'Donald's' Mental Health Is 'Deteriorating' Even More Under Attacks, Says Mary Trump

Mary Papenfuss
·2-min read

Donald Trump’s psychologist niece said Friday that the drumbeat of damning information against the former president coming from the “compelling” Jan. 6 House select committee hearings is taking a painful toll on his already “deteriorating” mental health.

And he’s likely making everyone around him more miserable than ever because of it, Mary Trump told Daily Beast journalist Mollie Jong-Fast on “The New Abnormal” podcast.

“He is addicted to being at the center of attention. I’m sure he’s as riveted by these hearings as we are but in completely different ways,” Mary Trump said. “And for him to feel that the focus is shifting away from him or that he’s losing power will make things even worse because he won’t confront that and process it and deal with it ... and therefore worsen his situation.”

More than ever, his “temper, the out-of-control narcissism, must be just unspeakably difficult for people around him to deal with. Not that I have any compassion for any of them at this point,” she said. “But, yeah, it’s only going get worse from here.”

She said a statement this week from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chair of the select committee, that the former president tried to reach out to a witness in its investigation of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, is a sign of his desperation — an “enormous misstep”— because he doesn’t like to leave his “fingerprints” on such missions. He’s also “completely overestimating his power to manipulate people. I think that that ship has sailed,” Mary Trump added.

She said nothing shocks her any longer her about her uncle, even after listening to the revelations during the House committee’s televised hearings, which she called “must-watch TV” that’s “incredibly well-crafted.”

But what has surprised her is what she sees as his army of silent enablers.

“Probably the most glaring part of these hearings is how much the people around Donald knew, how long they knew it,” she told Jong-Fast. “Again, none of this should shock us. None of his behavior should shock us. None of his viciousness should shock us. But how long [his supporters} stayed silent, how long they protected him, knowing what they knew ... when there was an opportunity to do something, even after Jan. 6,” Trump said.

The “silence, the enabling, their continuing to admire him is so egregious and almost incomprehensible,” she said.

The full podcast is available below (Mary Trump’s segment begins around 37:00.):

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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