# Trump's niece putting out a book **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 15, 2020, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692 "2020-06-15T11:38:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/101 "2020-07-14T17:30:45Z")
You do remember when he was defeated by an umbrella, right? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/102 "2020-07-14T17:33:04Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You do remember when he was defeated by an umbrella, right?- Hmmm… an umbrella… where’s that Russian interference when you need it? Rain. I’m talkin’ about rain. Wouldn’t want trump’s makeup to run. He needs a waterproof Russian umbrella. That’s the ticket! ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/103 "2020-07-14T17:50:53Z")
Damn even Neville Chamberlain could work an umbrella. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/104 "2020-07-14T17:51:16Z")
I also think its entirely possible that the event occurred more or less as described, but she mis-remembered which of Trump’s friends it was who took the test. Its very easy to make a mistake of that sort of detail after that long a time. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/105 "2020-07-14T18:03:51Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You do remember when he was defeated by an umbrella, right? Several times, actually. One random example: > **[Watch Trump Struggle and Fail to Control Unruly Umbrella as Metaphor for His...](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/watch-trump-struggle-and-fail-to-control-unruly-umbrella-as-metaphor-for-his-presidency.html)** > > The president ended up walking with his umbrella inside out after he was unable to make it right. Or this one (“it doesn’t fit through the door”): > **[Trump dumps umbrella at door of Air Force One](https://news.sky.com/video/trump-casually-discards-umbrella-at-door-11539093)** > > President Trump discarded his umbrella at the door of Air Force One, leaving one of his staff to eventually collapse it for him. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/106 "2020-07-14T19:08:18Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Um… which is it? She’s lying or she’s saying stuff we already know is true? Um… she’s lying about some stuff, telling the truth about some stuff and making a lot of speculation based on hearsay just like Uncle Don. She’s making money off of gullible Americans just like Uncle Don. She had a chance to make a difference four years ago. This stupid book isn’t going to move the needle at all. It will change no minds and it won’t get out the vote. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/107 "2020-07-14T19:08:59Z")
Yeah, these are the marks of someone who has never had to do anything for himself his entire life. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/108 "2020-07-14T19:09:28Z")
I don’t know if anyone would have bought it 4 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/109 "2020-07-14T19:22:14Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > When Donald was looking to transfer to Wharton after two years at Fordham, he realized that his grades wouldn’t help his case, so he decided that a good SAT score would be needed. I can’t see him being that crafty. An advisor – his old man, perhaps? – might have come up with that plan. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/110 "2020-07-14T19:26:43Z")
Some of the more colorful stories will make the rounds among some media. Perhaps some might even make it into the MAGAcult bubble. Doubt it will change any minds among the already brain dead MAGATS. Those on the fence might finally be convinced to stay home. Beyond the obvious money making motive for this book, I think, as with most things for or about Trump, this has an audience of ONE. To the extent this book contributes to Trump suffering a disabling aneurysm, a bleeding ulcer or even a case of flared hemorrhoids, I’m all for it. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/111 "2020-07-15T00:42:31Z")
All I know is that the book got a very favorable review in the Times. The same Times (though not the same reviewer) that really panned Bolton’s book. I have better things to do than read either one. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/112 "2020-07-15T00:52:33Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You do remember when he was defeated by an umbrella, right? I remember the Sky News episode. It was hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/113 "2020-07-15T17:28:17Z")
I’m nearly halfway through the book. I actually think it’s very well-written. It certainly appears to be far better written than some other recent books about Trump that I have read, such as Bob Woodward’s [book](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075RV48W3/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) that came out a couple of years ago. (As a comparison, the Woodward book seemed to be disjointed and unfocused, and just ended abruptly, looking like it was rushed to completion in effort to meet a publisher’s deadline. Worse, it was boring and a slog to read.) So far this new [book](https://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Never-Enough-Dangerous/dp/1982141468/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1594832492&refinements=p_27%3AMary+L.+Trump+Ph.D.&s=books&sr=1-1) has a consistent theme that tells a story and clearly explains the family dynamic that produced the “world’s most dangerous man.” I find the anecdotes eminently believable. Usually when reading tell-all books like this, I find myself frequently rolling my eyes…but that has not been the case this time. In the prologue, Mary Trump explains why she wrote the book and why she didn’t do so before. From what else I’ve read, I think that until recently she also felt constrained by the 2001 nondisclosure agreement that she had signed. It wasn’t until the extensive [NYT story](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html) came out (that she assisted with), that she realized that the agreement was based on fraudulent misrepresentations of her grandfather’s estate (Donald Trump’s father). As numerous reviewers have noted, the real villain in the story is Fred Trump (Donald Trump’s father). ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/114 "2020-07-16T12:53:01Z")
> **[How Americans Became Part of the Trump Family — The Atlantic](https://apple.news/AhkzABofUQYeOfSk4Ugn2RA)** > > The president’s dark emotional inheritance has become the nation’s. Great article here, which includes a review of the book as well: > [@](#): > > …With this psychographic reading of the president, Mary Trump is doing the work many other Americans have been: analyzing, decoding, explaining. She is, however, uniquely qualified for that effort. In addition to her membership in the Trump family, Mary Trump holds a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. (She also has a master’s degree in comparative literature: As political tell-alls go, her book is remarkably well written.) > [@](#): > > …In the process, the very thing the American Founders sought to avoid in the experiment they laid out—a public held captive by the whims of a fickle ruler—has come to pass, not in spite of the Constitution’s protections, but precisely [because of them](https://apple.news/AE8TdPfi3Txi8LuvCUW-YQQ). Mary Trump blames her grandfather and her grandmother for the rise of Donald Trump; she also blames the banks that, having vested interests in Trump’s self-mythology, financed him through bad investments and bankruptcies. She blames the media—the tabloids of the 1980s, the television shows of the early 2000s, the political press of 2016—that treated his lies as harmless entertainment. She blames all those who know what he is and still do nothing. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/115 "2020-07-16T13:03:10Z")
Somehow I lost a nested quote. The following quote from the book goes between the quotes above: > [@](#): > > “His pathologies have rendered him so simple-minded [that] it takes nothing more than repeating to him the things he says to and about himself dozens of times a day—he’s the smartest, the greatest, the best—to get him to do whatever they want, whether it’s … betraying allies, implementing economy-crushing tax cuts, or degrading every institution that’s contributed to the United States’s rise and the flourishing of liberal democracy.” ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/116 "2020-07-16T13:56:56Z")
Here’s another meaty quote from that article. > With this psychographic reading of the president, Mary Trump is doing the work many other Americans have been: analyzing, decoding, explaining. **She is, however, uniquely qualified for that effort. In addition to her membership in the Trump family, Mary Trump holds a doctoral degree in clinical psychology.** (She also has a master’s degree in comparative literature: As political tell-alls go, her book is remarkably well written.) The author’s assessment of her uncle is both hedged and blunt. “I have no problem,” she writes, “calling Donald a narcissist—he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders_ (DSM-5)—but the label gets us only so far.” She adds that Trump likely has dependent personality disorder, an undiagnosed learning disability (making it difficult for him to process and retain new information about the world), and sleep disorders (likely related to his habit of ingesting [some 12 Diet Cokes a day](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/12/12/trump-reportedly-drinks-12-cans-of-diet-coke-each-day-is-that-healthy/)), and that he is also, very possibly, a sociopath. My bold. She has the credentials and she knows the person. The latter was an early objection to labeling him as a narcissist. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/117 "2020-07-17T18:13:42Z")
Anyone see her on Rachel Maddow last night? (I don’t get regular TV.) ---
**Author:** ![carlb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carlb/32/5930_2.png) [@carlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlb)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/118 "2020-07-17T20:43:27Z")
I didn’t see the show, but I listened to the podcast version. I thought she came across very non-Trumpian; sober, thoughtful, and not terribly fame-hungry. I’m not going to claim she’s a saint or a hero, but I found her very credible. In discussing why she didn’t write the book sooner, she basically said (I’m paraphrasing a lot), “if things like the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape didn’t matter, my book wouldn’t matter. Enough people had to really experience his incompetence before they’d believe what I wrote.” ---
**Author:** ![anny\_m](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@anny\_m](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anny_m)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2020, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/119 "2020-07-17T21:52:19Z")
When you mentioned “umbrella” my first thought was of the umbrella that delivered a dose of ricin. I had to look up the unfortunate recipient (Georgi Markov), but part of me wondered where that kind of umbrella is because I wouldn’t shed a tear if someone used it on Individual One. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2020, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692/120 "2020-07-17T23:44:48Z")
> [@anny\_m](#): > > When you mentioned “umbrella” my first thought was of the umbrella that delivered a dose of ricin.- Who me? 😇 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-niece-putting-out-a-book/855692.md?page=7)