Maryanne Trump Barry bitterly criticized her brother, U.S. President Donald Trump, saying, “Donald’s out for Donald,” and seemed to affirm her niece Mary Trump’s past claims that he had a companion take his SATs to get into school.
The Washington Post initially got the already unreleased records and sound from Mary Trump, writer of an ongoing stunner book about the president and one of his most frank pundits. Mary Trump, who has said that Donald Trump is unsuitable to be president and has voiced help for his adversary Joe Biden, uncovered to the Post that she had subtly taped 15 hours of up close and personal discussions with Barry in 2018 and 2019.
In one of the conversations revealed by the Post, Trump’s sister called him “cruel.”
Among some of the more critical comments made by Barry was commenting on how her younger 74-year-old brother operated as president. “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said, according to the recording. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”
Barry, a retired federal appellate judge, the Post noted, has never spoken publicly about disagreements with President Donald Trump, but the audio seems to tell a different story of discord and a rift that began when she asked her brother for a favour in the 1980s, which she claims Trump has frequently used to try to take credit for her success.
Barry also said at one point to her niece, “It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel,” according to the audio scripts and recordings.
Perhaps the most revealing part of the newly released audio is a conversation Barry reportedly had with her niece on Nov. 1, 2018, that seems to be the impetus for the allegation that Trump paid someone to take his SATs, which was one of the most publicized allegations in Mary Trump’s book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man,” according to the Post.
Barry then replied, “SATs or whatever. . . . That’s what I believe,” before saying, “I even remember the name.” That person was Joe Shapiro,” Barry said.
The Post went on to note that Mary Trump has said it was not the Joe Shapiro that went to Penn with Donald, and that person has not surfaced.
Chris Bastardi, a spokesman for Mary Trump, told the Post that she began taping conversations in 2018 with her aunt after she claims that her relatives had lied about the value of the family estate two decades earlier during a legal battle over her inheritance, in which she claims she received far less than she expected.
Bastardi referred questions about Joe Shapiro, who allegedly took the exam for the President, to Maryanne Trump Barry and President Donald Trump.
Trump will have an opportunity to rebut that criticism and paint himself as equally beloved by his family, with his four adult children all slated to speak at the Republican National Convention this coming week. But that task is now complicated by the candid comments of an older sister who has known Trump all his life.
Barry’s view of her brother also lines up close to others who have known Trump well. A litany of former aides have also described Trump in similar terms — including the former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor and others.
Photo credit: Getty Images
News source: CNN
