Biden's age and mental fitness have been brought up as a concern among voters in the upcoming election. However, Biden, 81, has gotten more heat for it compared to Trump who is 77 years old.
During a campaign speech in New Hampshire in January, Trump bragged about his score on a cognitive test.
"I took it, and I aced it," he told the crowd. "I think it was 35... 30 questions. And let me tell you, you know, they always show you the first one: a giraffe, a tiger or a whale. 'Which one is the whale?'"
Meanwhile, Biden said during a news conference earlier this month, "My memory is fine, adding, "I know what the hell I'm doing," following a scathing report from Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur, in which Hur characterized Biden as an "elderly man with a poor memory."
With Trump being the GOP frontrunner and Biden the Democratic incumbent, November will likely be a re-match between the two. Voters seem to not be enthusiastic about either of their likely options with Biden's favorability ratings in the low 40s and Trump's in the mid-to-high 40s, according to recent polling.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Rachel Dobkin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on politics. Rachel joined Newsweek in ... Read more
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