Mary Trump followed her cordial Wednesday night interview with Stephen Colbert with a Thursday morning appearance on The View. Thanks to Meghan McCain, this one had much sharper edges.
President Donald Trump’s niece spent the first few minutes of the interview answering questions about the revelations in her new best-selling book Too Much and Never Enough. But when it was McCain’s turn to speak, she was lightning quick to make the interview about herself.
“Look, I think I made it clear to your publishers, I don’t like books like this,” McCain told her. “I don’t like family tell-all books, especially when it comes to families with fame and power. They’re told from the one side, and often the subjects are villainized to the point that I don’t actually end up believing the stuff written. There have been books written about my family, which are complete and total garbage, told from a skewed perspective.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“At the end of the day, you get a really great paycheck out of it, but I don’t think it’s that legitimate,” she continued. “What do you say to people like me who think this is just a great way for you to get a paycheck right now?”
“Well, you’re entirely entitled to your opinion,” Mary Trump replied. But for anyone who has “read the book,” the author said, she hoped that “you see that I bring to the story my very deep experience within the family,” adding, “I’m not some stranger writing it. I’m his niece.”
McCain seized on the fact that Mary Trump has said she doesn’t have a close relationship with her much younger cousins, Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka. “I know in my family—and my family is clearly nothing like the Trumps—but the people who are close, are close,” she said. “I certainly have extended family who I don’t interact with, or certainly only interact with at funerals and things like that. So I don't think people like that would know the inner workings of my immediate family dynamic in the way that you present it.”
Mary Trump not only pushed back on the idea that she’s “extended family,” but then addressed McCain’s accusations about her “paycheck” directly.
“If I had wanted some measure of revenge, if I had wanted to cash in as you say,” she explained, “I would have done this 10 years ago when Donald was still a very public figure and I would not have been taking the risk that I’m taking. We’ve all seen how whistleblowers fare in this administration. So I would much have preferred not to do this, but I felt it was extremely important that the American people have all of the information they need in order to make an informed decision.”
Clearly not satisfied with that answer, McCain shot back, “But you weren’t concerned enough to not go to the White House and have dinner with him,” adding that it was “on the taxpayer dime” before returning once more to her lack of relationship with the president’s adult children.
“I’m not entirely sure where you are so focused on my cousins, who again are so much younger than I am,” Mary Trump replied. She called McCain’s accusation that she went to the White House on the taxpayer dime “quite absurd thing to say,” explaining that she visited early in Trump’s term for her aunt’s birthday celebration and “not to take advantage of Donald’s position.”
“I think to focus on these things is to take away from the actually important things I write about in the book,” she said.
Mary Trump stayed on the show for two more segments, but Meghan McCain seemed to have disappeared from The View. After the president’s niece left, McCain was back, but she had nothing else to say about her book.
