BEHIND THE MASK

Mary Trump Says Uncle Donald Was ‘in Pain and Afraid’ After His COVID Scare

Trump’s estranged niece said she noticed a familiar look in her uncle’s face after his hospitalization.

When Donald Trump ripped off his mask after returning to the White House from the hospital after his coronavirus scare, the world saw a clearly ill man who was trying to pretend he wasn’t struggling to breathe. But his estranged niece, Mary Trump, saw something different—a familiar look of fear that she previously saw in the face of her grandmother. “Doing his best Mussolini imitation, he took off his mask in a macho display of invulnerability,” Mary writes in an excerpt of her new book published by The Guardian. “He clenched his teeth and jutted out his jaw, just as my grandmother did when she was biting back anger or clamping down on her pain. In Donald, I saw the latter.” She goes on: “He was in pain, he was afraid, but he would never admit that to anybody—not even himself. Because, as always, the consequences of admitting vulnerability were much more frightening to him than being honest.” The excerpt is from Mary Trump’s upcoming title, The Reckoning.