Mary Trump.Photo: Mary L Trump/Twitter
Donald Trump’s estranged niece,Mary Trump, has joined the board of a political action committee dedicated to electing LGBTQ candidates to office.
Mary, 55, became a prominent critic of her uncle last year, speaking out against his policies and personality, urging Americans not to vote for him. She isseparately suingher aunt and uncle over an inheritance after her father’s death — reviving a decades-old fight over money among the Trumps.
She went public after she wrote a scathing memoir,Too Much and Never Enough, about her family and has continued to speak out about them in interviews since the November election.
Now, Mary is also officially a board member for LPAC, an organization that aims to boost LGBTQ women’s role in government. (Mary is gay, writing in her memoir that she was married to and then divorced from a woman with whom she raised a daughter, Avary.)
“She has become a leader among progressives across the country seeking more diversity in the halls of power and more equity and inclusion in all aspects of society,” the PACsays. “She leads with a unique perspective on the impact of these changes on the mental health of communities most in need.”
The Trump family at the Republican National Convention in August 2020.SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty
Other LPAC board members include executive director Lisa Turner, a former Obama administration appointee; former tennis star Rennae Stubbs; and Chicago Cubs executive Laura Ricketts — who, like Mary, is at the center of anotherhigh-profile political schismin her own family.
Ricketts, the LPAC board chair, says: “Mary Trump has demonstrated thought leadership, media and political savvy over the last year as she has stormed the country with her insights and opinions. We couldn’t be more excited to have her join us in building the power of our political action community and developing the next generation of LGBTQ women leaders.”
The political action committee has helped elect Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Kyrsten Sinema, as well as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot — all LGBTQ women in government.
MarytoldPolitico, who first reported her new role, that she took on the board position in part because of the damaging impact she feels her uncle had on the country in recent years.
“We came really close to losing our democracy,” she toldPolitico. “I may sound melodramatic but it happens to be true.”
Shereiteratedthat she doesn’t believe her uncle will run for office again and suggested instead that he has teased a 2024 run merely because he’s “grifting where he can off the people who will support him.”
Mary, who is writing a second memoir about her family calledThe Reckoning, also scoffed at the idea any of her cousins — includingIvanka Trump,Eric Trumpand Donald Trump Jr. — could run for office.
“I think we should all resent having to have that conversation,” she said.
Mary toldPoliticoshe hasn’t been in touch with members of her family since she released her tell-all, which the Trump White House denounced at the time as being filled with “falsehoods” after her uncle Robert Trump, who has since died, unsuccessfully sued to stop its release.
In her book, Mary claimed that the future president cheated on his SATs, neglected his brother Fred (her father) and was generally the product of intense dysfunction and abuse flowing from patriarch Fred Trump Sr.
“He can never escape the fact that he is and always will be a terrified little boy,” she wrote.
Last year, her uncle Robert lambasted the memoir: “Her attempt to sensationalize and mischaracterize our family relationship after all of these years for her own financial gain is both a travesty and injustice to the memory of my late brother, Fred, and our beloved parents.”
For his part, the former president said on Fox News that Mary “was not exactly a family favorite” and he called her memoir “so stupid and so vicious.”
Mary toldPoliticoit was a “mutual” decision to not speak with her family after the book was published: “Both sides are generally fine with not being in touch.”
source: people.com
