The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Uncle Donald Doesn't Want to Shake Off Natalie

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Mary Trump returns to the Daily Beast Podcast to tell Joanna Coles why she believes her uncle is terrified of being seen as a loser as the midterms approach. She traces that fear to the Trump family dynamic she witnessed growing up, then weighs in on his remarks about Los Angeles and San Diego, his fixation on cognitive tests and aspirin, and his relationship with aide Natalie Harp. Mary also reveals what she wrote in the handwritten note that ended Donald Trump’s $100 million lawsuit against her. #ad Get 15% off OneSkin with the code BEAST at https://www.oneskin.co/BEAST #oneskinpod #ad If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can start your claim in just a click without having to leave your couch: https://ForThePeople.com/DAILYBEAST #ad Unlock your best hair & skin with @iRestorelaser and HUGE savings on iRESTORE with code DAILYBEAST at https://irestore.com/DAILYBEAST ! #irestorepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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note taker. If your work depends on conversations, check it out. applaud.aI slash beast and use code beast for 10% off. That's PLAUD.aI slash beast and use the code beast for 10% off. The needs he has are never going to be filled. And he's starting to realize that all of these things that he's trying to try. trying to use to fill that void of neediness aren't enough, but he's going to keep trying. I think there's something psychologically wrong with her. She needs help. She has the qualities of a stalker.

It's the only case I've ever seen in which the stalking victim has welcomed being stalked. And I think that is in part because Donald is not getting the attention he needs because nobody cares about him, which makes sense because she doesn't care about anybody. And she's willing to fill that role. And it is inappropriate. It's wrong. I think he's taking advantage. But nobody seems to have a problem with it.

This is the Daily Beast podcast. I'm Joanna Coles. Welcome. And we have such a good conversation for you today with a Trump relative. Yes, you've seen her on the podcast before. She is a Daily Beast favorite, Mary Trump, who really delves into the similarities between Donald and. his father, how cruel Donald Trump's father was to him, and how that cruelty is now playing

out for the rest of us. We talk about the strange picture that Donald Trump's father kept in his wallet and would whip out and show Mary to make her feel really uncomfortable. We talk about his wild weaves and what on earth was he talking about when he suggested that Iran take out San Diego and Los Angeles. What was he talking about when he said that he knew more about anything than anybody anywhere in the world? What was he actually projected? Well, who better than a member of his own family, who is a trained clinical psychologist?

She is so articulate about his language, about his behavior, about how he projects his insecurities. and what it's doing to the rest of us. So before we get into it, let me just ask you please to subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast, wherever you get your podcast, be it Spotify, Apple, YouTube, we're independent media, which is how we have conversations like this. We don't have a corporate be ameth at our back telling us what we can and can't say. But we appreciate your support, share it with a friend.

And this one in particular is a really good one to spark conversations. So, no more time to waste. Let's get into it with acclaimed author and psychologist and niece of, well, the most famous man in the world. He's Donald Trump. She's Mary Trump. Mary, welcome. We have a Trump in the house. We have Mary Trump in the house. Mary Trump, welcome back. We haven't seen you for a couple of months. We haven't, Joanna, but it's great to be back. I love hanging out with you, especially during these. very troubled, trouble times. Oh, my goodness. You know, one of the things, Mary Trump, that is keeping me sane, is reading your Substack, which I recommend to everybody. I notice you've got 447,000 subscribers. Congratulations. That is a huge bestseller on Substac. It is, you write so well. You've got such a good sense of humor, and you really get into the nitty, gritty of how your

Uncle Donald, President of the United States and leader, somewhat incredulously of the free world, how he thinks. But I wanted to just say, you start your substack or in the description of your substack, you start with a wonderful quote from Oscar Wilde. And I wanted you to talk about it and why you chose it. For those who don't know it, it's the gods are strange. It is not our vices, only they make instruments to scourge us. they bring us to ruin through what is good in us. Good, gentle, human loving. It's very Oscar Wilde.

You're a psychologist. Why did you choose this quote for your substack? Well, as you can imagine, one of the most alarming things, especially for somebody who comes from the family I come from and has seen firsthand what, cruelty you can do to a sensitive, kind, gentle, human. I have been since Donald came on the political scene in 2015, increasingly alarmed by the extent to which and the rapidity with which we have become an increasingly unkind,

unempathetic society. And the ways in which he's been able to convince people that kindness is weakness, cruelty of strength, which is, again, the ethos of the family he and I both grew up in. And to make it seem that the only real way to be a strong human being is to be unempathetic and dismissive of other people's rights and cruel to the most vulnerable among us. So the idea of kindness, the necessity of kindness and empathy, have been increasingly on my mind. And I started the subsect. It's actually almost five years old now.

When, you know, the, the, Donald was just out of power from his first term had just ended in, you know, January 2021. But we were continuing to see his influence in the Republican Party and the Republicans Party's willingness to bend the knee and rehabilitate this man and to a person embrace his ethos of cruelty, corruption, humiliation, et cetera. So I've tried in the last five years to make sure that I pay attention to the continue to pay attention to those things. Because if we're going not just to survive, but to get beyond this point, it's not going to be enough for Democrats to win an election. We're going to have to change our culture.

And that's going to be quite an undertaking. But we can't do it if we don't. talk about it if we don't even acknowledge it. So that's what I try to do. One skin is nothing like your typical skincare brand. And that's why I keep coming back to the most anti-aging skincare is built to react to smooth over lines and wrinkles after they show up. One skin started somewhere different, working to address how skin ages in the first place. founded by four PhD longevity scientists, they studied skin at the cellular level and found that visible skin aging starts deeper when certain cells stop working the way they should and begin

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They'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. And I've been using OneSkin for, I guess, four or five months now. You can tell yourself if you think I look any different. It's a very good column. I really enjoy reading it. And as I say you write in a really sort of vigorous, robust way. One of the things you also do, which I love is you go.

into his speeches in depth, you really analyze what he's actually saying, and especially with his weave. And we've cut some clips here that I really want to discuss with you. And the first one is this one where he's telling Iran to take out L.A. and to take out San Diego. Let's listen to that clip for those who didn't actually hear it. With the word, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let him take out Los Angeles.

Let them take out San Diego. That's, this is a very small price to pay. And it's going to be open very soon. I mean, what is he talking about there, Mary? You talk about cruelty. He's envisaging two major American cities being taken out whatever that means by Iran. I mean, he's pretending, I should just say the run-up to that is him pretending that we've won the war in Iran. Yes, there's so much there.

And I think it always needs to be pointed out that so much of what he's saying there is false. You know, he's claimed many times now that we've won the war. We're about to win a war. We're going to win the war. And, of course, we've lost it and we're continuing to lose it. There's no end in sight. He's also revealing his obsessions. He's a very violent man, and that stems in part from his insecurities and from the fact that, you know, his father was a sociopath.

And he grew up being taught that in order to be accepted or approved of, he needed to be a quote unquote killer. And any, any sign of kindness or empathy or gentleness was frowned upon because that stuff made you a loser. And of course, my dad was all of those things. So my dad was the object lesson of what not to be in the Trump family, despite the fact that he was actually the only truly self-made person in the whole family. So the reason I sometimes post his transcripts or often I read them because one of the reasons we got here is because corporate media has been engaged in this project of sanewashing Donald. So they just, they try to make sense of what he says to make it more palatable to people, which is just a way to normalize him. Because if you actually listen to him or read what he said, it's either incomprehensible, replete with delusions, or terrifying.

And terrifying would be how best to describe what he just said. What I think is also worth discussing is that this is the end result of over a decade of, over a decade of, of Donald's using microaggressions to soften the ground to get a crowd in 26 to cheer the annihilation of two American cities. Like that's how pathological we've all become, that that's an acceptable thing for the president of the United States to say among a certain set of people. Well, also, I mean, when you think about this is a man who used to be a Democrat, he had a very popular reality show with The Apprentice, Hollywood, you know, birthed that television project.

I get how you might attack L.A. for being lefty and Hollywood and blah, blah, blah, blah. But to go after San Diego, too, which has a huge military base. I mean, you ride into, you know, San Diego and the first thing you see are those ships all lined up. I mean, it's so peculiar. Is this sort of, I mean, I actually did think not for the first time, but this really is 25th Amendment territory now. When you're calling for an enemy to invade two of your own cities, as Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, said, this is not what the president's supposed to do. No, unfortunately, though, the 25th Amendment will never be invoked because it would require the cabinet secretaries, all of whom are completely behold into him. They are his enablers and

co-conspirators as much as anybody else in this government. So that is not going to happen, first of all. Secondly, it just shows us, I think, where he's heading. Because what Donald often does is telegraph what he's thinking about doing and then with the idea of sort of floating it to see if it's going to fly, right? And he's, and he's, He's often telling us what he's actually thinking about doing. And I don't think we can separate any of this from his very real concerns that the Republicans are going to get electorally annihilated in November, which he doesn't care about except to the extent that that means he is going to be subject to impeachment and investigations. and he will be, I don't know if he's ever going to be held accountable, but it is not going to be a good place for him to be in. And he knows that that's where this may be tending. And he's on the one hand trying to deny that by lying about how great things are right now.

And on the other hand, making it clear that he may have to do something drastic if he actually thinks things aren't going to go well for him. And I said this in 2020, and unfortunately, it is much more true now than it was that. If Donald thinks he's going down, he will take all of us down with him. Well, you've always maintained he's a nihilist. He doesn't want anything to survive after him, especially the Republican Party. Let's come on to the midterms in a moment. I wanted to ask you about this particular weave in a speech. You highlighted this in your column.

I think you know where we're going with this. But let's play this clip. Again, for anybody who hasn't heard this, we have not edited this. This is Donald Trump just speaking in real time on Saturday night in Ohio. I know more about inflation. I know more about everything than anybody in this room, anybody anywhere in the world. Well, there's a woman sitting right over there. She's a housewife, but she's very good.

She's got a natural instinct for business. She perhaps knows more than I do, but I actually don't think so. What is he talking about? I know more about everything than anybody in this room, anybody anywhere in the world. What, Mary, you're a clinical psychologist. You understand what's going on inside Trump's head, somewhere I go with Michael Wolf three times a week. When he says he knows more about everything than anybody else in the world, what is he actually projecting? there? I think more than anything, he's trying to protect himself from the knowledge that the opposite is true. Right. Donald has spent much, if not all of his adult life or much of his psychic energy in his adult life to protect himself from the knowledge of who he is, protect

to make sure other people never find out who he really is. And again, find out, you know, that he keeps all of that unconscious because the truth about who he is would be so devastating to him psychically. So the problem, though, is I think the barrier between his conscious sense, which in his view is that he's the greatest, he knows more than everybody else, and his unconscious knowledge is starting to erode a little bit. And on the one hand, it's another way in which things are escalating. He used to say things like, I know more about nuclear than anybody.

I know more about war than the generals. And now that isn't enough to convince other people and himself that he's the most brilliant person who ever lived. Now he has to say, I know more about everything than everybody. And the next, where do you go from there? I know more than anybody in all of history, in the entire universe.

So like there's only so much more, space this stuff can take up. But it's another escalation, I think, of his insecurity and his terror that he is going to be revealed to be the exact opposite of what he's always pretended to be. And I think that is terrifying for him. But it's also terrifying for us because he will go to great legs to make sure that nobody ever finds out, which is kind of funny because most of us know this, of course. He's just not aware of it yet. And I think that's one of the things he's trying to protect himself from for sure. If your accountant said, I've never actually done taxes before, but I'm pretty good at math,

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Does he feel more powerful than them? Can you explain the dynamic that you think is going on there? Yeah, I think it is partially reflective glory. It's also, it's a weird dynamic because on the one hand, all of those tech pro oligarch guys are laughing behind his back because they're using him to get what they want. They don't admire him. They probably don't even want to hang out with him. But they are making more money than they could ever possibly have dreamed of because he's so corrupt and so willing to dismantle any kinds of regulations that might have rained these people in.

I think part of it too is that he is making this statement. I can command these people to be here. You know, I not only do I deserve to be among these smartest people on the planet, but I'm even smarter than they are. I'm more powerful than they are because I commanded them to be here, they are here. So I think, again, it's another way of assuaging his very, very fragile ego. And it's displays like that that I think underscore how fragile his ego is and how insecure he is. And it's also a demonstration that he needs more and more and more.

He needs to be surrounded by more rich, powerful people. He needs to have more things named after him on and on and on because the needs he has are never going to be filled. And he's starting to realize that all of these things that he's trying to use to fill that void of neediness aren't enough. But he's going to keep trying. So this year he's met with Vladimir Putin. He's met with Xi Jinping, two men that he thinks of as sort of overlords, I suppose, strong men in his language. He's met with the leading tech guys in the world. what is the next for him?

Where does he go from there? That's a good question. Where is there to go from there? I think that we're just going to see more of the same, more concessions in exchange for more wealth, perhaps. He's made it clear that he's for sale. He's made it clear that he's for sale. clear that he's willing to appoint special envoys who have no connection to our, no legitimate

connection to our government whatsoever, like Gary Kushner, Steve Wickoff, to make deals, make deals in the midst of a war. So these people can get richer at the expense of our erstwhile ally Ukraine. It's despicable. But it also shows us what we all should have known along. There are no principles, there's no conscience, and there are no limits. So we've already heard him speaking favorably about North Korea many times and now justify North Korea's having nuclear weapons. So because he's so inept and because he's so unself aware, he still thinks that he's by being in a room with Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, he's as powerful and strong and that there are no limits on his power. Obviously, that isn't true. He's also not nearly as smart as that these people.

So the default is going to be continuing to be played by them, making concessions to them at the expense of the American people while enriching himself and his cronies. Now, the problem is he will probably find out. Maybe. Maybe he won't. I'm not sure. It's likely he is going to find out at some point, as I said earlier, that it's still not enough. And that need, that essential need he has is never, ever going to be filled. So I know it's very little consolation, but if there's any, it's knowing that he is the most miserable, unhappy person on the planet. It's a small consolation, Mary.

Yeah, I know. So let me ask you, I mean, Michael Wolfe has a very similar. thread to you that this is a man who just must be the center of attention, that if he's not the center of attention for whatever reason, he can't stand it. And one of the things, but one of the things he doesn't like and he can't see himself as is a loser. All the polls at the moment are pointing to the fact that the Republicans are going to do badly in the midterms. Now, I feel that I don't ever want to rely on polls because they've misled us in the past. But certainly what we're hearing, and I'm trying not to be in a total liberal media bubble, is that the Democrats will take the House and it's now very possible that the Senate is in play.

How triggering is that, do you think, for your uncle? It's four weeks to go until the midterms. Is he in a sort of heightened state? What do you predict his state is right now? Oh, he's in an existential crisis right now. Little background, because I think it's important to lay the groundwork for this conversation. You know, Michael Wolf is absolutely correct. The thing Donald most dreads is being seen as a loser, which is to start.

because he's so obviously one. He is, and yet Mary, he's still president of the United States. It's a cruel irony. But it also happens to be. Nobody has failed up as spectacularly as this person. I mean, it is stunning. Stunning. But this starts with his father, my grandfather,

aforementioned sociopaths. And the fact that my dad, who's the oldest son, just was never the right fit. For reasons, I don't understand. My grandfather just didn't like my father, who had every intention of taking over the family business. He was the namesake. He was the oldest son.

But my grandfather just did like him. My dad was funny. He was charming. He had great friendships. He also had interests. Like, he loved boating and fishing and being out east. And he loved flying. He got his pilots.

license in college. He was a member of the ROTC. He joined the National Guard. None of these things did my grandfather understand. So even though my dad worked very hard for him, he just wasn't the right guy. And it turns out that Donald was. And because my dad wasn't the right kind of person, he was considered a loser. Money wasn't the most important thing to him. He wanted to go fly. and he just, he was kind and funny and gentle. What a loser. So Donald saw what my grandfather did to my father because he was a loser. He basically dismantled him.

He destroyed him and ended up, metaphorically speaking, killing him off. My dad died when he was 42 because of the cruel, unspeakable inhumane treatment he received from his father, from Donald's father. Donald learned that lesson. So it is extremely existentially important for him not to be seen as a loser. And we see this all the time with very simple things. He cannot even admit a mistake. I don't know if remember recently he was talking about the bomb sites, bomb factories in Iran, but he said drugs instead.

But instead of saying, oh, I meant bombs. He actually made that part of the narrative. as if Iran has drug factories and they're doing drugs while they're building bombs. I mean, it's just insane. But even course correcting to him means admitting you made a mistake and making a mistake means you're a loser. Never admit you're wrong. That was another lesson my grandfather taught. So here we are.

And he's faced with objective data making it clear that his party is losing. He is the most unpopular president in modern history. And Republicans are. losing because of him. That is unacceptable. That is not information that he can process. So what does he do? He says the problem is that he's not on the ballot. So he wants Republicans to make this election about him, to which I say, yes, please do that. You said that in your column and I laughed out loud when you said that. It's so fascinating hearing you describe the family dynamic. What was the family dynamic like between Trump and his father, Donald Trump and your grandfather, when you saw it?

How did they align themselves with each other? They were very much in sync. And one of the most fascinating things about it. I mean, not that it was fascinating when I was a kid because it was just normal. But in retrospect, is the way that my grandfather treated Donald as an equal. And sometimes it was even deferential. to him, despite the fact that my grandfather knew that Donald wasn't a good businessman at all, but my grandfather was. But Donald was a good messenger. I say what you will about him.

He was media savvy. He grew up in the television age, and he knew how to manipulate the media. So that is the quality my grandfather wanted, because my grandfather had none of those skills whatsoever, and he would take care of the business. So it was almost like they had their own language. All of our family meals were centered around the conversations they were having. And the rest of us were bit players. Or as I said once, you know, we were just in the cheap seats while they played their games. So it was when my grandfather got older, however, that, or I should say when Donald started getting older and he started having a taste of some very unearned success, but success nonetheless. He built, I mean, the Hyatt, the Grand Hyatt, New York, Trump Tower. And he decided that he

wanted to go to Atlantic City. And my grandfather said, don't do it. That is not a good move. And Donald didn't listen to him. And as we know, it was not a good move because he bankrupted at three casinos. But it just showed you that Donald had outgrown my grandfather because they thought he didn't need him anymore. Of course, he did. He certainly. He served. needed his money. And then as my grandfather got Alzheimer's, Donald had no use for him whatsoever. And here's, I mean, it's very, it's very ironic because I'm not saying Donald has Alzheimer's, but clearly he is in cognitive decline. And when my grandfather was in cognitive decline, Donald treated him like dirt. He didn't want to have anything to do with him. He had no patience

for him. He was unkind to him. And now here's Donald. having a fewer and fewer people willing to give him the courtesies he refused to give my grandfather. And it's as if the pigeons are coming home to roost. Is it pigeons or chickens? I don't know. Somebody's coming home to roost. Yeah, someone's, I think it's chickens, but who knows? If healthier looking hair and skin have been on your mind, this is the sign to stop putting it off.

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irisdore.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Give your hair and your hair and skin the upgrade they deserve so you can feel confident and refreshed. Since we last spoke, Natalie Hart, the president's advisor, has come on the scene. And one of the things that he is quoted as saying, I think in regime change, the Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan book, and certainly Michael Wolfe has written extensively about Natalie Harp and his book, All or Nothing, was this sense in which Donald Trump's said about Natalie, she'll never leave me. The others will leave me. They'll all be gone. Natalie will never leave me. Is that, do you think, I'm just putting the two together with you saying that he

treated his father horribly. He had no use for him. Once his father had Alzheimer's, he had no use for him. Do you think that's a reflection of him saying that of his fear of abandonment, knowing that he abandoned his own father? Every single relationship Donald has is transactional. And I think it should become obvious to him that, you know, his children don't care about him anymore than he cares about them. And, you know, those relationships are determined purely by who's getting what out of whom. So we've also seen cracks in the inner circle. Caroline Leavitt was clearly one of the most loyal, sycophantic and disgraceful propagandists in the administration.

She was willing to lie for him. She was as rude and disrespectful as he was at the ripe old age of 27. But even she had limits because he was willing to get her killed on Air Force One. Like Caroline Levitt did not get an invitation to come on the catering cart with it. And I think we see that in other people too. You know, there are limits when people are sycophantic enablers. Even they have limits to the amount they are willing to be humiliated or have their lives in danger. Natalie Harp is a different type entirely.

There's something seriously wrong with her. You know, I think there's something psychologically wrong with her. She needs help. She has the qualities of a stalker. And it's the only case I've ever seen in which the stalking victim has welcomed being stalked. And I think that is in part because Donald is not getting the attention he needs because nobody cares about him, which makes sense because he doesn't care about anybody. And she's willing, she's willing to fill that role. And it is inappropriate.

it's wrong. I think he's taking advantage, but nobody seems to have a problem with it. If a Democrat did this, a Democratic president was, an 81-year-old Democratic president was hanging out with a 35-year-old woman and spending more time with her than he did with anybody else in his family, I'm pretty sure there would be a problem. But this is a different world we live in now. And Mary, what do you make of Natalie Harp's friend Laura Luma, who's come on and off the scene, but seems to enjoy flying around with the president and claims to be an advisor to him? And he's always acknowledged, well, he frequently acknowledges her and says how helpful she is. I think she's just, she's just very skilled at inserting herself. I find her vile. She's an Islamophobic. racist, uh, uh, opportunist.

But for whatever reason, you know, well, I guess, I guess that's in certain circles in this country now, uh, in our government. That's a good thing.

You know, those are qualifications if you want access to the inner circle. So I'm sure she's very good at flattering him and making him feel special and valued, uh, which is the only, the only way anybody lasts to, to the extent people last, is if they are the things I just mentioned, but also subservient.

Because obviously, as we've seen as women after woman in a position of authority has been let go, if you're a woman who wants to stay in Donald's Good Graces, you have to be subservient in addition to everything else. Is this what happened with your grandfather? I was going to ask you, what was your grandfather's relationships with women? Oh, he was a misogynist. He treated my grandmother like a second-class citizen. He wasn't particularly interested in his, he had two daughters. They certainly were treated differently. Like my aunt Marianne was the oldest. There was no, and I mean, this was not unique to my grandfather. This wouldn't have happened in the 40s anyway, but it was never, never thought that she would be take over the family business. And in fact, she became. a federal judge. And when he went to her swearing in, the only thing he said to her was, well, at least now you'll have good benefits. Was he a womanizer?

He actually had an affair, a longstanding affair with his secretary, who, by the way, was my godmother. Wow. How did that come about? I don't know. Thankfully, I was not aware of this at the time. I was just a tiny child. And I knew, I didn't know any of this. But I guess just proximity, they worked together for like five or six decades. And she was married to. And it just, I guess it was a, it was a matter of convenience, whether or not he had other affairs. I wouldn't be surprised. Because this is a guy who walked around. with a picture, a wallet-sized picture in his wallet, of a half-naked woman, which he would pull out and show to me once in a while, which I found mortifying because I was 10, and he found hysterical. So, you know, he was, he was not a, he was not a good guy. It's fascinating. So I wanted to ask you, too, about, well, we have another clip here that we want to play, and I want to get your feedback. Because I wondered if this was, it's the aspirin clip.

And I wondered if this was based on family law that you take a lot of aspirin. Because some families have weird medical traditions. Let's play the clip. I love bear aspirin. I take an aspirin a day. I don't know if it works, but psychologically, I need it. Is that something that your family did? I mean, actually, my grandmother always used to take an aspirin.

My maternal grandmother used to take an aspirin a day and told me I would when I was older. And I'm like, yeah, probably not. But what did you think when you heard that? I think psychologically, he really does need something, but probably not bare aspirin. It also makes me think that he owns stock in bear aspirin because now that stock is going to go up. But no, as far as I'm aware, there's no family lore about taking an aspirin. Although, from what I understand, I think it is. it is protocol for people who need a blood thinner or something?

Yeah, I think the issue is he takes four times the recommended dose because he wants thin blood going through his heart. That's what he explains it as. But I wasn't sure if there was an anxiety in the Trump family that the blood was particularly thick or... Well, I think, I mean, something's thick, but it's not his blood necessarily. But I think what he's doing is similar to what he does when he brags. about his cognitive tests, right? He's signaling that he's concerned and he's signaling that there

are problems. Nobody in that White House is going to tell the truth about his health, but we know it isn't good. We know that he has serious cognitive issues. And he on some level knows it too, because he talks about these things in ways that with a normal person would be a cause for concern. If a doctor told me that I needed to take a basic cognitive assessment four times, I would think, oh, that must mean something's wrong because that's always what that means. Or they want to screen out for, they want to screen you for potential problems. Same thing. You don't take four times a recommended dose. For example, you don't take aspirin if there's an issue, right? I mean, unless it's preventive, I don't know. But if you don't think four times that amount, if everything's fine. And you certainly don't ramble on and on about it.

One, because it's not interesting. And two, you're telling people that there's a problem. And his goal is to make sure that people don't think there are any problems. So he's completely failing to do that in the way he used to be able to. That's fascinating. There's another, I think, projection that's going on here. Today we read that he was obsessed about the New York Times usage of pictures of his Dural golf club, that he thought that they'd been using pictures that deliberately showed it looking in a decrepit state,

that there was flaking paint, that it wasn't pristine and white, which is what he says it is. And I wondered also if that was some kind of projection. What's your take on that? Oh, gosh, yes, absolutely. decrepit pain flaking. I mean, it sounds like he's looking in the mirror when he says these things. And I think it's also because the things are finally starting to stack up. And we've talked about this before.

One of the most infuriating things about him is that nothing, none of the crises, none of the horrors had ever been additive. It's like he does one terrible thing and then it gets forgotten when the next terrible thing on. It's like that doesn't happen for any other human except him. But now it's starting to stack up and he is losing control of the narrative. So when he

sees documentary evidence of a problem that he can't solve or he can't convince people doesn't exist, it does feel personal because it is.

So it's just another kind of way. It's another tell. It's another tell. And what is the tell you think? I mean, I guess it's sort of obvious, but I'm curious to get your point of view on his insistence on singling out CNN and MS now and Politico, refusing them access to the pool. What is, why them specifically?

and what is he trying to do there? I think that specifically them because they remain among the only corporate media outlets that present objective fact and don't, don't tow the line in the way that he has by, you know, allowing mergers and, and, uh, don't, um, don't tow the line in the way that he has by, you know, allowing mergers and, uh, dismantling regulations, has kind of manipulated CBS and all of these other outlets to be state-run media at this point. So I think he has a personal animus towards those two outlets. And it also just shows you how increasingly incapable he is of being presented with any objective facts that, clash with his delusions. I mean, these are the delusions. A guy who can say, if you tell me the polls

are bad for me, you're fake. We're talking about objective data here. These are just numbers. They can be, you know, they can be presented. And they can be analyzed, but they are numbers. So he can't even, He can handle that. He can handle being told that he said one thing about mail-in voting.

And now he's saying another thing about mail-in-voting. So these are the delusions of a guy who's so isolated within his own echo chamber that he cannot distinguish between reality and the stories he tells himself. And because the reality is clashing with what he needs to believe about himself, it is reality that has to be attacked. and people's belief in that reality has to be underbond. And can you talk a little bit about the settlement that was reached this summer between you and Donald Trump about his leaked tax records? Yes. First of all, I don't know why this was allowed to go on for four years because I have never had Donald Trump's taxes. The taxes he's referring to were I got access to the. them when I sued my family back in 2000 because I had been disinherited by my grandfather.

And then I found out, well, at the time, I was given the tax records my grandparents' taxes and the taxes of every single property my grandfather owned for purposes of assessing their value. I never had Donald Trump's tax records in my entire life. Why would I? He's my uncle. So that's what was the big. basis of, I mean, that was also because I was not, he said that writing my book,

broke an NDA and a few other things. So he sued me for $100 million. And after four years, he got a handwritten note that cost him about $500,000 a word. So, this was the handwritten note from you. Yes. So, yes, that's a good, that's a good detail. A handwritten note from me, which said very little. And I didn't apologize for anything. And I didn't take anything back. And that was the end of it. So that was his great victory after four years of suing me for $100 million, which, as you could imagine, was not the most pleasant thing to have to deal with. Well, and a waste of everybody's time, yours and his. But this is his standard. This is his standard operation. Well, I'm glad the case has come to an end. I mean, it must be very odd for you to, A, hear your uncle's name every day, but B, you know, it feels like it would be the fantasy to have one's uncle as president of the United States unless the president turns out to be Donald Trump.

Well, if you don't have any standards, yes, it would be awesome. Yeah, I have to be honest, I'm sort of used to it by now. It's been dealing with us for 10 years. And I don't even feel like I'm related to these people anymore because they are so beyond the pale. I feel no affinity with them, thankfully. And I used to have this theory, which I'm beginning to think is actually what happened. I think I was born under a rock. Well, Mary Trump, you've emerged from under that rock with your sense of humor intact. and a fascinating analysis of your uncle, which of course, your clinical psychology background gives you the training to articulate for us.

Thank you so much for joining us. And I hope you will come back the minute the midterms are resolved. And you can tell us how you think he's going to cope with the next couple of years. Absolutely, Joanna. Thank you so much. This is wonderful. Oh, there was so much about that conversation I really enjoyed, not least Mary. very dry sense of humour and her real her ability to articulate what's going on psychologically,

what her uncle finds triggering the family lineage, the strange psychological lock that that family had and the terrible story of her father just not fitting in and his father just openly despising him and thinking him a loser and of course his early death at a at 42. Anyway, we'll have Mary back after the midterms, but write and tell us your comments, as you know, we love your comments. I'd love to know what you think is most moving and what sort of triggered you from Mary's conversations about the president. So if you have been, thank you so much for joining us. Big thanks to our production team, Ryan Murray, John Romero, Rachel Passer, Heather Pesaro and Neil Rosenho.

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