Mary Trump’s new book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, makes a series of startling claims about her uncle, US President Donald Trump. Among the most striking allegations is that Trump cheated on his SATs to gain entry to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, a feat he has long boasted about.
According to Mary Trump, Donald worried his grades would not be good enough for Wharton, so he paid a friend, Joe Shapiro, to take the entrance exam in his place. She writes that this was easier to pull off before photo IDs and computerised records. She also claims Trump’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr, put in a good word for him, though she notes the university was less selective at the time.
The book also details Trump’s treatment of women. Mary Trump recounts that when she briefly worked as his ghostwriter, he compiled a list of women who had rejected him, including Madonna and skater Katarina Witt, calling them “the worst, ugliest and fattest slobs”. She also describes an incident at Mar-a-Lago in the 1990s when Trump commented on her figure, saying, “Holy shit, Mary. You’re stacked.”
Mary Trump reveals that she provided financial documents to the New York Times for its Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into Trump family tax schemes. She says she drove 19 boxes of records from a law firm to reporters, describing the handover as “the happiest I’d felt in months”. She also suggests her aunt, Maryanne Trump Barry, may have spoken to the paper, noting she “knew where the bodies were buried”.
Other revelations include a phone call in which Trump’s sister told him his presidency was “not that good”, and a 1998 meeting with Melania Knauss, whom Trump was then dating. Mary Trump’s uncle Robert allegedly said Melania stayed quiet not because of poor English but because she “knows what she’s there for”. The book also claims Trump falsely told Melania that Mary had dropped out of college and done drugs.
