Mary Trump has changed her prediction about her uncle, Donald Trump, running for president again in 2024.
One of Trump’s most outspoken critics, his niece, has expressed skepticism about a comeback bid. But, as she told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday, two things now point to a possible run.
“I thought that (he wouldn’t run again) for a long time because he lost so badly to Joe Biden that I didn’t think that he’d ever want to put himself in a position of losing again,” said Mary Trump.
“And I think that would have been the case, if not for two things,” she continued.
Trump said her uncle “still seems to be getting away with everything, right?”
Second, the GOP “is trying to engineer a system in which the minority can come into power, because of all of these … voter suppression bills that are being passed in every single state,” she said.
“So, If they are successful in … rigging the system even more in their favor and Donald gets the message that if he runs, he can’t lose … then I’m not so sure and that’s pretty depressing,” she added.
She also predicts that Ivanka Trump may turn on her father, since she has “more to lose” from the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into her family’s business.
The Manhattan District Attorney charged the Trump Organization and its CFO Allen Weisselberg on Thursday with 15 felonies, including conspiracy, grand larceny, tax fraud, and fabricating business records, in connection with an alleged scheme at the Trump Organization to evade paying taxes on bonuses.
Mary Trump told Molly Jong-Fast of The Daily Beast in an episode of “The New Abnormal” podcast released Tuesday that it’s possible that Ivanka Trump, who served as executive vice president of the Trump Organization from 2005 to 2017, could provide prosecutors with evidence that could implicate her father.
“If there are two sets of books for Allen, there are two sets of books for other people. And I think we’re also going to find in these millions of pages of documents, there will be more evidence,” Mary Trump said.
“So, either they’re not solely going to be relying on Allen Weisselberg to flip because there’s documentary evidence of Donald’s direct wrongdoing, or there will be other people who will be more willing to flip than Allen, and I think among those might well indeed be my cousins,” she added.
Despite receiving a high-profile job as a senior White House counselor, Mary Trump projected that Ivanka is “far less likely to stay loyal” than Weisselberg.
“As counterintuitive as this might sound, I think Ivanka has, one, more to lose and, two, more to hang onto. Her husband’s family is legitimately very wealthy,” Mary Trump said, referring to Jared Kushner
Mary Trump, Donald Trump’s brother Fred’s daughter, has long been critical of her uncle, notably in her 2020 tell-all book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”
Donald Trump has not been charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, but he may have reason to be concerned.
“If you’re Trump and all your records are now in the hands of prosecutors and they’ve come back this quickly with an indictment against your company and your CFO, that’s going to make you pause and realize that if you’ve done anything illegal, there’s a very good chance these prosecutors will find it,” Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor stated.
The 15-count indictment against Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg contains indicators that Donald Trump’s children Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric may face charges in the future, according to an experienced prosecutor from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, who spoke on MSNBC on Friday afternoon.
Rebecca Roiphe spoke with host Chris Jansing on Ivanka Trump’s future, citing prior claims of compensation she earned as a consultant for the company while working as an executive, which might lead to her own indictment.
“Late last year the DA, his office, listed reports on tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees paid to an LLC set up for the three adult children, but those adult children were not mentioned in the indictment. Does that mean they’re in the clear? What do you read into that?” host Jansing asked.
“I don’t think it necessarily means they’re in the clear,” Roiphe replied. “There are certainly some allegations in the indictment that look very much like the public reporting on the consulting fees paid to Ivanka Trump.”
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“What the district attorney is planning to do with the [inaudible] in public — it’s a little bit hard to tell,” she continued. “But we can see at least they were included in similar allegations and were included in this charging document. It may be those are going to come or might not be. It’s hard to tell. I think standing alone, wouldn’t be enough to bring an indictment against Ivanka Trump. But if there are other criminal activities she’s been involved with, I don’t see why the DAs office wouldn’t charge her for that.”
In court, prosecutor Cyrus Vance, Jr., outlined a 15-year tax scam and said the accusations against Weisselberg involve 15 criminal counts, including defrauding the government, conspiracy, grand theft, and fabricating company documents.
