When Donald Trump started his first presidential run in 2015-16, I honestly didn’t know much about his family beyond his own coked-up demon seeds. Trump’s siblings, his extended family of nieces and nephews, they all have pretty weird relationships with Uncle Don, especially in the past decade. Mary Trump – Don’s niece – wrote a book ripping him to shreds. Now it’s Fred Trump III’s turn. Fred has written a book called All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way. Fred is Don’s nephew, he’s the son of Don’s younger brother Robert, and Fred is father to a son named William. William has special needs – a rare seizure disorder, the product of a KCNQ2 mutation. William has a lot of medical needs and Fred Trump has been able to use some of his family’s web of trust funds to pay for his son’s care and medical help. When Don was in the White House, Fred Trump went to see his uncle and he even went through proper channels and spoke to all of the right HHS people and brought in disability rights advocates and all of that. Now Fred is revealing what his uncle said to him about his son William, and about all people with disabilities. Excerpts from Fred’s book:
[In the White House, in May 2020]: The meeting I had assumed would be a quick handshake hello with Donald had turned into a 45-minute discussion in the Oval Office with all of us—Azar, Giroir, the advocates, and me. I never expected to be there so long. Donald seemed engaged, especially when several people in our group spoke about the heart-wrenching and expensive efforts they’d made to care for their profoundly disabled family members, who were constantly in and out of the hospital and living with complex arrays of challenges.
Donald was still Donald, of course. He bounced from subject to subject—disability to the stock market and back to disability. But promisingly, Donald seemed genuinely curious regarding the depth of medical needs across the U.S. and the individual challenges these families faced. He told the secretary and the assistant secretary to stay in touch with our group and to be supportive.
After I left the office, I was standing with the others near the side entrance to the West Wing when Donald’s assistant caught up with me. “Your uncle would like to see you,” she said. Azar was still in the Oval Office when I walked back in. “Hey, pal,” Donald said. “How’s everything going?”
“Good,” I said. “I appreciate your meeting with us.”
“Sure, happy to do it.”
He sounded interested and even concerned. I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.
“Those people . . . ” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”
I truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives. For Donald, I think it really was about the expenses, even though we were there to talk about efficiencies, smarter investments, and human dignity. I turned and walked away.
***
[After Robert Trump’s death in August 2020, the Trump family started giving Fred grief about how much money he was taking out of the family trust to care for his son William. Eric Trump told Fred to speak to Donald about it.]
Soon thereafter, I was up at Briarcliff Manor, home of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, N.Y. Donald happened to be there. He was talking with a group of people. I didn’t want to interrupt. I just said hi on my way through the clubhouse. I called him later that afternoon, and he answered. I got him up to speed on what Eric had told me. I said I’d heard the fund for William was running low, and unfortunately, the expenses certainly were not easing up as our son got older. In fact, with inflation and other pressures, the needs were greater than they’d been. “We’re getting some blowback from Maryanne and Elizabeth and Ann Marie. We may need your help with this. Eric wanted me to give you a call.”
Donald took a second as if he was thinking about the whole situation.
“I don’t know,” he finally said, letting out a sigh. “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”
[Excerpts from Fred Trump’s book, via Time Magazine]
Callous, disgusting, inhumane, vile. In other words, completely on brand for Donald Trump. I’ve been surprised, from time to time, by some of Trump’s statements and opinions, but the idea that he’s so profoundly ableist that he openly advocates for the death/murder of people with disabilities? That sounds exactly like him. The Trump/Vance ticket is really burning it all to the ground, aren’t they? In the recent days, the stories have all been: step-parents are real parents; women who are not mothers don’t have a stake in society; women with cats are horrible; people with disabilities should die; a Black and Indian-American woman who has won multiple elections is “DEI.”
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.