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Donald Trump with his sister Maryanne Trump Barry in 2008. File photo: AFP

What Trump’s sister said about US president in secret recordings

  • Audio was secretly recorded by Mary Trump, who recently released a tell-all book about Donald Trump
  • US president described as phoney and cruel by older sister Maryanne Trump Barry
Donald Trump

Take it from US President Donald Trump’s older sister: he lies, he’s cruel, he doesn’t read, he cheated his way into college, he only cares about his base.

In conversations secretly recorded by her niece in 2018 and 2019, Maryanne Trump Barry – a now-retired federal judge – comes across as aghast at her brother’s behaviour in the Oval Office.

“He has no principles. None. None,” she said in excerpts of her conversations with Mary Trump published Saturday night in The Washington Post.

Barry, 83, was appalled at “what they’re doing with kids at the border” with Mexico. As a federal appeal judge, Barry once rebuked an immigration judge for “bullying” an asylum seeker in his courtroom.

She guessed President Trump “hasn’t read my immigration opinions”.

“What has he read?” Mary Trump asks.

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“No. He doesn’t read,” Barry answered.

“All he wants to do is appeal to his base … And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this,” Barry said in a conversation the Post said was secretly recorded.

At another point, the Post reported, Barry said of her brother: “It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.”

Barry suggests in the conversations her brother, 74, was a poor student. “I did his homework for him,” she said.

Also, she said: “I drove him around New York City to try to get him into college”.

“He went to Fordham for one year (Trump actually was at Fordham University for two years) and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.”

Barry was also appalled at how her brother conducts his presidency.

The four wildest stories about Trump in new book ‘A Very Stable Genius’

“His goddam tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy s***.”

In response to the report’s publication, Trump said in a statement released by the White House: “Every day it’s something else, who cares”.

The recordings with Barry are not mentioned in Mary Trump’s recent book about her uncle, Too Much and Never Enough. Mary Trump has vowed to support Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: sister blasts Trump in secret tapes
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