Mary L. Trump describes the dynamics of the Trump family. The head of the family, Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr., was key to all damage inflicted on sons Donald and Fred Jr. Having the approval of their father was important for both sons – it was the key ingredient to molding them as they grew up. She describes Fred Trump Sr. as a sociopath, showing no emotion or empathy; his only concern was the Trump business and making money. Donald Trump is described as cruel, having no empathy for others at all, being totally transactional and whether he is a sociopath or not is irrelevant, because he behaves like one.
Fred Trump Jr., several years older than Donald, got all the attention because he was the oldest son and heir to the Trump empire. Mary Trump describes her father as being kind, generous, interested in the outdoors (fishing, sailing) and flying aircraft (seemed like a normal, likeable guy). He pursued his interests. He loved fishing, bought a boat and would often take his friends on trips. He joined the Air National Guard, became a pilot and eventually worked as a pilot for TWA, which is quite an accomplishment if you ask me! But his father saw these as distractions and often belittled Fred Jr’s activities and accomplishments if it didn’t involve the family business. This according to the author, led her father to drink. He eventually had to leave TWA because of his drinking and, because he could not meet Fred Trump Sr’s approval at the family business, Fred Jr was cast aside.
The next son in line, Donald Trump, stepped up and seeing the way his brother was treated made him determined to please his father and he also would criticize his brother. Donald praised and sucked up to his father and his father reciprocated – Donald could do not wrong. It’s as though the father ignored Donald’s failures as long as he was loyal to him and the business. Trump Sr continued to finance Donald’s business ideas, and when they failed, he went to the banks for Donald to help bail him out and financed him with more money. I’ve heard Donald in several interviews mention his brother’s alcohol abuse, as one reason he doesn’t touch alcohol – he never said, ‘You, know looking back over the years my father treated Fred badly, really badly, to be honest’, I never heard him say anything like that.
While Donald lived in luxury as his father’s chosen son, Mary and her family lived in an apartment within one of the buildings the family owned in Queens, which was not kept in the best shape. She describes the apartment not having enough heat and they were given a meager allowance by the family. When her father died in 1981, she was sixteen and Donald and his siblings became executors of Mary and her brother’s estate; they controlled how much money her family received.
During the later years of Fred Trump Sr’s life, he became senile and developed Alzheimer’s and after his death in 1999, Mary and her brother sued the family for their father’s inheritance. Donald and all his siblings were a united front and told them that they were entitled to nothing from Fred Jr’s estate because he died before his father, crazy. Even crazier, the Trump’s cancelled their health insurance in retaliation. The suit was settled in 2001, with the final amount not awarding them the share the father would have inherited if he had been alive when Fred Sr died – it did restore the health coverage.
Mary Trump says she did not know the amount that the estate was worth until recently while helping reporters from the New York Times gather information for a 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning expose on Donald Trump’s finances, when she took possession of all documents from her law suit that was settled in 2001. She has since filled another law suit. This is another reason she is believable – she is one of the sources of this Pulitzer Prize article!
Okay, if you’re wondering how Melania could be married to a man like Trump? Basically after reading the second Trump book – it’s birds of a feather, it’s transactional.
Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff writes that she and Melania were best friends for over 15 years and she knew what type of person Donald Trump was, but thought that Melania was not like him or the rest of the Trump family. Towards the end, after she was betrayed and thrown to the wolves, she decided that Melania was a Trump, just like the rest.
The author met Melania in 2003, when she was still Trump’s girlfriend. Melania had a meeting at Vogue that Trump had arranged. Wolkoff was working there at the time as founding Director of the Special Events Department. She describes Melania’s life before and after meeting Trump. Many opportunities became available to Melania when she met him. Trump literally made Melania’s image as a supermodel through his NY connections – this suited his need to have a ‘supermodel’ at his side, arm-candy. As Wolkoff says on page 26, “Before she met Donald, Melania was single, striving, with an uncertain future. Ten years later, she was polished, married, a Vogue cover model, a mother, and an American citizen. Ten years after that, she became First Lady of the United States.“
This dynamic was about the same in the friendship between these two women, with Melania continually asking Wolkoff to use her connections to help her – contacts to help her promote her jewelry line, yearly tickets to the Met Gala, recommendations for her son to attend school, as well as a letter to help Melania’s sister apply for a O-1 visa (for people with extraordinary ability or achievement).
Once elected as President, Melania again asked for Wolkoff’s help. Because of her contacts and expertise of producing high-end events, Melania asked Wolkoff to help plan the inauguration. With Wolkoff planning the event, Melania would be kept informed and have some control of the event, rather than Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. The Chairman of the Committee would be Tom Barrack, a real estate financier, loyal to Trump. Wolkoff would be his senior advisor. Rick Gates was Deputy Chairman of this Presidential Inauguration Committee (PIC). When Wolkoff asked how the finances of the PIC would work, Gates told her not to worry about it, he and Chairman Barrack would handle the finances.
The author describes the incompetence in planning and lack of accounting of spending funds – mind you these funds came from donors. Some entities, including the Trump International Hotel, were over paid and some weren’t paid at all. She also describes the self-serving, selfishness of Ivanka and Melania.
After the inauguration, Wolkoff became Melania’s senior advisor and acted as her Chief of Staff, until the position was filled. She continued working in this capacity as her top aid, handling the First Lady’s schedule and renovations of the East Wing of the White House without a contract, no salary.
Since August of 2017, Wolkoff was aware that Tom Barrack was preparing Form 990, a mandatory tax return filed with the IRS revealing expenses planning the inauguration. In October, 2017, Rick Gates the Co-Chair for the PIC and Paul Manafort were charged with money laundering and conspiracy against the US (12 charges) and by December 2017, From 990 still was not filed and Barrack called a meeting wanting a ‘narrative’ as to why Trump’s inauguration cost much more that Obama’s inauguration. Barrack as Chairman of the PIC approved and signed off on everything. Wolkoff claims she never saw any numbers, so why was he asking for a narrative?
By January 2018 another meeting was held concerning the Form 990 filing, they were having trouble because the numbers didn’t add up. This set up red flags for Wolkoff who had experience directing many an extravagant event – why wouldn’t the numbers add up? they also wanted to use Wolkoff as part of their press release to say they had hired the best, but Wolkoff grew suspicious of their intent – why use her name at all, and why did they need a ‘narrative’? Wolkoff expressed her concern to Melania several times – she told her not to worry, they would protect her and advised her to get a lawyer.
With the Form 990 officially filed in February 2018, the New York Times also printed an article naming Wolkoff as being the best friend of the First Lady that had been paid by the PIC – she was being made a scapegoat. The article also said the First Lady had no knowledge of how funds were spent. Melania would later send a letter addressed to Wolkoff and another staff member informing them that their and all gratuitous service contracts were terminated by the White House; this was also leaked to the press, mentioning only Wolkoff making it appear that Wolkoff had been fired. Things only got worse for Wolkoff.
In August 2018, Michael Cohen, Trump’s ex-attorney, called to inform Wolkoff that he had taped their conversation concerning her firing and the tape had been seized along with other evidence during a raid on his office by the FBI. Wolkoff later received a grand jury subpoena from the US Attorney’s Office in October 2018 with an order not to disclose this information. She continued to speak with Melania, taping their conversations, until communication between the two women stopped after January 2019. Wolkoff received two more subpoenas and cooperated with both. In January 2020, the DC Attorney General filed a complaint against the PIC and the Trump International Hotel for misuse of non-profit funds.
Wolkoff describes the differences between Melania and herself: she would never let a friend take the fall for her sake. Melania’s selfishness is deep to the point that it helps her keep distant, not giving a damn about anything or anyone – that way nothing affects her! As she and Michael Cohen have said, while she was a guest on his podcast, Mea Culpa, “a Trump, is a Trump, is a Trump”.