President Donald Trump’s niece thinks her uncle is behaving like a “wannabe mafia boss.”
Author and psychologist Mary L. Trump ripped into a White House post celebrating Presidents Day on Monday that featured a close-up portrait of Trump at the Resolute Desk, chin resting on the back of his hands, and was edited to resemble a Time magazine cover. Below it was the caption, “I was the hunted, and now I am the hunter.”
“Let’s leave aside the fact that by being ‘the hunted,’ Donald is referring to his having been legitimately investigated, indicted, and convicted for crimes he actually committed; and by referring to himself as ‘the hunter’ he is acknowledging that, because he is an aggrieved child not satisfied with having gotten away with all of those crimes, he is currently misusing the power of the presidency and the agencies he controls to go after those who investigated and prosecuted his crimes,” Mary Trump wrote on her Substack, The Good In Us.
Since returning to power, Donald Trump has sought revenge on those he regards as his political rivals, particularly those involved in legal processes against him during Joe Biden’s time in the White House. Chief among those on his list for retribution are Sen. Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former FBI Director James Comey.
“This is the message of a thug, a wannabe mafia boss,” Trump’s niece continued. “That is what it now sounds like to be ‘presidential.’ And it’s another reason to consider what it is we’re supposed to be celebrating today. I’ve often wondered why we have Presidents Day at all because we’ve had more terrible presidents than good ones, and we’ve had more mediocre ones than either of those.”
She then listed several presidents she didn’t advocate for before touching on the idea of respecting the office, regardless of who is in it. “I don’t think that applies anymore because the person currently inhabiting that office has spent over five years defiling it,” she said. “What, anymore, is there to respect?”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
His niece was not the only person appearing to trash Trump in print on Presidents Day.
The New York Times reported that his predecessor, George W. Bush, appeared to use the day to fire off some pointed words of his own. Writing in his new history project, In Pursuit, the former president said, “Our first president could have remained all-powerful, but twice he chose not to. In doing so, he set a standard for all presidents to live up to.”
Referring to some other non-Trumpian traits he added, “Few qualities have inspired me more than Washington’s humility,” he wrote. “Washington modeled what it means to put the good of the nation over self-interest and selfish ambition… he carried himself with dignity and self-restraint, honoring the office [of the president] without allowing to become invested with near-mythical powers.”
It was not a happy Presidents Day for Trump in many other ways, too, with protests outside Trump Tower in New York City.
He also found himself on the losing end of a ruling by U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, who invoked George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 to rule that a statue of nine people enslaved by George Washington be reinstated by the National Park Service at the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. Trump had previously ordered it to be taken down.
