In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday night, Mary L. Trump, President Donald Trump’s niece, confirmed she has heard her uncle repeatedly use racist language, including the n-word and antisemitic slurs. According to Mary, who went on MSNBC to discuss her tell-all book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, Trump's language should come as no surprise considering his administration's political history and the president’s own track record of racist remarks.
During the highly-anticipated interview, Maddow specifically asked Mary if she had heard the president “use antisemitic slurs, or the n-word or other racist slurs or other sentiments like that,” to which Mary replied, “Oh, yeah, yeah, of course I did.” Mary added, “I don’t think that should surprise anybody given how virulently racist he is today.” When pressed again on whether Trump used these specific slurs, Mary replied “yes.”
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Despite repeatedly stating that he is "the least racist person there is anywhere in the world," President Trump has historically supported white supremacist causes and denounced Muslim, Native American, and Latinx communities, among others. During his run for office, Trump called for a ban on "all Muslims" coming to the U.S., eventually turning this into a loose policy at the end of 2017. That same year, he defended the white nationalists who organised the so-called Unite the Right rally and publicly attacked NFL protestors kneeling during the national anthem.
Even before he was president, Trump publicly pitched a version of The Apprentice that pitted “a team of successful African Americans versus a team of successful whites,” which spurred controversy over Trump's treatment of Black contestants. The president also played a large role in disseminating lies about former President Barack Obama not being born in the U.S., eventually demanding that Obama release his birth certificate.
And let's not forget his treatment of the Central Park Five, a group of Black and Latinx men who were wrongly convicted for raping a jogger in New York when they were teenagers. (Spoiler alert: Trump called to “Bring back the death penalty and bring back our police!” in response to allegations against them.
Trump's attacks have previously extended to the Jewish community, too. Although Trump's own daughter converted to Judaism before marrying her husband, Jared Kushner, the president has made a series of antisemitic comments over the past decade. In a 2015 forum, Trump told a room full of Jewish people that they buy off politicians — a trope which he frequently used to shame Jewish people who voted for Democrats. He also once tweeted a picture of Hillary Clinton on top of a pile of cash and a Star of David with the phrase “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!”
Trump historically failed to denounce neo-Nazis, and, just a few weeks ago, shared a video of Nazis screaming "white power." But fear not: in 2017 he assured everyone, "I am the least antisemitic person that you've ever seen in your entire life."
Although there's a rich history of the president's behaviour to back up Mary's stories, it's still jarring to hear a member of his own family confirm the President of the United States' casual use of the n-word, among other racist and offensive slurs against people of colour. The list of Trump's defamations of different communities of colour is too hard to recount in-full, but for now, Mary Trump's tell-all will likely fill in some of the blanks.