In Conversation with Steven Beschloss

21 June, 2026

[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

I sat down with the wonderful Steven Beschloss, and we discussed an array of issues, including Donald’s disastrous performance at the G7, algae as metaphor, and the ways in which people are beginning to talk about the lifespan of the Trump regime and whether Donald will even make it through the remainder of this term. We also talked about Juneteenth and what it should mean for all of us. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

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Steven Beschloss: As always, I’m extremely happy to be joined by Mary Trump, who is consistently an important, incisive, and astute observer of the world around us. It’s always a pleasure to talk with you, Mary, and today we have a great deal to discuss. There’s the news, some powerful metaphors, history, and your new political action committee.

But I think we should begin with Juneteenth, since today is June 19.

We should also acknowledge President Joe Biden, whose signature made Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021 after overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress.

The holiday commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and informed enslaved people that they had been freed under the Emancipation Proclamation, which had taken effect more than two years earlier.

I recently revisited a collection of slave narratives in which formerly enslaved people described what freedom meant to them. What struck me most was that many were offered the opportunity to remain where they had been enslaved with wages and housing, yet overwhelmingly they chose to leave.

They wanted to see freedom, feel freedom, and experience freedom for themselves.

At this moment in our history, it’s worth asking ourselves what freedom really means while recognizing that racial justice, social justice, and equality remain unfinished work in America.

Mary Trump: First of all, Steve, the feeling is mutual. I love talking with you, and your Substack is one of those essential reads that everybody should subscribe to.

Juneteenth carries particular resonance this year.

Too often white Americans treat it as though it is a holiday that doesn’t concern them, when in reality it should prompt all of us to think continually about our history and our present.

One reason newly freed people were able to begin building lives of their own was because Reconstruction provided certain protections. Those protections were squandered because Republicans in the North failed to ensure they endured, leading directly to the horrors of Jim Crow.

Now, in 2026, the corrupt, illegitimate supermajority on the Supreme Court is doing everything possible to return much of the American South to that era through partisan gerrymandering, racist gerrymandering, and allowing states to implement modern forms of poll taxes.

At the same time, we have a corrupt regime perfectly willing to provide reparations to traitors who attempted to overthrow our government while refusing to fully protect the civil rights of Black Americans. The Voting Rights Act, one of the most important achievements in American history, has been hollowed out primarily because of John Roberts.

Today should be a day to reflect on how much this country has done to make it difficult for Black Americans to thrive and to celebrate the endurance, bravery, and leadership of Black Americans who continue to show us the way, even while being overlooked by the very party that claims to champion them.

Steven Beschloss: The struggle has existed from the very beginning.

We celebrate the Declaration of Independence as an extraordinary statement of liberty and equality, yet at the very moment those ideals were written, half a million enslaved people lived in a nation of only two and a half million.

Princeton historian Eddie Glaude describes this as America’s double consciousness, the gap between who we claim to be and who we actually are.

That’s why Juneteenth matters. It reminds us not only what we’re fighting against, but what we’re fighting for.

Frederick Douglass captured this perfectly.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.

The work remains ahead of us.

Mary Trump: Absolutely.

One reason we’re confronting these horrors today is because white Americans have never fully acknowledged, let alone atoned for, the genocide committed against Native Americans or the kidnapping, enslavement, and torture of Africans over generations.

By refusing to acknowledge white privilege and the benefits it continues to provide, we also refuse to dismantle the systems that perpetuate inequality.

America has always presented itself one way while behaving another.

During World War II we rightly positioned ourselves as a beacon of democracy while much of the American South functioned as a closed fascist state.

How do those two realities coexist?

We need difficult conversations, and when Democrats return to power they must finally do the work that has never been done.

Juneteenth reminds us exactly what that work is.

Steven Beschloss: There’s another powerful symbol worth remembering.

People naturally focus on the Statue of Liberty’s torch, but if you look down at her feet, you’ll see broken shackles representing the abolition of slavery.

Liberty has always been connected to liberation.

Let me shift to the G7.

My description of your uncle was that he appeared bloated and wandering in a daze. He seemed genuinely out of it.

Did he look unusually diminished to you?

Mary Trump: I think this is simply the direction things are heading.

He may still have moments when he appears more coherent, but psychically he’s in a downward spiral.

He’s experiencing constant narcissistic injuries, and nothing terrifies Donald more than humiliation.

The problem for him is that nobody humiliates Donald more effectively than Donald humiliates himself.

The G7 came immediately after the sixty million dollar taxpayer funded spectacle at the People’s House.

Everything he’s doing now exists in service of protecting his fragile ego and trying to fill what I’ve long described as the black hole of need within him.

He woke up the next morning and discovered, once again, that none of it helped.

He’s still an empty, unloved man, and maintaining that illusion has become psychologically exhausting.

Combined with his cognitive, emotional, physical, and psychological decline, it’s becoming impossible to hide.

Steven Beschloss: One moment that stood out involved Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Donald claimed she begged him for a photograph.

She publicly responded by saying that was completely fabricated.

This is what Giorgia Meloni said:

I don’t know why the President of the United States behaves this way toward his allies. It is disappointing that he does not show the same determination toward the enemies of the West.

Mary Trump: Donald is projecting again.

He also claimed he felt sorry for her when, in reality, many of those leaders probably felt sorry for him because he cuts such a pathetic figure.

I’m certainly not defending Giorgia Meloni. She’s a fascist.

However, when somebody politically aligned with Donald publicly contradicts him, it carries more weight than criticism from Emmanuel Macron or Keir Starmer.

He simply cannot help himself.

His declining impulse control guarantees moments like these will become increasingly common.

Steven Beschloss: Another remarkable moment came when Donald entered the room declaring, “I am the boss,” prompting audible laughter.

It feels as though America’s allies have stopped pretending.

Mary Trump: I agree.

Capitulating to Donald has always been the wrong strategy.

Now they’re finding ways to manage him instead.

Inviting him to Versailles, surrounded by gold and grandeur, to sign what amounts to a surrender document was an extraordinarily clever move by Emmanuel Macron.

Steven Beschloss: The symbolism couldn’t have been more striking.

Versailles is where Germany signed the treaty after World War I, a moment of national humiliation that helped create the conditions leading to World War II.

Mary Trump: Emmanuel Macron understands history.

Donald does not.

Steven Beschloss: The criticism of the agreement has been unusually broad, even among Republicans.

It raises the possibility that the agreement itself may not survive.

Mary Trump: This is far from over.

The longer it continues, the worse it becomes for everyone, and responsibility rests squarely with Donald and his Republican enablers.

Congress had the authority to stop this through the War Powers Resolution and chose not to act.

As painful as it is to say, the more fractured the Republican Party becomes, the better the future prospects for this country.

Steven Beschloss: That brings us to the importance of 2026.

Mary Trump: Exactly.

The victories must be overwhelming and unmistakable.

Donald has to remain on the ballot politically, whether Republicans want him there or not.

Steven Beschloss: Accountability must follow.

Without investigations and consequences, democracy cannot recover.

Mary Trump: Accountability has to be central.

But we also need to reject nostalgia.

We should not aspire to return to where we were.

We need an entirely new vision of America, one that finally becomes the representative multicultural democracy so many of us have always imagined.

Steven Beschloss: Which brings us to your new PAC.

Tell us about Mary Trump's Transcend PAC

Mary Trump: The full name is Mary Trump’s Transcend PAC.

We launched it because this is our moment.

History shows that when things are darkest, opportunities for transformational change emerge.

We need candidates willing to work for the American people instead of corporations, candidates who understand public service, embrace accountability, support meaningful Supreme Court reform, eliminate the filibuster, and bring bold new ideas to government.

My wife, Ronda Cress, and I are currently vetting candidates and will announce our first endorsements in July.

We’re committed to directing as much money as possible toward candidates and causes while keeping overhead extremely low.

This is not a short term project.

We’re thinking beyond 2032 because the dangers we face are deep and enduring.

Even if someone can’t donate, we hope they’ll sign up for updates and follow our work.

Steven Beschloss: How many candidates do you expect to endorse initially?

Mary Trump: Between six and ten.

We’re looking at races up and down the ballot, from local offices to statewide contests and congressional seats.

We’re also evaluating where our support can have the greatest impact.

Sometimes a smaller race offers greater opportunity than a Senate campaign already raising enormous sums of money.

Most importantly, we’re focused on finding the right candidates.

Steven Beschloss: I noticed the priorities outlined on the website include government accountability, taxing billionaires, regulating big technology and artificial intelligence, real climate solutions, stronger civil rights protections, meaningful voting rights, institutional reform, higher wages, and rebuilding education, healthcare, housing, and infrastructure.

That’s an ambitious agenda.

Mary Trump: It is.

People are struggling, and they deserve to know why.

More importantly, they deserve to know that solutions exist.

The current system has been designed to make those solutions extraordinarily difficult to achieve.

That’s why we need new voices, new leadership, and a new vision.

Steven Beschloss: Let me end with what may be the perfect metaphor for this moment.

The reflecting pool, now covered in green algae after a fourteen million dollar renovation that included floating blue paint and contractors connected to campaign finance scandals.

Mary Trump: I used to think the perfect metaphor was The Picture of Dorian Gray, with the portrait finally emerging from the attic.

Now I think it’s the reflecting pool.

Donald has turned yet another American institution into a swamp through incompetence, corruption, disregard for science, and preference for profit over the public good.

The swamp monsters are having a party in the reflecting pool, and every solution somehow makes the problem worse.

Even the hydrogen peroxide is making things worse.

It is the perfect metaphor.

I’m just a little worried that if the algae keeps growing, the reflecting pool may actually become taller than the Empire State Building.

Steven Beschloss: Then perhaps our shared goal is simple.

Let’s clean up the reflecting pool.

Mary Trump: And while we’re at it, let’s take his name off everything.

Steven Beschloss: As always, Mary, it’s a pleasure.

Mary Trump: Thanks, Steve. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you soon.

Mary Trump’s Transcend PAC

"The Work We Need to Do"