truthout--2020-08-06--Over 1,100 Policing Agencies in the U.S. Have Bought Drones Capable of Recording

In early June , Julie Weiner was at a Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Yonkers , New York , when she spotted a small drone in the sky , monitoring the protest .
Weiner , a long-time Yonkers resident , immediately asked her city councilperson , Shanae Williams , who had organized the rally , whether the drone was being operated by the Yonkers police .
Williams went over to talk to a group of police and returned to report that , yes , the drone belonged to the Yonkers Police Department .
“ That ’ s a problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Williams didn ’ t seem concerned and , according to Weiner , explained that it wasn ’ t an issue because anyone can own a drone .
Shortly after , Weiner , a licensed mental health counselor , former secretary of the Yonkers NAACP and a member of a local peace and justice group , sent an email to Yonkers Mayor Michael Spano , Police Commissioner John Mueller and City Council President Michael Khader , expressing concern that the Yonkers police drone surveillance that she had witnessed and photographed “ may be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and to be free from unwarranted searches or seizures.
” In response to the letter , Weiner was granted an interview with Commissioner Mueller to examine the pressures that are leading to growing national use of police drones and police surveillance .
According to Mueller , Yonkers police are not saving any drone video footage of protests ; it is not taking still shots of images of individuals captured on the videotapes .
Nor is Yonkers using facial recognition technology , which has been found to often be biased against people of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ footage to the FBI , the Department of Homeland Security the New York State Police or any other law enforcement agency only if any such request is made in writing on “ official letterhead ” and is determined to be legal by the City Corporation Counsel , Mueller said .
Meanwhile , Yonkers has drafted a policy for use of police drones that will be submitted for approval to the U.S. Justice Department under a 2016 oversight agreement .
There is no plan to hold public hearings on the policy before it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to put the policy to a vote by the Yonkers City Council .
“ Not that it couldn ’ t happen , but I don ’ t think there ’ s any mechanism in place for the council to review police policy.… One is the executive branch , and the other one is the legislative branch , ” Mueller said .
According to Mueller , Yonkers is going to buy police body cameras , but while a vendor has not been selected , he appears to favor the cameras produced by Axon Enterprise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which Mueller says controls 80 percent of the police body camera market .
Yonkers police also use Axon Tasers , which are equipped with video cameras to record each incident in which a Taser is used .
This video footage may be fed into a massive data collection , record-keeping and sorting system operated by Axon called Evidence.com , which in turn is hosted by Microsoft ’ s Azure , a mega-cloud computing system which serves military and federal customers as well as local police .
DJI , the maker of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foremost seller of drones used by police and is in partnership with Axon , meaning that police drone footage could be fed easily into Evidence.com if Mueller permitted it .
However , Yonkers police spokesperson Dean Politopoulos said that no video from Yonkers drones would enter Evidence.com .
At press time , Mueller did not respond to Truthout ’ s follow-up request to clarify whether video footage is being saved and entered into the Evidence.com system or any other such system .
The Yonkers case illustrates how local police can be swept up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into massive , unregulated computer cloud systems and artificial intelligence programs that present a threat of intensified police and military vigilantism , particularly to people of color .
The extent of police drone surveillance , as well as other police monitoring , is dramatically represented by the national map of The Atlas of Surveillance , launched on July 13 , 2020 , by the Electronic Frontier Foundation .
However , The Atlas gives an undercount of drone use and surveillance in general , because the authors of the study say their data is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and because all surveillance is simply not reported on .
“ Although we have amassed more than 5,000 datapoints in 3,000 jurisdictions , ” the report writers say , “ our research only reveals the tip of the iceberg and underlines the need for journalists and members of the public to continue demanding transparency from criminal justice agencies.
” For example , the Yonkers police drones are not noted in the report .
A March 2020 study by the Bard College Center for the Study of the Drone finds that at least 1,103 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have purchased drones and that there has been a dramatic increase in their use since 2014 .
The report says , however , that the number of police drones in use is likely higher because the study did not include “ agencies with undisclosed drone programs or federal agencies.
” Increasing pressure for police to engage in surveillance with Evidence.com ( and similar systems ) self-generates simply through the almost inevitable use of digitized police data and the adding of piece after piece of data-gathering gear .
Evidence.com is the foremost police data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stun guns , police body cameras and DJI drones , which all lead to subscribing to Evidence.com .
Use of Evidence.com , according to the investor ’ s guide Motley Fool can cost taxpayers up to $ 199 a month per officer , which includes “ a body camera , holster , cloud computer storage of records , records management , and more.
” “ Locking customers into the ecosystem with software packages is key to inducing them to add to the list of Axon products they use , ” the Motley Fool @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may start by buying Tasers [ as has Yonkers ] , then add body cameras , and eventually upgrade to the $ 199 do-it-all package .
But moving them up the revenue stack starts with bringing them into the system.
” If Yonkers bought the full Axon package for its roughly 600 police officers , the cost would be about $ 120,000 per month .
Once the police force ’ s data is stored in the system , the Motley Fool continues , and “ officers have been trained in its use , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to switch to a rival offering , which will mean that Axon will be able to raise prices more easily .
The company will be able to expand its offering from there , adding artificial intelligence capabilities to its software and products.
” Artificial intelligence ( AI ) offerings by Axon and other firms have included facial recognition , analysis of emotions , and other predictors of what specific individuals and groups are likely to do , called “ predictive policing.
” Writing in The Conversation , American University Professor of Law Andrew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these national security-style surveillance techniques — justified as cost-effective techniques that avoid human bias and error — has grown hand-in-hand with the increased militarization of law enforcement .
Extensive research , including my own , has shown that these expansive and powerful surveillance capabilities have exacerbated rather than reduced bias , overreach and abuse in policing , and they pose a growing threat to civil liberties.
” In 2018 , 42 organizations — including the ACLU , Color of Change and the NAACP — wrote to Axon ’ s ethics board , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recognition technology because of the proven bias of such technology against people of color .
In 2019 , the board issued a report supporting this call , and Axon stopped using this technology on its body cameras .
However , “ Axon ’ s decision to not put face matching software on its police body cameras doesn ’ t go as far as the board ’ s suggestions , ” The Verge reported .
“ The company ’ s blog post makes it clear that Axon will continue to research and pursue face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ de-bias algorithms in the future .
That implies that the company is still hoping it is a case of ‘ when ’ rather than ‘ if ’ it ’ s able to add the technology to its products.
” With the killing of George Floyd , as MIT Technology Review reports , Amazon said it will suspend police use of its facial recognition program for a year , but it did not make clear whether it would pause in selling the software to agencies other than police , such as U.S. Immigration and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security .
Microsoft said it would stop selling its facial recognition system to police until there is federal regulation of its use .
IBM said it would stop developing and selling facial recognition software .
But , other companies continue to provide facial recognition technology to police , according to a recent article in The Intercept .
“ Despite claims to the contrary , Microsoft is providing facial recognition services to law enforcement through partnerships and services to companies like Veritone and Genetec , and through its Domain Awareness System.
” With respect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ June 2020 , 1,500 mathematicians signed a letter to their colleagues , urging that they boycott work on predictive policing software .
“ Given the structural racism and brutality in U.S. policing , we do not believe that mathematicians should be collaborating with police departments in this manner , ” the signatories wrote .
Who Is Using the Data and for What Purpose ?
Another question about mass collection of data is whether and to what degree federal law enforcement and military entities may be using Evidence.com , openly or not , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other municipalities .
Further , is this information being used to develop lists of persons who will have predictive AI analysis applied to their lives ?
Ferguson points out that : This problem is further magnified by the fact that the contents of Axon ’ s Evidence.com is being handled by Microsoft ’ s massive Azure cloud storage system , which hosts , The Intercept reports , similar services for other police data management companies like Axon .
The Microsoft mass surveillance platform was initially built for the New York City Police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brazil and Singapore , The Intercept says , and “ Microsoft has partnered with scores of police surveillance vendors who run their products on a ‘ Government Cloud ’ supplied by the company ’ s Azure division and that is pushing platforms to wire police field operations , including drones , robots and other devices.
” On June 25 , in releasing a United Nations report that discussed the impact of surveillance technology on the rights of protesters , UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said , “ New technologies can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests , form networks and coalitions … thus driving social change .
But , as we have seen , they can be — and are being used to restrict and infringe on protesters ’ rights , to surveil and track them , and invade their privacy.
” Bachelet ’ s statement and the UN report are a fervent plea for regulations that are needed globally to “ avoid unlawful limitations on the right of peaceful assembly and related rights , ” including in the U.S .
The ACLU , in the same advisory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regulations in the U.S. , asserts that , “ A drone should be deployed by law enforcement only with a warrant , in an emergency , or when there are specific and articulable grounds to believe that the drone will collect evidence relating to a specific criminal act.
” At this point , since there is no U.S. federal law governing the use of drones for police surveillance , regulation of this surveillance is left to the states .
According to a 2019 report published by the University of Texas , 18 states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get a warrant before using drone surveillance , with varying types of exceptions .
New York has no such law .
While Yonkers will submit its drone policy for review by the Justice Department because it must do so under the aforementioned 2016 agreement , it is not clear what legal standards the Justice Department will apply .
In this situation , in which surveillance technology and data collection and analysis have far outpaced legislation , police and the federal government have ranged freely with high tech aerial surveillance , apparently without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. Border Patrol Reaper drones and other aerial surveillance , including military surveillance , flew over Minneapolis and other cities during recent Black Lives Matter protests .
In a particularly concerning incident , an Air Force intelligence-gathering airplane associated with the U.S. Special Operations Command was flown over the Portland , Oregon , area during the recent invasion there by federal agents .
According to The Drive , the plane appears to have been outfitted with powerful video cameras used for aerial surveillance and with antennae that enable transmission of video for long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plane was gathering intelligence on the protest and claimed that the mission was planned before the protests .
The Drive reported that other aerial surveillance of Portland protests was done by local and federal law enforcement agencies , apparently including a Customs and Border Protection-manned aircraft .
These flights were unannounced to the public , nor has their purpose been fully explained .
Additionally , we see in these surveillance flights the possibility , if not the probability , of the aforementioned comingling of police and military surveillance information on protesters .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police to gather information and target individuals comes in large part from the post 9/11 explosion of military surveillance data gathering and targeting technology , as documented by William Arkin .
This extraordinary surge has created what Arkin calls the “ Data Machine , ” which he describes as an extremely powerful entity in its own right that can drive decisions of its users .
Beyond the influence of big data , policies and admonitions against police drone surveillance are up against the reality of the deep , emotional sense of power that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the very act of watching a crowd of people through an eye in the sky .
From a height of 100 feet , the watcher may not only feel a sense of superiority and control but also a sense of separation and invulnerability .
And from this height , a crowd of fellow citizens may suddenly become “ other ” — people who must be monitored , controlled and , if necessary , repressed .
If this happens to police using a drone , the result can be tragic , whether the drone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The United States has used its drones and big data overseas without respect for national boundaries and commonly accepted standards of judicial process and human rights .
It is not hard to imagine that the introduction of this technology into domestic policing will enable tendencies toward official vigilantism at home , as it has abroad .
In Yonkers and elsewhere , the prohibition of police surveillance drones at protests may only be achieved in practice when we , like Weiner , act in our home towns to protect our First Amendment rights @

Despite assurances from police that data will not be shared, it’s hard to imagine that if it exists, it won’t be used.
In early June, Julie Weiner was at a Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Yonkers, New York, when she spotted a small drone in the sky, monitoring the protest. Weiner, a long-time Yonkers resident, immediately asked her city councilperson, Shanae Williams, who had organized the rally, whether the drone was being operated by the Yonkers police. Williams went over to talk to a group of police and returned to report that, yes, the drone belonged to the Yonkers Police Department.
“That’s a problem,” Weiner told Williams. But Williams didn’t seem concerned and, according to Weiner, explained that it wasn’t an issue because anyone can own a drone.
Shortly after, Weiner, a licensed mental health counselor, former secretary of the Yonkers NAACP and a member of a local peace and justice group, sent an email to Yonkers Mayor Michael Spano, Police Commissioner John Mueller and City Council President Michael Khader, expressing concern that the Yonkers police drone surveillance that she had witnessed and photographed “may be a violation of our rights freely to assemble, and to be free from unwarranted searches or seizures.”
In response to the letter, Weiner was granted an interview with Commissioner Mueller to examine the pressures that are leading to growing national use of police drones and police surveillance.
According to Mueller, Yonkers police are not saving any drone video footage of protests; it is not taking still shots of images of individuals captured on the videotapes. Nor is Yonkers using facial recognition technology, which has been found to often be biased against people of color.
Yonkers will supply drone video footage to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security the New York State Police or any other law enforcement agency only if any such request is made in writing on “official letterhead” and is determined to be legal by the City Corporation Counsel, Mueller said.
Meanwhile, Yonkers has drafted a policy for use of police drones that will be submitted for approval to the U.S. Justice Department under a 2016 oversight agreement. There is no plan to hold public hearings on the policy before it is submitted, nor is there a plan to put the policy to a vote by the Yonkers City Council. “Not that it couldn’t happen, but I don’t think there’s any mechanism in place for the council to review police policy.… One is the executive branch, and the other one is the legislative branch,” Mueller said.
Enter Big Data
According to Mueller, Yonkers is going to buy police body cameras, but while a vendor has not been selected, he appears to favor the cameras produced by Axon Enterprise Inc., formerly known as TASER International. Publicly available information indicates that Axon may control around 80 percent of the police body camera market. The Axon Press Team says this number is inflated.
Yonkers police also use Axon Tasers, which are equipped with video cameras to record each incident in which a Taser is used. This footage is now being held on a Yonkers Police Department server, but it may at some point be fed into a massive data collection, record-keeping and sorting system operated by Axon called Evidence.com, which in turn is hosted by Microsoft’s Azure, a mega-cloud computing system which serves military and federal customers as well as local police. (Note: Axon no longer produces Tasers equipped with their own cameras, but according to Fast Company, Axon sells Taser battery packs that can activate police body cams and dashboard cameras when the weapon is armed.)
DJI, the maker of the drones used in Yonkers, is the foremost seller of drones used by police and is in partnership with Axon, meaning that police drone footage could be fed easily into Evidence.com if Mueller permitted it. However, Yonkers police spokesperson Dean Politopoulos said that no video from Yonkers drones would enter Evidence.com. At press time, Mueller did not respond to Truthout’s follow-up request to clarify whether video footage is being saved and entered into the Evidence.com system or any other such system.
The Yonkers case illustrates how local police can be swept up in the surge of entering surveillance data into massive, unregulated computer cloud systems and artificial intelligence programs that present a threat of intensified police and military vigilantism, particularly to people of color.
The Pressure of Big Data
The extent of police drone surveillance, as well as other police monitoring, is dramatically represented by the national map of The Atlas of Surveillance, launched on July 13, 2020, by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. However, The Atlas gives an undercount of drone use and surveillance in general, because the authors of the study say their data is gathered from published reports and crowdsourcing, and because all surveillance is simply not reported on.
“Although we have amassed more than 5,000 datapoints in 3,000 jurisdictions,” the report writers say, “our research only reveals the tip of the iceberg and underlines the need for journalists and members of the public to continue demanding transparency from criminal justice agencies.” For example, the Yonkers police drones are not noted in the report.
A March 2020 study by the Bard College Center for the Study of the Drone finds that at least 1,103 law enforcement agencies across the United States have purchased drones and that there has been a dramatic increase in their use since 2014. The report says, however, that the number of police drones in use is likely higher because the study did not include “agencies with undisclosed drone programs or federal agencies.”
Increasing pressure for police to engage in surveillance with Evidence.com (and similar systems) self-generates simply through the almost inevitable use of digitized police data and the adding of piece after piece of data-gathering gear.
Evidence.com is the foremost police data platform because Axon leads in selling Taser stun guns, police body cameras and DJI drones, which all lead to subscribing to Evidence.com. Use of Evidence.com, according to the investor’s guide Motley Fool , can cost taxpayers up to $199 a month per officer, which includes “a body camera, holster, cloud computer storage of records, records management, and more.”
“Locking customers into the ecosystem with software packages is key to inducing them to add to the list of Axon products they use,” the Motley Fool reports. “A law enforcement agency may start by buying Tasers [as has Yonkers], then add body cameras, and eventually upgrade to the $199 do-it-all package. But moving them up the revenue stack starts with bringing them into the system.”
If Yonkers bought the full Axon package for its roughly 600 police officers, the cost would be about $120,000 per month.
Once the police force’s data is stored in the system, the Motley Fool continues, and “officers have been trained in its use, it’ll be painful and costly to switch to a rival offering, which will mean that Axon will be able to raise prices more easily. The company will be able to expand its offering from there, adding artificial intelligence capabilities to its software and products.”
Targeting With Big Data AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) offerings have included facial recognition, analysis of emotions, and other predictors of what specific individuals and groups are likely to do, called “predictive policing.”
Writing in The Conversation, American University Professor of Law Andrew Guthrie Ferguson says, “Police use of these national security-style surveillance techniques — justified as cost-effective techniques that avoid human bias and error — has grown hand-in-hand with the increased militarization of law enforcement. Extensive research, including my own, has shown that these expansive and powerful surveillance capabilities have exacerbated rather than reduced bias, overreach and abuse in policing, and they pose a growing threat to civil liberties.”
In 2018, 42 organizations — including the ACLU, Color of Change and the NAACP — wrote to Axon’s ethics board, asking that the company submit to forms of ethical review. They also asked that the company commit to categorically rejecting certain forms of data collection, primarily the real-time face recognition analysis of live video captured by body cameras. In 2019, the ethics board issued a report supporting the call with respect to body camera facial recognition, and Axon announced immediately that it would not begin incorporating “face matching” technology into its police body cameras.
The Axon’s ethics board’s report says that Axon makes a distinction between categories of technology using facial data. “Axon is conducting research and product development around face detection and face re-identification, although the latter has not yet been released in a product.” This work is being done to “facilitate the redaction of body camera footage so that the footage can be disclosed,” the report said. Face matching, the report notes, is using algorithms to “identify a particular face by matching it to one in a target database — this is what people most commonly mean when they refer to ‘face recognition’ technology.” Face matching is what the board vehemently objects to being put into play.
“The company’s blog post makes it clear that Axon will continue to research and pursue face matching technology, including an effort to de-bias algorithms in the future,” The Verge reported. “That implies that the company is still hoping it is a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ it’s able to add the technology to its products.”
With the killing of George Floyd, as MIT Technology Review reports, Amazon said it will suspend police use of its facial recognition program for a year, but it did not make clear whether it would pause in selling the software to agencies other than police, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security. Microsoft said it would stop selling its facial recognition system to police until there is federal regulation of its use. IBM said it would stop developing and selling facial recognition software.
But, other companies continue to provide facial recognition technology to police, according to a recent article in The Intercept. “Despite claims to the contrary, Microsoft is providing facial recognition services to law enforcement through partnerships and services to companies like Veritone and Genetec, and through its Domain Awareness System.”
With respect to “predictive policing,” in June 2020, 1,500 mathematicians signed a letter to their colleagues, urging that they boycott work on predictive policing software. “Given the structural racism and brutality in U.S. policing, we do not believe that mathematicians should be collaborating with police departments in this manner,” the signatories wrote.
Who Is Using the Data and for What Purpose?
Another question about mass collection of data is whether and to what degree federal law enforcement and military entities may be using Evidence.com, openly or not, to gain access to information generated in Yonkers and other municipalities. Further, is this information being used to develop lists of persons who will have predictive AI analysis applied to their lives? Ferguson points out that:
One of the natural limiting factors of first-generation big data policing technology was the fact that it remained siloed. Databases could not communicate with one another. Data could not be easily shared. That limiting factor has shrunk as more aggregated data systems have been developed within government and by private vendors.
This problem is further magnified by the fact that the contents of Axon’s Evidence.com is being handled by Microsoft’s massive Azure cloud storage system, which hosts, The Intercept reports, similar services for other police data management companies like Axon. The Microsoft mass surveillance platform was initially built for the New York City Police Department and later expanded to Atlanta, Brazil and Singapore, The Intercept says, and “Microsoft has partnered with scores of police surveillance vendors who run their products on a ‘Government Cloud’ supplied by the company’s Azure division and that is pushing platforms to wire police field operations, including drones, robots and other devices.”
Policy and Practice
On June 25, in releasing a United Nations report that discussed the impact of surveillance technology on the rights of protesters, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said, “New technologies can be used to mobilize and organize peaceful protests, form networks and coalitions … thus driving social change. But, as we have seen, they can be — and are being used to restrict and infringe on protesters’ rights, to surveil and track them, and invade their privacy.”
Bachelet’s statement and the UN report are a fervent plea for regulations that are needed globally to “avoid unlawful limitations on the right of peaceful assembly and related rights,” including in the U.S.
The ACLU, in the same advisory position as the UN with respect to regulations in the U.S., asserts that, “A drone should be deployed by law enforcement only with a warrant, in an emergency, or when there are specific and articulable grounds to believe that the drone will collect evidence relating to a specific criminal act.”
At this point, since there is no U.S. federal law governing the use of drones for police surveillance, regulation of this surveillance is left to the states. According to a 2019 report published by the University of Texas, 18 states have passed laws requiring law enforcement agencies to get a warrant before using drone surveillance, with varying types of exceptions.
New York has no such law. While Yonkers will submit its drone policy for review by the Justice Department because it must do so under the aforementioned 2016 agreement, it is not clear what legal standards the Justice Department will apply.
In this situation, in which surveillance technology and data collection and analysis have far outpaced legislation, police and the federal government have ranged freely with high tech aerial surveillance, apparently without any restraint or sense of accountability.
U.S. Border Patrol Reaper drones and other aerial surveillance, including military surveillance, flew over Minneapolis and other cities during recent Black Lives Matter protests.
In a particularly concerning incident, an Air Force intelligence-gathering airplane associated with the U.S. Special Operations Command was flown over the Portland, Oregon, area during the recent invasion there by federal agents. According to The Drive, the plane appears to have been outfitted with powerful video cameras used for aerial surveillance and with antennae that enable transmission of video for long distances. The Air Force denied the plane was gathering intelligence on the protest and claimed that the mission was planned before the protests.
The Drive reported that other aerial surveillance of Portland protests was done by local and federal law enforcement agencies, apparently including a Customs and Border Protection-manned aircraft.
These flights were unannounced to the public, nor has their purpose been fully explained.
Additionally, we see in these surveillance flights the possibility, if not the probability, of the aforementioned comingling of police and military surveillance information on protesters.
Drones, Big Data and Police Vigilantism
The tremendous growth in the technical capacity of police to gather information and target individuals comes in large part from the post 9/11 explosion of military surveillance data gathering and targeting technology, as documented by William Arkin.
This extraordinary surge has created what Arkin calls the “Data Machine,” which he describes as an extremely powerful entity in its own right that can drive decisions of its users.
Beyond the influence of big data, policies and admonitions against police drone surveillance are up against the reality of the deep, emotional sense of power that may be generated in any person by the very act of watching a crowd of people through an eye in the sky.
From a height of 100 feet, the watcher may not only feel a sense of superiority and control but also a sense of separation and invulnerability. And from this height, a crowd of fellow citizens may suddenly become “other” — people who must be monitored, controlled and, if necessary, repressed. If this happens to police using a drone, the result can be tragic, whether the drone is recording on video tape or not.
The United States has used its drones and big data overseas without respect for national boundaries and commonly accepted standards of judicial process and human rights. It is not hard to imagine that the introduction of this technology into domestic policing will enable tendencies toward official vigilantism at home, as it has abroad.
In Yonkers and elsewhere, the prohibition of police surveillance drones at protests may only be achieved in practice when we, like Weiner, act in our home towns to protect our First Amendment rights.
This article has been updated on August 13, 2020, to reflect that the Axon Press Team: disputes the figure of the company controlling around 80 percent of the police body camera market, saying this number is inflated; states that Axon no longer produces Tasers with built-in video cameras; and states that Axon has never marketed police body cameras involving facial recognition software, nor has it marketed predictive policing technology.
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truthout--2020-08-07--Book: Pentagon Officials Withheld Options From Trump for Fear He May Start a War

A new book by CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto details how several officials were reticent to provide President Donald Trump with military options out of fears he could have responded to international events by starting new wars .
The book by Sciutto , The Madman Theory : Trump Takes on the World , includes several interviews with former Trump administration officials who described how worried they were about the president ’ s unpredictability when it came to making foreign policy decisions .
In 2017 , for instance , when Trump was having a back-and-forth with North Korean leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hesitant to give Trump military-based response options out of fear that he might take a more aggressive approach , if one was offered to him , according to Joseph Yun , who served as Trump ’ s former representative for North Korea policy until 2018 .
“ We used to only think of Kim Jong Un as unpredictable .
Now we had Trump as unpredictable , ” Yun told Sciutto .
Officials were also worried about Trump being given military options when it came to dealing with Iran , other former officials said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that nation shooting down a United States surveillance drone in the Persian Gulf , Trump took the extreme measure of ordering a military strike against one of that nation ’ s military bases , but halted the operation moments before it was set to begin .
Mick Mulroy , the former deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East , told Sciutto that he had to try and explain what Trump ’ s next moves in the region would be to allies , and that he couldn ’ t readily do so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did not know what the President would be willing to do against Iran , ” he said .
“ It was possible he could make a decision that would lead to an escalation of the conflict , and that escalation could lead to war , so they needed to relay that to Iran so they realized not even his staff knew what would happen if they attacked another oil facility , for instance.
” When mortars landed near the U.S. Embassy in Iraq in September 2019 , officials from the Pentagon were flabbergasted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for military response options .
In Sciutto ’ s book , an unnamed former U.S. senior military official recounted a conference call between the White House and the Defense Department , with vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Paul Selva briefly muting the call to express confusion over what was being requested to those in the room with him .
“ He said , ‘ Is this a joke ?
They really want us to propose direct military action into Iran , against Iran , based on this ? '
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the call , Selva and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood , who was in the room during the call , let their colleagues know they wouldn ’ t craft any military options until directly ordered by the president to do so .
Trump ’ s unpredictable nature on foreign policy is no secret to most , but his policy choices tend to focus on how it can benefit himself more than how it will keep the country safe .
Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel , a Republican who served in that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was also interviewed by Sciutto about the stark differences in philosophy between the two administrations .
“ In all my years dealing with national security and intelligence and foreign policy I ’ ve never heard any senior military leaders express concern about a president ’ s decision-making , ” he said .
On the other hand , while serving as Defense Secretary , “ my Pentagon colleagues and I always knew that President Obama had studied the issues , was well informed and wanted our opinions and recommendations.
” Trump ’ s catastrophic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year , after he ordered the assassination of an Iranian general whom the administration accused of orchestrating attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq .
War was averted following the strike , but as tensions escalated , it wasn ’ t clear to the world , nor to military experts in the U.S. , what strategy Trump had in mind following the action .
According to polls at the time , a majority of Americans also felt less safe due to the president ’ s actions .

One official recounted how some were cautious with Trump “because any options you put out there, he could use them.”
A new book by CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto details how several officials were reticent to provide President Donald Trump with military options out of fears he could have responded to international events by starting new wars.
The book by Sciutto, The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the World, includes several interviews with former Trump administration officials who described how worried they were about the president’s unpredictability when it came to making foreign policy decisions.
In 2017, for instance, when Trump was having a back-and-forth with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the Pentagon was hesitant to give Trump military-based response options out of fear that he might take a more aggressive approach, if one was offered to him, according to Joseph Yun, who served as Trump’s former representative for North Korea policy until 2018.
“We used to only think of Kim Jong Un as unpredictable. Now we had Trump as unpredictable,” Yun told Sciutto.
Officials were also worried about Trump being given military options when it came to dealing with Iran, other former officials said. In 2019, in response to that nation shooting down a United States surveillance drone in the Persian Gulf, Trump took the extreme measure of ordering a military strike against one of that nation’s military bases, but halted the operation moments before it was set to begin.
Mick Mulroy, the former deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, told Sciutto that he had to try and explain what Trump’s next moves in the region would be to allies, and that he couldn’t readily do so.
“We told allies that we did not know what the President would be willing to do against Iran,” he said. “It was possible he could make a decision that would lead to an escalation of the conflict, and that escalation could lead to war, so they needed to relay that to Iran so they realized not even his staff knew what would happen if they attacked another oil facility, for instance.”
When mortars landed near the U.S. Embassy in Iraq in September 2019, officials from the Pentagon were flabbergasted when the White House made a request for military response options.
In Sciutto’s book, an unnamed former U.S. senior military official recounted a conference call between the White House and the Defense Department, with vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Paul Selva briefly muting the call to express confusion over what was being requested to those in the room with him.
“He said, ‘Is this a joke? They really want us to propose direct military action into Iran, against Iran, based on this?'” the former official said.
After the call, Selva and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood, who was in the room during the call, let their colleagues know they wouldn’t craft any military options until directly ordered by the president to do so.
Trump’s unpredictable nature on foreign policy is no secret to most, but his policy choices tend to focus on how it can benefit himself more than how it will keep the country safe.
Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served in that role under former President Barack Obama, was also interviewed by Sciutto about the stark differences in philosophy between the two administrations.
“In all my years dealing with national security and intelligence and foreign policy I’ve never heard any senior military leaders express concern about a president’s decision-making,” he said. On the other hand, while serving as Defense Secretary, “my Pentagon colleagues and I always knew that President Obama had studied the issues, was well informed and wanted our opinions and recommendations.”
Trump’s catastrophic foreign policy was on full display earlier this year, after he ordered the assassination of an Iranian general whom the administration accused of orchestrating attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
War was averted following the strike, but as tensions escalated, it wasn’t clear to the world, nor to military experts in the U.S., what strategy Trump had in mind following the action. According to polls at the time, a majority of Americans also felt less safe due to the president’s actions.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
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Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-08-07--US Has Lost 12,881,000 Jobs Since February. Lowest-Paid Workers Are Hit Hardest.

The July employment report showed the economy adding another 1,761,000 jobs in July .
This follows gains of 2,725,000 in May , and 4,791,000 in June , leaving the economy down 12,881,000 jobs from its February level .
The unemployment rate fell from 11.1 percent to 10.2 percent , while the employment to population ratio ( EPOP ) rose from 54.6 percent to 55.1 percent .
These gains likely overstate the true improvement from June , since the Bureau of Labor Statistics has largely fixed a misclassification problem that had caused unemployed workers to be counted as employed .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points from February , which translates into 15.6 million fewer people being employed .
While most sectors added jobs , the leisure and hospitality sector accounted for a hugely disproportionate share of the gains .
The 592,000 new jobs in the sector were 41.6 percent of the private sector job growth in the month .
This corresponds to hotels and restaurants reopening as state and local governments rolled back restrictions .
( It is important to remember that the pay period including July 12th is the reference point for this report , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of new restrictions imposed in the last three weeks . )
Even with this job gain , employment in the sector is still down by 4,340,000 , or 25.7 percent , from the February level .
It is worth noting that the loss of jobs in this low-paying sector does not appear to be due to being discouraged from working by generous unemployment benefits .
The average hourly wage for production workers in the sector fell by 0.2 percent in July .
It fell by 3.4 percent for production workers in retail , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Other sectors with large gains include retail ( 258,300 ) , health care ( 191,400 ) , and temporary employment ( 143,700 ) .
The government sector added 301,000 jobs with 215,100 of these being in local education .
This is primarily a seasonal adjustment issue , as teachers normally are laid off in July , but this year they were laid off with the shutdowns in March and April .
State and local employment is still down 1,170,000 from its February level .
Manufacturing added 26,000 jobs , and construction added @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now 5.8 percent below the February level .
Several sectors continue to lose jobs .
The publishing industry lost another 6,900 jobs , leaving employment 4.2 percent below year-ago levels .
The motion picture industry lost 4,200 jobs .
Employment is now 52.4 percent below year-ago levels .
Mining lost 7,000 jobs , and employment in the sector is now at its lowest level since August of 2005 .
One item worth noting is that the job losses in this downturn have been disproportionately among production and nonsupervisory workers .
While 11.4 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ February , just 3.6 percent of supervisory positions have disappeared .
The picture on the household side is consistent with those in the lowest paying jobs being hit hardest .
The EPOP for those without a high school degree is down 7.1 percentage points since February , while the employment rate for those with just a high school is down 6.8 percentage points .
By contrast , the EPOP for people with college degrees is down by 4.4 percentage points .
The EPOP for Black people is down 7.9 percentage points since February @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white people .
It ’ s down 8.8 percentage points for Hispanic people .
One encouraging item in the household survey is that most of the unemployed still expect to get their jobs back .
Of those counted as unemployed , 56.4 percent report that they are on temporary layoff .
That is down only slightly from 59.5 percent in June .
Many of these layoffs will not prove temporary , but there is more hope for those classified this way than for those who have simply lost their jobs .
On the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ report .
The economy was adding jobs in July , but this is not the sharp rebound we were seeing in June .
It would take us more than seven months at this pace of job growth to get back to the number of jobs we had in February , and it is almost certain that we will not be seeing comparable growth in the near future as the pandemic has forced rollbacks in openings .
It is also striking how the job loss is concentrated in the lowest paying sectors .
Another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 15,227,000 drop in employment since February , 4,383,000 of these were people who had been working part-time voluntarily .

The July employment report showed the economy adding another 1,761,000 jobs in July. This follows gains of 2,725,000 in May, and 4,791,000 in June, leaving the economy down 12,881,000 jobs from its February level.
The unemployment rate fell from 11.1 percent to 10.2 percent, while the employment to population ratio (EPOP) rose from 54.6 percent to 55.1 percent. These gains likely overstate the true improvement from June, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics has largely fixed a misclassification problem that had caused unemployed workers to be counted as employed. The EPOP is still down by 6.0 percentage points from February, which translates into 15.6 million fewer people being employed.
While most sectors added jobs, the leisure and hospitality sector accounted for a hugely disproportionate share of the gains. The 592,000 new jobs in the sector were 41.6 percent of the private sector job growth in the month. This corresponds to hotels and restaurants reopening as state and local governments rolled back restrictions. (It is important to remember that the pay period including July 12th is the reference point for this report, so it would not pick up the effect of new restrictions imposed in the last three weeks.) Even with this job gain, employment in the sector is still down by 4,340,000, or 25.7 percent, from the February level.
It is worth noting that the loss of jobs in this low-paying sector does not appear to be due to being discouraged from working by generous unemployment benefits. The average hourly wage for production workers in the sector fell by 0.2 percent in July. It fell by 3.4 percent for production workers in retail, and 0.4 percent for production workers overall.
Other sectors with large gains include retail (258,300), health care (191,400), and temporary employment (143,700). The government sector added 301,000 jobs with 215,100 of these being in local education. This is primarily a seasonal adjustment issue, as teachers normally are laid off in July, but this year they were laid off with the shutdowns in March and April. State and local employment is still down 1,170,000 from its February level. Manufacturing added 26,000 jobs, and construction added 20,000. Employment in both sectors is now 5.8 percent below the February level.
Several sectors continue to lose jobs. The publishing industry lost another 6,900 jobs, leaving employment 4.2 percent below year-ago levels. The motion picture industry lost 4,200 jobs. Employment is now 52.4 percent below year-ago levels. Mining lost 7,000 jobs, and employment in the sector is now at its lowest level since August of 2005.
One item worth noting is that the job losses in this downturn have been disproportionately among production and nonsupervisory workers. While 11.4 percent of production jobs have been lost since February, just 3.6 percent of supervisory positions have disappeared.
The picture on the household side is consistent with those in the lowest paying jobs being hit hardest. The EPOP for those without a high school degree is down 7.1 percentage points since February, while the employment rate for those with just a high school is down 6.8 percentage points. By contrast, the EPOP for people with college degrees is down by 4.4 percentage points.
The EPOP for Black people is down 7.9 percentage points since February, compared to 5.6 percentage points for white people. It’s down 8.8 percentage points for Hispanic people.
One encouraging item in the household survey is that most of the unemployed still expect to get their jobs back. Of those counted as unemployed, 56.4 percent report that they are on temporary layoff. That is down only slightly from 59.5 percent in June. Many of these layoffs will not prove temporary, but there is more hope for those classified this way than for those who have simply lost their jobs.
On the whole, this is a very mixed report. The economy was adding jobs in July, but this is not the sharp rebound we were seeing in June. It would take us more than seven months at this pace of job growth to get back to the number of jobs we had in February, and it is almost certain that we will not be seeing comparable growth in the near future as the pandemic has forced rollbacks in openings.
It is also striking how the job loss is concentrated in the lowest paying sectors. Another figure showing this concentration is that of the 15,227,000 drop in employment since February, 4,383,000 of these were people who had been working part-time voluntarily.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-08-07--Mary Trump on Her Uncle, President Trump, and Why He Must Be Ousted

“ In my family , being kind was considered being weak , ” says Mary Trump , President Trump ’ s niece , a clinical psychologist and author of Too Much and Never Enough : How My Family Created the World ’ s Most Dangerous Man .
We spend the hour with Mary Trump , discussing her book the president doesn ’ t want people to read , in which she describes his upbringing in a dysfunctional family that fostered his greed , cruelty and racist and sexist behaviors — which he is now inflicting on the world .
Mary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic , his long history of lies and misrepresentations , and the dangers of his reelection .
“ I believe that this country is on the knife ’ s edge , and I don ’ t want anybody going to cast their vote in November being able to claim that they just don ’ t know who they ’ re voting for , ” she says .
This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Today we spend the hour with the author of a book President Trump doesn ’ t want you to read .
Mary Trump is the niece of President Donald Trump , a clinical psychologist , author of Too Much and Never Enough : How My Family Created the World ’ s Most Dangerous Man .
She describes Donald Trump as a “ sociopath ” who grew up in a dysfunctional family that fostered his greed and cruelty , which he is now inflicting on the world .
Donald Trump ’ s younger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the book on behalf of the Trump family , saying it violated a confidentiality agreement .
But a New York judge ruled against him , the book was published in July , and Mary Trump was allowed to speak about it .
Too Much and Never Enough sold more copies in a week than Trump ’ s Art of the Deal did in 29 years .
Yes , Mary Trump ’ s book sold nearly 1 million copies in one day , the publication date .
In her book , Dr. Mary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out-of-control COVID-19 pandemic , the possibility of an economic depression , deepening social divides along political lines thanks to Donald ’ s penchant for division , and devastating uncertainty about our country ’ s future have created a perfect storm of catastrophes that no one is less equipped than my uncle to manage , ” she writes .
The U.S. coronavirus death toll now stands at 160,000 , by far the highest total in the world .
Some estimates say it could rise to 300,000 by the end of the year .
Dr. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joining us .
MARY TRUMP : Thank you .
It ’ s so great to be here .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , you have said that your uncle , President Trump , should face criminal charges for his response to the pandemic .
Explain .
MARY TRUMP : It ’ s hard at this point to give him any slack for not having acted .
You know , we now know what to do to mitigate the spread of this very infectious disease , and he ’ s not only not doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advocating against them still and continuing to claim that it ’ s just going to disappear , it ’ s still some kind of hoax , using the racist term “ China virus ” to get himself off the hook .
And with over 160,000 Americans dead and rising , how can we not assume that there ’ s some kind of culpability here ?
And , you know , he is able to make steps to fix this problem , and since he ’ s not doing it , that , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ AMY GOODMAN : So , you say so much in this book , give us a kind of deep background on the Trump family and Donald Trump himself , that we ’ ve ever read or seen .
If you can talk about why you wrote Too Much and Never Enough ?
MARY TRUMP : I wrote this book primarily to give people the kind of information they did not have access to in 2016 .
And there are reasons I wasn ’ t able to do that in 2016 , having to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing he did or said seemed to turn anybody off anyway , so I ’ m not entirely sure that my saying anything would matter .
So , in 2020 , there is such more at stake than there ever has been .
I believe that this country is on the knife ’ s edge , and I don ’ t want anybody going to cast their vote in November being able to claim that they just don ’ t know who they ’ re voting for .
AMY GOODMAN : So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re the daughter of Donald Trump ’ s older brother , Freddy Trump , who died at a young age .
Take us back to your family , as you talk about and quote , oh , Victor Hugo , of Les Misérables , talking about deep darkness .
I wanted to share that quote , if you want to talk a little about it .
AMY GOODMAN : The book opening with that quote that says , “ If the soul is left in darkness , sins will be committed .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ commits the sin , but the one who causes the darkness , ” the epigraph clearly a reference to what Fred Trump , your grandfather , you say , did to Donald Trump .
MARY TRUMP : Yeah , I chose that quote specifically for that reason , but also because I think it works in the present day .
You know , I think a lot of people in this country are purposely left in the dark and making bad decisions and self-defeating decisions because they are not given access to information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But as far as my grandfather , he was basically the only person in the family whose opinion mattered .
He had all of the power .
You know , it was a very patriarchal system I grew up in .
There was a lot of misogyny , so being a girl in that family was an automatic strike against you .
And my grandfather was the kind of man who believed in dynasty , in a way .
I mean , he wouldn ’ t have put it in those terms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had his real estate empire , and his oldest son and namesake , my father , was going to be his successor , and his empire was going to last in perpetuity .
Unfortunately for my father ’ s sake , he wasn ’ t the right kind of person in my grandfather ’ s eyes .
My grandfather needed somebody who was a killer , who was a tough guy , somebody who would win at all costs and was not weak in any way .
In my family , being kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mistakes and apologizing for them was equated with weakness , as well .
So , I don ’ t know exactly when it happened , but at some point , certainly , I would imagine by the time my dad was in college , my grandfather already knew that he was probably not going to cut it as his heir apparent .
So , Donald , who was seven-and-a-half years younger , learned from my grandfather ’ s psychological and emotional abuse of my dad .
And the message was , essentially , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” And since my grandfather ran my family as a zero-sum game , and there could only be one winner and everybody else was a loser , Donald was determined to win .
And he — in my grandfather ’ s eyes , at least — did and , you know , successfully auditioned as my dad ’ s replacement .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to ask you about a New York Times report , long ago , in 1927 , that your grandfather , Donald Trump ’ s father , Fred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Klux Klan riot in Queens , New York .
The article is subtitled “ Klan Assails Policemen.
” It reports that a thousand Klansmen and 100 policemen staged a free-for-all battle .
It lists Fred Trump , with his address , as one of seven men who were arrested and arraigned for the assault .
Charges against him were dropped .
New York Police Commissioner Warren is quoted in the article saying , “ The Klan not only wore gowns , but had hoods over their faces almost completely hiding their identity.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2015 by the website BoingBoing .
In a New York Times interview about the discovery , your uncle , Donald Trump , said , “ I saw that it was one little website that said it .
It never happened .
And they said there were no charges , no nothing .
It ’ s unfair to mention it , to be honest , because there were no charges .
They said there were charges against other people , but there were absolutely no charges , totally false , ” he said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that 2017 report in The New York Times .
Do you know about this , Mary Trump ?
Did you hear about it as you were growing up ?
MARY TRUMP : No , I didn ’ t , although my family wasn ’ t great at telling stories .
But , you know , unlike Donald , I don ’ t doubt the validity of the report .
It would be kind of a random thing to make up 60 years ago or 80 years ago , whenever it was .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you know , my family was quite anti-Semitic , along with other things — so the only thing that surprises me is that my grandfather would take time away from his business to go do anything , honestly .
But it wouldn ’ t surprise me that he shared the sentiments .
AMY GOODMAN : You say that Donald Trump and your family were anti-Semitic and were racist .
Can you give us examples , particularly of President Trump , as you knew him growing up ?
MARY TRUMP : You know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was just the way it was , honestly .
It was sort of the background .
You know , the terms were thrown about rather casually .
And , you know , I don ’ t want to suggest that like there was this sense of virulence in the household , but it was just language that was used , and it was a given .
So , I can ’ t think of any specific examples .
I mean , if I could , that would suggest that it didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
AMY GOODMAN : Did you ever hear Donald Trump , your uncle , use the N-word ?
MARY TRUMP : No , you know , I know that sounds awful to put it that way , but when you live in a family and you ’ re a kid — it ’ s not that I didn ’ t know it was wrong .
I did , because I lived a very different kind of experience growing up .
I lived in Jamaica , Queens , which was , you know , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I went to a school that was predominantly Jewish .
So , I didn ’ t understand the animus , but it wasn ’ t shocking , because it ’ s just the way it was .
This is how adults in my orbit spoke and behaved .
And now , of course , I — you know , I learned a long time ago that it wasn ’ t just something I disagreed with , but it was deeply wrong .
But , you know , I guess I say it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ underscore how casual and accepted it was .
AMY GOODMAN : So , I wanted to then go to the 1970s .
Your father was being sidelined in the Trump Organization , though it does sound like he very much didn ’ t want to really do that job .
He loved flying .
And I want to ask you about him in a minute .
But Donald Trump came to the fore very quickly , became president when , what , he was in his early twenties .
In 1973 , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against Donald Trump and the company for alleged racial discrimination at Trump housing developments in New York .
Again , the Justice Department suing personally Donald Trump , his father — your grandfather , Fred — and Trump management in order to obtain a settlement in which Trump and his father would promise not to discriminate .
It was settled like two years later , after Trump tried to countersue the Justice Department for $ 100 million for making false statements — allegations all dismissed by the court .
Can you , Mary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , what happened at that time ?
MARY TRUMP : Well , I was 8 , so I ’ m not entirely sure I would have been aware of it .
I do remember my dad was worried .
He wasn ’ t working for my grandfather ’ s company anymore , but I know at that time he was worried about this lawsuit .
And shortly before that , or a couple years before that , my grandfather had been involved with the Tomasellos , which allegedly had Mafia ties , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And I know my dad was worried about that , as well .
But he was outside of it , so I didn ’ t have any access into what was really going on until much later .
And so , I essentially know what other people know about what happened , and how bringing Roy Cohn into the mix kind of changed the course a little bit of where Donald was heading .
AMY GOODMAN : So , if you could talk about your family , going back in time as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — kind of family tree .
What ’ s interesting is , Donald Trump has continually said — not clear why — Fred Trump , his father , your grandfather , was born in Germany .
AMY GOODMAN : Now , your grandmother was .
But it wasn ’ t just a misstatement where he said it once and maybe meant his own grandfather .
He has continually said that his father was born in Germany .
Can you understand why ?
MARY TRUMP : It ’ s really fascinating , what Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it ’ s difficult , on occasion , to know if he ’ s doing it on purpose or not .
So , that confuses me .
He used to say that he was Swedish .
When asked what his ethnicity was , he would say Swedish , because , you know , the excuse given was that they worked with a lot of Jewish people , and they didn ’ t want to offend them by — he didn ’ t want to offend them by admitting to his German roots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so I ’ m not — he could have said Scottish .
So it ’ s never really clear why .
You know , he must know that his own father was born in the United States .
Maybe it — you know , my grandmother was born in Scotland .
She was an immigrant .
I honestly can ’ t tell you .
It ’ s very weird .
AMY GOODMAN : Right .
I meant to say your grandmother was — how did your grandmother come here from Scotland ?
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And then talk about that relationship shaping Donald , which we can then take to when you went to the White House — AMY GOODMAN : — and that picture missing , perhaps , from the White House — AMY GOODMAN : — of the family gallery , and that ’ s the picture of Donald Trump ’ s mother .
MARY TRUMP : That ’ s right , yeah .
My grandmother was the youngest of 10 , who grew up on a very tiny island off the northwest coast of Scotland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It was a very harsh place to live in the early 20th century .
It ’ s beautiful , but it must have been extremely difficult to live there all those years ago .
So she came to the United States to join two of her older sisters who were already here , and I think both of them were already married at the time to American men .
And I think she came in part because the male population on the Isle of Lewis had been decimated by World War I , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off the coast after — at the end of World War I .
So , she came as a domestic servant , I believe .
And she met my grandfather at a dance very shortly after she arrived .
And , you know , family lore says that my grandfather , who was living with his mother at the time , went home after the dance and told her that he had found the woman he was going to marry , and which he did , but it was five years later , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why it took so long .
But anyway , they got married and , very shortly , started having a family .
And my grandfather by that time was already very , very successful , and that never — you know , that trajectory never changed direction .
He got more successful and more wealthy every year .
But when Donald was two-and-a-half , my grandmother got very ill. By that point , all five of their children had already been born .
Maryanne was the oldest , then my dad , my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year and a half years later , Robert , who was 9 months old when my grandmother became ill. She was essentially absent for almost a year .
She had suffered very severe postpartum issues after my uncle Robert was born , that had gone undetected for so long that they were life-threatening .
And that was the first major experience that shaped Donald .
He experienced her absence as an abandonment .
And my grandfather , who was a straight-up sociopath , was incapable and unwilling to fulfill the caregiver role , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frightened at an extremely crucial developmental period .
So , you know , he was never able to make up the deficits that occurred at that time .
And I think my grandmother , even to the extent she got better , was never able to heal the rifts between them , because although clearly it wasn ’ t her fault that she got ill , she never really took responsibility for making it up to him and helping him heal that sense of abandonment .
And then , I think by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ academy at 13 , and my grandmother did absolutely nothing to prevent it , I think that was the final betrayal as far as he was concerned .
So , it wasn ’ t surprising to me , when I visited the White House in April 2017 , that the only picture he had on the sideboard behind the Resolute Desk was a picture of my grandfather , kind of at the height of his powers , and nobody else .
So , my aunt Maryanne pointed out to Donald that he should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the desk , too .
And he basically said , “ Yeah , yeah , that ’ s a great idea .
Somebody get me a picture of mom.
” And what I find very interesting is that the picture I ’ ve seen that he has on his desk is a picture of my grandmother before she had even met my grandfather , so it ’ s a picture of Donald ’ s mother before she was his mother .
AMY GOODMAN : You mentioned that Donald Trump went to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GOODMAN : Explain why he went there .
MARY TRUMP : In , I guess it would have been , you know , middle school , I guess , his behavior started to become increasingly belligerent and uncontrollable .
And it wasn ’ t just at home ; it was at school , as well .
He went to a small school in Forest Hills , which is actually the same school I attended when I was a kid .
And my grandfather was on the board of trustees at that school .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ hand , my grandfather found it annoying that his son was creating problems in a school that he was associated with , but he was also out of control in the house , as well .
My grandfather worked a lot .
He worked six days a week , many , many hours a day .
So my grandmother was the one who had to deal with the brunt of Donald ’ s disobedience and disrespect towards her .
So , at one point , somebody suggested to my grandfather that , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Academy would straighten Donald out .
And because at the time Donald wasn ’ t on my grandfather ’ s radar yet , because my father was still his primary focus , and because my grandmother actually would have been quite happy to have him out of the house , he was sent to New York Military Academy .
And it was really a punishment .
You know , it wasn ’ t like he was being sent to Choate or something .
AMY GOODMAN : So he comes back .
He goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then you make a very serious allegation in your book : You say that he paid another young man to take his SATs .
AMY GOODMAN : Explain what you know .
MARY TRUMP : You know , this is a story that ’ s known in my family .
I ’ ve been told this directly on numerous occasions .
And it was because Donald , you know , at that time — I mean , certainly , since the time he was 12 , probably , had a very inflated sense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t good enough .
You know , he felt he needed a degree commensurate with his hyperbolic self-regard , if you will .
So , he had heard of Wharton , which I guess already had a good reputation .
And while he was at Fordham , though , Maryanne did his homework for him .
And he also — AMY GOODMAN : And Maryanne is the retired federal judge from New Jersey .
MARY TRUMP : That ’ s right .
And she ’ s about nine years older .
So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was living at my grandparents ’ house , and Maryanne was living a few blocks away , already married with a child .
And also , he hadn ’ t — when he graduated from high school , he hadn ’ t been accepted into any college .
So , Fordham was an intermediate step for him , I guess .
But because he didn ’ t do his homework himself , you know , I don ’ t know that he had confidence that his grades were good enough to get into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just as a way to hedge his bets , he paid a boy in the neighborhood by the name Joe Shapiro , who was — I guess , had a reputation for being a good test taker , to take his SATs , which , as it turns out , wasn ’ t necessary , because , I guess , University of Pennsylvania had a very high acceptance rate at the time , and also my dad ’ s very good friend from St. Paul ’ s , which is where he went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ admissions department at the University of Pennsylvania , so Donald probably would have gotten in anyway .
AMY GOODMAN : He ’ s made a big deal of having gone to the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School .
It ’ s very important to him .
AMY GOODMAN : What did your father call Donald from a young age ?
AMY GOODMAN : From what ?
Like the age of 12 ?
MARY TRUMP : Yeah , which just goes to show how long this has been going on .
AMY GOODMAN : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constantly refers to the military , praising the military .
But you also write that Donald Trump and his first wife , Ivana , Ivana being the mother of Eric , Don Jr. and Ivanka — that Donald Trump and Ivana threatened to disown Donald Trump Jr. if he went into the military ?
MARY TRUMP : Yeah , yeah .
My uncle Rob told me that story a couple of times years ago .
And so , I don ’ t find it surprising , the way Donald speaks about the military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his mind , the power of the military and the honor of the military reflects on him , you know , since he ’ s in the Oval Office .
But he ’ s never demonstrated any use for it , or he ’ s never valued it before this .
You know , my dad was a second lieutenant in the National Guard .
Donald has never mentioned that .
He , as we all know , got five deferments .
He could have served his country , and chose over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I think whatever he has to say about the military now is because he thinks it reflects on him .
As we know , he refers to the generals in the United States military as his generals , which they most certainly are not .
AMY GOODMAN : Mary Trump is our guest for the hour .
She ’ s the niece of President Donald Trump .
She ’ s a clinical psychologist .
Her book has just come out , broken every record , in the first day of publication sold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called Too Much and Never Enough : How My Family Created the World ’ s Most Dangerous Man .
We ’ ll come back with Mary Trump in a minute .

“In my family, being kind was considered being weak,” says Mary Trump, President Trump’s niece, a clinical psychologist and author of Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. We spend the hour with Mary Trump, discussing her book the president doesn’t want people to read, in which she describes his upbringing in a dysfunctional family that fostered his greed, cruelty and racist and sexist behaviors — which he is now inflicting on the world. Mary Trump also discusses the president’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, his long history of lies and misrepresentations, and the dangers of his reelection. “I believe that this country is on the knife’s edge, and I don’t want anybody going to cast their vote in November being able to claim that they just don’t know who they’re voting for,” she says.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. Today we spend the hour with the author of a book President Trump doesn’t want you to read. Mary Trump is the niece of President Donald Trump, a clinical psychologist, author of Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. She describes Donald Trump as a “sociopath” who grew up in a dysfunctional family that fostered his greed and cruelty, which he is now inflicting on the world.
Donald Trump’s younger brother Robert attempted to block the sale of the book on behalf of the Trump family, saying it violated a confidentiality agreement. But a New York judge ruled against him, the book was published in July, and Mary Trump was allowed to speak about it. Too Much and Never Enough sold more copies in a week than Trump’s Art of the Deal did in 29 years. Yes, Mary Trump’s book sold nearly 1 million copies in one day, the publication date.
In her book, Dr. Mary Trump writes, quote, “The out-of-control COVID-19 pandemic, the possibility of an economic depression, deepening social divides along political lines thanks to Donald’s penchant for division, and devastating uncertainty about our country’s future have created a perfect storm of catastrophes that no one is less equipped than my uncle to manage,” she writes.
The U.S. coronavirus death toll now stands at 160,000, by far the highest total in the world. Some estimates say it could rise to 300,000 by the end of the year.
Dr. Mary Trump, thanks so much for joining us.
MARY TRUMP: Thank you. It’s so great to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, you have said that your uncle, President Trump, should face criminal charges for his response to the pandemic. Explain.
MARY TRUMP: It’s hard at this point to give him any slack for not having acted. You know, we now know what to do to mitigate the spread of this very infectious disease, and he’s not only not doing those things, he’s actively advocating against them still and continuing to claim that it’s just going to disappear, it’s still some kind of hoax, using the racist term “China virus” to get himself off the hook. And with over 160,000 Americans dead and rising, how can we not assume that there’s some kind of culpability here? And, you know, he is able to make steps to fix this problem, and since he’s not doing it, that, to me, also suggests criminal culpability.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you say so much in this book, give us a kind of deep background on the Trump family and Donald Trump himself, that we’ve ever read or seen. If you can talk about why you wrote Too Much and Never Enough?
MARY TRUMP: I wrote this book primarily to give people the kind of information they did not have access to in 2016. And there are reasons I wasn’t able to do that in 2016, having to do partially with, you know, nothing he did or said seemed to turn anybody off anyway, so I’m not entirely sure that my saying anything would matter. So, in 2020, there is such more at stake than there ever has been. I believe that this country is on the knife’s edge, and I don’t want anybody going to cast their vote in November being able to claim that they just don’t know who they’re voting for.
AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us about your family. You’re the daughter of Donald Trump’s older brother, Freddy Trump, who died at a young age. Take us back to your family, as you talk about and quote, oh, Victor Hugo, of Les Misérables, talking about deep darkness. I wanted to share that quote, if you want to talk a little about it.
MARY TRUMP: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: The book opening with that quote that says, “If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness,” the epigraph clearly a reference to what Fred Trump, your grandfather, you say, did to Donald Trump.
MARY TRUMP: Yeah, I chose that quote specifically for that reason, but also because I think it works in the present day. You know, I think a lot of people in this country are purposely left in the dark and making bad decisions and self-defeating decisions because they are not given access to information that would help them make better choices.
But as far as my grandfather, he was basically the only person in the family whose opinion mattered. He had all of the power. You know, it was a very patriarchal system I grew up in. There was a lot of misogyny, so being a girl in that family was an automatic strike against you.
And my grandfather was the kind of man who believed in dynasty, in a way. I mean, he wouldn’t have put it in those terms, but, you know, he had his real estate empire, and his oldest son and namesake, my father, was going to be his successor, and his empire was going to last in perpetuity. Unfortunately for my father’s sake, he wasn’t the right kind of person in my grandfather’s eyes. My grandfather needed somebody who was a killer, who was a tough guy, somebody who would win at all costs and was not weak in any way. In my family, being kind was considered being weak. Admitting your mistakes and apologizing for them was equated with weakness, as well. So, I don’t know exactly when it happened, but at some point, certainly, I would imagine by the time my dad was in college, my grandfather already knew that he was probably not going to cut it as his heir apparent.
So, Donald, who was seven-and-a-half years younger, learned from my grandfather’s psychological and emotional abuse of my dad. And the message was, essentially, “Don’t be like Freddy.” And since my grandfather ran my family as a zero-sum game, and there could only be one winner and everybody else was a loser, Donald was determined to win. And he — in my grandfather’s eyes, at least — did and, you know, successfully auditioned as my dad’s replacement.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about a New York Times report, long ago, in 1927, that your grandfather, Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump, was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan riot in Queens, New York. The article is subtitled “Klan Assails Policemen.” It reports that a thousand Klansmen and 100 policemen staged a free-for-all battle. It lists Fred Trump, with his address, as one of seven men who were arrested and arraigned for the assault. Charges against him were dropped. New York Police Commissioner Warren is quoted in the article saying, “The Klan not only wore gowns, but had hoods over their faces almost completely hiding their identity.” The report was found and published in 2015 by the website BoingBoing.
In a New York Times interview about the discovery, your uncle, Donald Trump, said, “I saw that it was one little website that said it. It never happened. And they said there were no charges, no nothing. It’s unfair to mention it, to be honest, because there were no charges. They said there were charges against other people, but there were absolutely no charges, totally false,” he said.
But we’re going back to that 2017 report in The New York Times. Do you know about this, Mary Trump? Did you hear about it as you were growing up?
MARY TRUMP: No, I didn’t, although my family wasn’t great at telling stories. But, you know, unlike Donald, I don’t doubt the validity of the report. It would be kind of a random thing to make up 60 years ago or 80 years ago, whenever it was. The only thing that surprises me, because, you know, my family was quite anti-Semitic, along with other things — so the only thing that surprises me is that my grandfather would take time away from his business to go do anything, honestly. But it wouldn’t surprise me that he shared the sentiments.
AMY GOODMAN: You say that Donald Trump and your family were anti-Semitic and were racist. Can you give us examples, particularly of President Trump, as you knew him growing up?
MARY TRUMP: You know, I can’t, because it was just the way it was, honestly. It was sort of the background. You know, the terms were thrown about rather casually. And, you know, I don’t want to suggest that like there was this sense of virulence in the household, but it was just language that was used, and it was a given. So, I can’t think of any specific examples. I mean, if I could, that would suggest that it didn’t happen very often, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: Did you ever hear Donald Trump, your uncle, use the N-word?
MARY TRUMP: Yeah, sure.
AMY GOODMAN: “Yeah, sure”?
MARY TRUMP: No, you know, I know that sounds awful to put it that way, but when you live in a family and you’re a kid — it’s not that I didn’t know it was wrong. I did, because I lived a very different kind of experience growing up. I lived in Jamaica, Queens, which was, you know, lower-class, working-class and predominantly African American. I went to a school that was predominantly Jewish. So, I didn’t understand the animus, but it wasn’t shocking, because it’s just the way it was. This is how adults in my orbit spoke and behaved. And now, of course, I — you know, I learned a long time ago that it wasn’t just something I disagreed with, but it was deeply wrong. But, you know, I guess I say it the way I say it just to underscore how casual and accepted it was.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to then go to the 1970s. Your father was being sidelined in the Trump Organization, though it does sound like he very much didn’t want to really do that job. He loved flying. And I want to ask you about him in a minute. But Donald Trump came to the fore very quickly, became president when, what, he was in his early twenties.
In 1973, the Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit against Donald Trump and the company for alleged racial discrimination at Trump housing developments in New York. Again, the Justice Department suing personally Donald Trump, his father — your grandfather, Fred — and Trump management in order to obtain a settlement in which Trump and his father would promise not to discriminate. It was settled like two years later, after Trump tried to countersue the Justice Department for $100 million for making false statements — allegations all dismissed by the court. Can you, Mary Trump, talk about what you understood, what happened at that time?
MARY TRUMP: Well, I was 8, so I’m not entirely sure I would have been aware of it. I do remember my dad was worried. He wasn’t working for my grandfather’s company anymore, but I know at that time he was worried about this lawsuit. And shortly before that, or a couple years before that, my grandfather had been involved with the Tomasellos, which allegedly had Mafia ties, that might have gotten my grandfather into trouble. And I know my dad was worried about that, as well. But he was outside of it, so I didn’t have any access into what was really going on until much later. And so, I essentially know what other people know about what happened, and how bringing Roy Cohn into the mix kind of changed the course a little bit of where Donald was heading.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you could talk about your family, going back in time as we backtrack? Give us a family — kind of family tree. What’s interesting is, Donald Trump has continually said — not clear why — Fred Trump, his father, your grandfather, was born in Germany.
MARY TRUMP: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, your grandmother was. But it wasn’t just a misstatement where he said it once and maybe meant his own grandfather. He has continually said that his father was born in Germany. Can you understand why?
MARY TRUMP: It’s really fascinating, what Donald gets wrong sometimes. And you know, it’s difficult, on occasion, to know if he’s doing it on purpose or not. So, that confuses me. He used to say that he was Swedish. When asked what his ethnicity was, he would say Swedish, because, you know, the excuse given was that they worked with a lot of Jewish people, and they didn’t want to offend them by — he didn’t want to offend them by admitting to his German roots. But my grandmother was Scottish, so I’m not — he could have said Scottish. So it’s never really clear why. You know, he must know that his own father was born in the United States. Maybe it — you know, my grandmother was born in Scotland. She was an immigrant. I honestly can’t tell you. It’s very weird.
AMY GOODMAN: Right. I meant to say your grandmother was — how did your grandmother come here from Scotland? And how did she meet your grandfather? And then talk about that relationship shaping Donald, which we can then take to when you went to the White House —
MARY TRUMP: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — and that picture missing, perhaps, from the White House —
MARY TRUMP: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — of the family gallery, and that’s the picture of Donald Trump’s mother.
MARY TRUMP: That’s right, yeah. My grandmother was the youngest of 10, who grew up on a very tiny island off the northwest coast of Scotland, not exactly a pleasant environment. It was a very harsh place to live in the early 20th century. It’s beautiful, but it must have been extremely difficult to live there all those years ago. So she came to the United States to join two of her older sisters who were already here, and I think both of them were already married at the time to American men. And I think she came in part because the male population on the Isle of Lewis had been decimated by World War I, the 1918 pandemic and a horrible shipwreck off the coast after — at the end of World War I.
So, she came as a domestic servant, I believe. And she met my grandfather at a dance very shortly after she arrived. And, you know, family lore says that my grandfather, who was living with his mother at the time, went home after the dance and told her that he had found the woman he was going to marry, and which he did, but it was five years later, which seemed — I never found out why it took so long. But anyway, they got married and, very shortly, started having a family. And my grandfather by that time was already very, very successful, and that never — you know, that trajectory never changed direction. He got more successful and more wealthy every year.
But when Donald was two-and-a-half, my grandmother got very ill. By that point, all five of their children had already been born. Maryanne was the oldest, then my dad, my aunt Elizabeth, Donald and, a year and a half years later, Robert, who was 9 months old when my grandmother became ill. She was essentially absent for almost a year. She had suffered very severe postpartum issues after my uncle Robert was born, that had gone undetected for so long that they were life-threatening.
And that was the first major experience that shaped Donald. He experienced her absence as an abandonment. And my grandfather, who was a straight-up sociopath, was incapable and unwilling to fulfill the caregiver role, so Donald was very lonely and very frightened at an extremely crucial developmental period. So, you know, he was never able to make up the deficits that occurred at that time. And I think my grandmother, even to the extent she got better, was never able to heal the rifts between them, because although clearly it wasn’t her fault that she got ill, she never really took responsibility for making it up to him and helping him heal that sense of abandonment. And then, I think by the time he was sent to the military academy at 13, and my grandmother did absolutely nothing to prevent it, I think that was the final betrayal as far as he was concerned.
So, it wasn’t surprising to me, when I visited the White House in April 2017, that the only picture he had on the sideboard behind the Resolute Desk was a picture of my grandfather, kind of at the height of his powers, and nobody else. So, my aunt Maryanne pointed out to Donald that he should maybe have a picture of their mother on the desk, too. And he basically said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s a great idea. Somebody get me a picture of mom.” And what I find very interesting is that the picture I’ve seen that he has on his desk is a picture of my grandmother before she had even met my grandfather, so it’s a picture of Donald’s mother before she was his mother.
AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned that Donald Trump went to a military academy for high school.
MARY TRUMP: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain why he went there.
MARY TRUMP: In, I guess it would have been, you know, middle school, I guess, his behavior started to become increasingly belligerent and uncontrollable. And it wasn’t just at home; it was at school, as well. He went to a small school in Forest Hills, which is actually the same school I attended when I was a kid. And my grandfather was on the board of trustees at that school. So I think, on the one hand, my grandfather found it annoying that his son was creating problems in a school that he was associated with, but he was also out of control in the house, as well. My grandfather worked a lot. He worked six days a week, many, many hours a day. So my grandmother was the one who had to deal with the brunt of Donald’s disobedience and disrespect towards her.
So, at one point, somebody suggested to my grandfather that, you know, maybe the New York Military Academy would straighten Donald out. And because at the time Donald wasn’t on my grandfather’s radar yet, because my father was still his primary focus, and because my grandmother actually would have been quite happy to have him out of the house, he was sent to New York Military Academy. And it was really a punishment. You know, it wasn’t like he was being sent to Choate or something.
AMY GOODMAN: So he comes back. He goes to Fordham, starts there. And then you make a very serious allegation in your book: You say that he paid another young man to take his SATs.
MARY TRUMP: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you know.
MARY TRUMP: You know, this is a story that’s known in my family. I’ve been told this directly on numerous occasions. And it was because Donald, you know, at that time — I mean, certainly, since the time he was 12, probably, had a very inflated sense of himself. And Fordham wasn’t good enough. You know, he felt he needed a degree commensurate with his hyperbolic self-regard, if you will. So, he had heard of Wharton, which I guess already had a good reputation. And while he was at Fordham, though, Maryanne did his homework for him. And he also —
AMY GOODMAN: And Maryanne is the retired federal judge from New Jersey.
MARY TRUMP: That’s right. And she’s about nine years older. So, when Donald was at Fordham, he was living at my grandparents’ house, and Maryanne was living a few blocks away, already married with a child. And also, he hadn’t — when he graduated from high school, he hadn’t been accepted into any college. So, Fordham was an intermediate step for him, I guess. But because he didn’t do his homework himself, you know, I don’t know that he had confidence that his grades were good enough to get into the University of Pennsylvania.
So, just as a way to hedge his bets, he paid a boy in the neighborhood by the name Joe Shapiro, who was — I guess, had a reputation for being a good test taker, to take his SATs, which, as it turns out, wasn’t necessary, because, I guess, University of Pennsylvania had a very high acceptance rate at the time, and also my dad’s very good friend from St. Paul’s, which is where he went to high school, worked in the admissions department at the University of Pennsylvania, so Donald probably would have gotten in anyway.
AMY GOODMAN: He’s made a big deal of having gone to the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School. It’s very important to him.
MARY TRUMP: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: What did your father call Donald from a young age?
MARY TRUMP: He called him “the Great I Am.”
AMY GOODMAN: From what? Like the age of 12?
MARY TRUMP: Yeah, which just goes to show how long this has been going on.
AMY GOODMAN: Clearly, President Trump cloaks himself, constantly refers to the military, praising the military. But you also write that Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana, Ivana being the mother of Eric, Don Jr. and Ivanka — that Donald Trump and Ivana threatened to disown Donald Trump Jr. if he went into the military?
MARY TRUMP: Yeah, yeah. My uncle Rob told me that story a couple of times years ago. And so, I don’t find it surprising, the way Donald speaks about the military now, simply because I believe, in his mind, the power of the military and the honor of the military reflects on him, you know, since he’s in the Oval Office. But he’s never demonstrated any use for it, or he’s never valued it before this. You know, my dad was a second lieutenant in the National Guard. Donald has never mentioned that. He, as we all know, got five deferments. He could have served his country, and chose over and over again not to. So, I think whatever he has to say about the military now is because he thinks it reflects on him. As we know, he refers to the generals in the United States military as his generals, which they most certainly are not.
AMY GOODMAN: Mary Trump is our guest for the hour. She’s the niece of President Donald Trump. She’s a clinical psychologist. Her book has just come out, broken every record, in the first day of publication sold a million copies. It’s called Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. We’ll come back with Mary Trump in a minute.
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