Mary L. Trump

Bill Barr has gutted the Justice Department. Mike Pompeo has gutted the State Department. We are in serious danger here.

Growing up, I never known anybody in my family actually to interact with a person of color.

My grandfather, I don't think was really, had real positive feelings towards anybody except perhaps Donald.

Donald's monstrosity is the manifestation of the very weakness within him that he's been running from his entire life. For him, there has never been any option but to be positive, to project strength, no matter how illusory, because doing anything else carries a death sentence; my father's short life is evidence of that.

I can't say there was a last straw because there have been so many straws, but certainly the horrors at the border, separating children from their parents, the torture, the kidnapping and the incarceration of them in cages was unthinkable, unbearable. When an opportunity presented itself to me to do something, I needed to take a leap.

You know, when my grandfather died, we were told that his estate was worth about $30 million. And it turns out it was closer to a billion. So that's hardly a rounding error.

My grandfather couldn't stand either one of my parents.

You know, I think it was very important that my grandmother be perceived a very particular way in terms of being charitable or generous. I don't think Donald cares about those two things necessarily. He has his own version of what he wants the world to see.

You know, my dad was a second lieutenant in the Air National Guard Reserve, and my grandfather wasn't particularly happy about the time it took away from the family business.

In Donald's mind, even acknowledging an inevitable threat would indicate weakness. Taking responsibility would open him up to blame. Being a hero - being good - is impossible for him.

Media failed to notice that not one member of Donald's family, apart from his children, his son-in-law and his current wife said a word of support of him during the entire campaign.

I had to take down Donald Trump.

The fact is, Donald's pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neurophysical tests that he'll never sit for.

Besides being driven around Manhattan by a chauffeur whose salary his father's company paid, in a Cadillac his father's company leased to 'scope out properties,' Donald's job description seems to have included lying about his 'accomplishments' and allegedly refusing to rent apartments to Black people.

The traits my grandfather came to value in Donald were the traits that were a result of my grandfather's maltreatment of Donald - the bullying, the tendency not to care about other people's feelings, the willingness to cheat, lie to get what he wanted. And eventually, my grandfather started to see a kindred spirit.

I blame my grandfather 100 percent for his oldest son's death. I don't think there's any ambiguity there.

Donald began to realize that there was nothing he could do wrong, so he stopped trying to do anything 'right.' He became bolder and more aggressive because he was rarely challenged or held to account by the only person in the world who mattered - his father.

This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be.

Donald saw his younger brother Robert as weaker and therefore enjoyed tormenting him. He repeatedly hid Robert's favorite toys, pretending he had no idea where they were.

I, along with everybody else, had bought into the myth of Donald being a self-made man and being a brilliant developer. I had no idea that none of that was true because everybody acted like it was true.