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- Donald Trump’s estranged niece told Insider the failed coup leaves her uncle more desperate now.
- Mary Trump said the president is incapable of accepting a loss.
- She predicts that if Trump isn’t removed from office before his time runs out, he will grow increasingly unstable.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Mary Trump was in the middle of a therapy session on Cape Cod Wednesday when a mob of extremists obsessed with keeping her uncle in office breached the Capitol building.
It was about a half-hour into the response to the attempted coup when Trump, the president’s estranged niece, tuned in to the madness in real time.
“At one point it had that September 11 feeling for me,” Mary Trump told Insider Thursday.
“None of it’s surprising. Nobody should be surprised by any of this,” she said. “And that’s including the horrific not just lack of response, but apparently polite assistance, offered to this insurrectionist mob.”
Trump, a clinical physiologist, has been an outspoken critic of her uncle, and last year published a tell-all book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man.
She told Insider she hasn’t been in contact with anyone from Trump’s immediate family or orbit since the publication of the book.
However, she can imagine, based on his history of narcissism, that he is more desperate now than ever.
“Donald always thinks that it’s impossible for him to lose and that, no matter, what he will end up with the win, even if there are several hundred thousand asterisks after it,” the president’s niece said. “He’s increasingly made desperate by the fact that literally nothing seems to be working. There’s nobody to get him out of this.”
Trump said she’s not sure her uncle is mentally capable of recognizing that his time in the White House is truly coming to an end. If he does, though, he could be especially dangerous.
“This goes against everything that he’s ever experienced in his life, on top of which, of course, is that the worst thing in the universe he could be is a loser,” Mary Trump said.
Mary Trump said she thinks she’s been using the word “heartbreaking” too frequently since her uncle took office, but that it’s the most apt to describe how she feels about witnessing Wednesday’s chaos in the District of Columbia.
“It’s all heartbreaking, that’s just it, to see these enemies of democracy – these people who would like to see the end of America to keep a traitor like Donald in office illegally – casually walking our Capitol building and degrade everything it symbolizes,” she said.
Even after law enforcement regained control of the building, more than four hours after the siege began, some politicians still stood in opposition to the election.
“It’s the most egregious and appalling display of contempt for our Constitution that I’ve ever seen by people who were elected and swore to defend and protect that Constitution,” Mary Trump said.
She said the scene at the Capitol was made possible by the notion that America is a “horribly racist country” that doesn’t have a problem with domestic terrorism if the actors are white.
Still, as serious as the actions were, she worries the mob she said her uncle created was just a “shot over the bow.”
While she doesn’t have any insider information on plans for her uncle or his children after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, she knows he is incapable of accepting a loss.
“Of course, what happens when he no longer has the power and protection of the Oval Office? He’s in serious, serious trouble when January 20 rolls around,” she said.
“He’s going to be very busy dealing with indictments. He’s got at least three lawsuits that I know of, one of which is mine, that will require him being deposed,” she added. “And he also has the probability, I think, of having his enormous debt called in by banks that now don’t have any reason not to call in his debt.”
Mary Trump expects the president will attempt to pardon himself, and those around him, from any federal crimes, but that ultimately it won’t protect him from an inevitable life of difficulty.
“He can go ahead and do that, it will be a horrific thing to witness, just like everything else has been, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not going to get them out of state charges or pending lawsuits, or financial difficulties,” she said.
Before it even gets that far, though, Trump needs to be “impeached and removed from office immediately,” his niece told Insider.
“If that doesn’t happen, that is an abject failure of our system and it doesn’t bode well for our very fragile, wounded democracy,” she said.
Beyond that, though, if Donald Trump isn’t removed before his time in office runs out, he will grow increasingly unstable, she said.
Aides to the President said this week that he was so detached from reality during the siege they had given up trying to communicate with him during the crisis.
“If you’re paying attention right now, you should be both enraged and terrified,” Trump said. “It is exhausting, but necessary because when people aren’t paying attention, things like yesterday are allowed to happen.”
The White House didn’t immediately return Insider’s email seeking a response to Mary Trump’s thoughts on her uncle.
“We can’t put anything past Donald. He’s desperate, he’s terrified, he has absolutely no empathy, and he’s a nihilist,” the president’s niece added.
“I’m not entirely sure that it’s possible for him to recognize that he’s going down, because his narcissism runs so deep, but if he does get to that point, he will bring us all down with him.”
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