A member of Donald Trump's family Saturday spilled some secrets that are said to embarrass the former president.
Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, recently explained how she knew that her uncle was lying when he claimed to know nothing about the Heritage Foundation's controversial Project 2025, which threatens to reshape the federal government and judiciary using the administration of the next conservative United States president.
On Saturday, however, she turned to a slightly different angle. Specifically, Mary Trump shared a personal family story that she said really gets under the former president's skin.
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The younger Trump told the story of being invited to the White House for a family birthday celebration in 2017, when her uncle was the newly minted commander-in-chief. She said it felt "weird" to attend the event and that she immediately regretted it. Nonetheless, she recalls, a relative brought up the time that Mary Trump's father, Freddy, "dumped the bowl of mashed potatoes on Donald's head because he wouldn't stop tormenting" her other uncle, Rob.
"Everybody in the family, my aunts, uncles, brother, cousins, knew that mashed potato story. We referred to it, in fact as 'the legendary mashed potato story.' We all laughed because, on the one hand, it was sort of an homage to my dad who'd been dead since I was 16. And it was a way for Maryanne to get under Donald's skin because Donald hated that story. He did not laugh. In fact, what he crossed his arms and pouted, and he didn't stop pouting until the subject had been changed," Mary Trump wrote. "What actually was the mashed potato story? It wasn't just that my dad had dumped a bowl of mashed potatoes on Donald's head. It was why he did and the aftermath."
Mary Trump went on to explain that, when Donald was around seven years old and, he was "tormenting his little brother, Robert, who was about five at the time and was also very frail, very skinny, very pale, and very thin skinned, figuratively, if not literally."
"In the midst of the fighting and yelling and sobbing, my grandmother started setting the table and bringing the food in from the kitchen. As things continued to escalate, my dad, in just a fit of frustration, did the only thing he could think of to do to make Donald stop: He picked up what must have been the quite massive bowl of mashed potatoes that my grandmother had just put on the table and he dumped it on Donald's head. Robert immediately went quiet and Donald was speechless," Mary Trump said. "And, probably worst of all for him, everybody, except Donald, of course, started laughing. They were laughing their heads off, and Donald knew they were laughing at him. It may have been the first time, at least consciously, that Donald felt that awful feeling of humiliation, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't laugh it off because, even then, he wasn’t capable of laughing at himself."
Mary Trump goes on to say this event is in some ways "the source of his grievance, the source of his always feeling that everything is against him and life is completely unfair."
"The bowl of masked potatoes ended Robert's suffering, at least that night, but it also set Donald’s into motion. It was the source of his terror of being humiliated. And he developed some very strong armor and defense mechanisms so he’d never feel that way again," she said. "We’ve seen how this plays out. It's a big part of why he's cruel to other people—he needs to get there before the other person has a chance. But it’s also his Achille’s heel. One of my fantasies is that, as we get closer to the election, we actually start counter-programming his rallies and have a massive group of people, equipped with large bowls of mashed potatoes, get inside his venue."
In conclusion, Mary Trump notes that it is "so easy to get under this guy's skin," and says she hopes people do it more.
"It doesn't take much, but I have yet to see anybody try. Let's hope that President Biden gets in another debate with Donald and really goes for the jugular, rhetorically speaking," she added. "Honestly, it’s as simple as a bowl of mashed potatoes."
