Trump’s niece: I heard him use anti-Semitic and racist slurs
In interview to promote her book, Mary Trump says US president’s alleged use of such language shouldn’t ‘surprise anybody given how virulently racist he is’; White House denies it
US President Donald Trump’s niece said in an interview Friday that she’s heard him use anti-Semitic and racist slurs.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to promote her new book, Mary Trump was asked if she had ever heard her uncle use the N-word or any anti-Semitic terms.
“Oh yeah, of course I did,” she said. “I don’t think that should surprise anybody given how virulently racist he is today.”
She also said the use of such slurs was “perfectly commonplace” among older members of her family.
“I didn’t share their ideas about race and Judaism at all,” she said. “But you know, when you grow up with that being perfectly normal, you don’t think twice about it.”
The White House strongly denied Trump used anti-Semitic or racist language.
“A book of falsehoods, plain and simple. The president doesn’t use those words,” a spokesperson told MSNBC.
Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, also pushed back on the claims.
“Not once have I heard anything like that,” he told reporters.
The US president has also previously faced accusations of anti-Semitism and racism, which he has rejected.
Earlier this week, a judge lifted an order that had blocked Mary Trump from publicizing or distributing her new book, ruling that she’s free to talk about the highly critical book she wrote about her uncle over the objections of the president’s brother.
State Supreme Court Judge Hal B. Greenwald in Poughkeepsie, New York, rejected arguments by the brother, Robert Trump, that Mary Trump is blocked from talking about family members publicly by an agreement relatives made to settle the estate of her father after his death.
Mary Trump, a trained psychologist and Donald Trump’s only niece, wrote in the book that she had “no problem calling Donald a narcissist — he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”
The judge reversed orders he had issued temporarily blocking Mary Trump and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, from publishing or distributing a tell-all book about the president. An appeals judge had already lifted the order blocking Simon & Schuster.
The book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” was originally to be published at the end of July. The publisher announced last week it would be published Tuesday
On Thursday, Simon & Schuster announced the book had sold a company record 950,000 copies in combined print, digital and audio editions as of its date of sale.
