Former President Donald Trump's niece, psychologist Mary Trump, shredded her uncle in a new email blast analyzing exactly why she believes the criminal hush money trial which began this week is such a problem for him — not just legally, but emotionally.
"No doubt Donald feels as though he’s being singled out for extraordinary punishment, but that’s because he has so rarely been in a situation in which he has no control over either the narrative or the proceedings," she wrote. "Because this is a criminal trial, he will have virtually no say about anything that happens inside that courtroom and, indeed, over anything that happens to him if he steps outside the lines that Judge Merchan draws."
The key takeaway, she said, is that "Donald doesn’t handle it well when he feels like the walls are closing in on him. He freaks out — and acts out — when he feels thwarted because he so rarely ever has been. We’re looking at a very old and fairly complex psychology that goes back to his childhood. The crows finally coming home to roost when he’s in his late 70s is something that he’s not going to be able to manage."
Already, Trump was put in a uniquely awkward and humiliating spot on the second day of trial when he was forced to listen to and watch an endless stream of social media content critical of him, as part of the jury selection process.
And that's as nothing, Mary Trump noted, compared to the total lack of control he'll feel as the facts are laid out in a case that could land him a criminal conviction.
"We’re going to be seeing Donald Trump in a unique context for which he is totally unprepared," she wrote. "At a rally or at a press conference, he controls the room. He is determining the narrative, and any gaps or ramblings can be put down to the fact that he’s riffing or being extemporaneous or doing improv."
