Inside Donald's Decline
In Conversation with Wajahat Ali
[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]
Mary Trump: The fact that Donald is in decline psychologically, emotionally, physically, and cognitively is not news. But here’s the question Wajahat Ali, my friend and fellow Nerd Avenger, and I asked: Is there a turning point? In other words, are all the horrible things Donald is now doing finally starting to stick? Here’s hoping. Find out what we had to say.
Wajahat Ali: You’ve talked about and written about your uncle’s mental health as a psychologist, and I think your insight is incredibly valuable. I always encourage people to read your first book, Too Much and Never Enough.
The title itself is perfect because Donald is like a child who keeps eating but is always hungry. How much wealth does he want? More wealth. How many women? More women. How much power? More power. No matter what he gets, he’s still miserable.
Now he’s deteriorating, Mary. He looks terrible. I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t speak to his mental health, but he’s clearly not as sharp as he once was. He’s confusing names, confusing people, and he fell asleep yet again, this time at Lindsey Graham’s funeral. We’ll get to that in a second.
But first, I want to focus on something you recently said because, in this country, we worship money. For some strange reason, we treat wealthy people as though they’re somehow better than everyone else, as though God has specially blessed them. We assume that because they’re rich, they’re brilliant and deserve to rule over us.
You recently pointed out that Donald didn’t make his money. He inherited it. We also learned that Donald has made more money in the past two years than he did during the previous sixty years combined.
Tell us what’s really behind The Art of the Deal.
Mary Trump: Well, it’s a great job if you can get it.
I think it’s important to point out that Donald hasn’t actually made money since returning to office. He’s had money made on his behalf. All he had to do was be willing to leverage the power of the presidency to grift and enrich himself and his useless children, while CEOs, people in his inner circle, and individuals with enormous stock portfolios also made extraordinary amounts of money.
As always, this isn’t Donald being good at anything.
Donald doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing. He didn’t even know what cryptocurrency was, and yet the vast majority of his newly acquired wealth has come through crypto.
The same is true for my useless cousins, Don Jr. and Eric. They aren’t serving on the boards of robotics companies because they possess specialized knowledge about robotics. They’re there because they’re the sons of the man occupying the Oval Office and because they’re perfectly willing to collect tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants and investments.
It’s a complete scam.
This is what happens when you put somebody in power who only cares about money and create a system that can be manipulated to enrich people willing to exploit it.
You mentioned that we live in a society where financial success is treated as the ultimate measure of human worth. When economic gain becomes the highest aspiration, corruption inevitably follows.
That tradition runs very deep in this country.
It began with certain religious sects among the Christians who helped found this nation. They believed that if you were saved, you were inherently better than everyone else. These were also many of the same people who used religion to justify enslaving other human beings.
That’s how morally bankrupt that belief system was.
Over time, that evolved into the idea that if you were wealthy, you must also be chosen by God.
Eventually, that laid the foundation for the prosperity gospel we’re still dealing with today.
For Donald, those ideas began taking shape during the 1940s, when my grandfather became deeply influenced by Norman Vincent Peale, the proto-prosperity gospel preacher who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking.
Wajahat Ali: Exactly.
Mary Trump: Paula White-Cain is a direct descendant of that deeply corrupt philosophy, one that elevates wealth while diminishing everyone else.
Because my grandfather believed money was the only thing that mattered, and because Norman Vincent Peale reinforced the belief that wealth made you inherently better than other people, my grandfather also came to believe life was a zero-sum game. The more you possessed, the more valuable you were.
Donald inherited all of those beliefs.
What he didn’t inherit were my grandfather’s business instincts or financial skills.
He inherited a tremendous amount of money instead.
Over the course of his lifetime, my grandfather gave Donald more than $410 million. Donald squandered every single penny of it, filing for bankruptcy six separate times.
Then, when my grandfather died, Donald inherited another $170 million.
He squandered that too.
Finally, thanks to Mark Burnett, Donald’s public image was completely rehabilitated. The myth of Donald as a successful businessman was resurrected, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
And here we are.
Wajahat Ali: There’s so much to unpack there.
I’m really glad you brought up the prosperity gospel because it’s one of the greatest scams ever devised. It wraps capitalism in the cross and tells people that if you’re rich, it’s because God wants you to be rich. Wealth supposedly becomes evidence that God approves of you.
Then the televangelists come along and say, “Send me more money because I need another mansion, another private jet, another luxury lifestyle. God wants me to have all of these things.”
Ignore what the Bible actually says.
Speaking of Paula White-Cain, she’s the multimillionaire televangelist who serves as Donald’s spiritual adviser. She once declared that saying no to Donald Trump is like saying no to God.
The grifts are coming from every direction.
I’m also glad you mentioned the amount of money Donald inherited because it reminds me of the 1985 movie Brewster’s Millions, starring Richard Pryor and John Candy. In that movie, Brewster has to spend an enormous amount of money before he can inherit even more.
Donald somehow managed the opposite.
If someone handed me $410 million and told me to lose it all, I’d have to work really hard to accomplish that.
Donald actually did it.
He bankrupted casinos. Do you know how difficult it is to bankrupt a casino? The house is supposed to win.
Except when Donald Trump is running the house.
And I’m especially grateful you mentioned Mark Burnett because I was just talking about him yesterday.
People often discuss the media’s role in creating Donald Trump, and they usually mention Les Moonves, the former CBS executive who famously said during the 2016 campaign that Donald might be bad for America but was great for CBS.
But the person people forget is Mark Burnett.
Without The Apprentice, there is no Donald Trump presidency.
People also forget that Mark Burnett is married to Roma Downey, the creator and star of Touched by an Angel. Burnett wasn’t particularly religious before, but after their marriage he became deeply involved in the world of faith-based entertainment.
That connection matters because it illustrates how celebrity culture, media, religion, and politics all converged to create the Donald Trump we know today.
Wajahat Ali: There’s so much to unpack there. I’m so glad you brought up the prosperity gospel because it’s one of the greatest scams ever devised. It wraps the cross around capitalism and tells people that if you’re rich and wealthy, God wants you to be rich and wealthy. If you’re rich and wealthy, that’s supposedly proof that God is pleased with you. So, naturally, the televangelists tell people, “Send me more money because I need another mansion, another private jet, and another luxury lifestyle.” It’s all presented as evidence that God wants them to have nice, shiny things, while conveniently ignoring what the Bible actually says.
Speaking of Paula White-Cain, she’s the multimillionaire televangelist and Donald’s spiritual adviser, the same Paula White-Cain who said that saying no to Donald Trump is like saying no to God. The grifts are coming from every direction.
I’m also glad you brought up that number because I always think about the 1985 movie Brewster’s Millions, starring John Candy and Richard Pryor. In that movie, Brewster has one week to spend an enormous amount of money in order to inherit even more. Donald Trump somehow lived the opposite version of that story. Mary, if you handed me $450 million and told me to squander it, I’d have to work really hard to figure out how to lose all of it. Donald actually managed to do it. He declared bankruptcy six times. Think about that. Do you know how difficult it is to bankrupt a casino? The house is supposed to win, except when Donald Trump is running the house.
I’m especially grateful you mentioned Mark Burnett because I was talking about him just yesterday. Whenever people discuss the media’s role in creating the myth of Donald Trump, they usually mention Les Moonves, the former CBS executive who famously said during the 2016 campaign, “Donald may be bad for America, but he’s great for CBS.” We talk about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and how the media helped create him, but the name people forget is Mark Burnett. Without The Apprentice, there is no Donald Trump presidency.
People also forget another important connection. Mark Burnett is married to Roma Downey of Touched by an Angel. After they married, Burnett, who had not been particularly religious before, became deeply involved in faith-based entertainment.
Mary Trump: Oh no.
Wajahat Ali: Roma Downey.
Mary Trump: Okay. And that’s the intersection, right? It’s the oligarchs and the Christian nationalists. There’s so much money involved, and they have access to so much power because Donald has made it clear that he is for sale. As long as people are throwing money at him and, of course, likening him to God, everything works for them because, let’s be honest, Donald doesn’t believe in a higher power except himself. Let’s not pretend for a second that he’s approaching any of this as a deeply religious man.
He’s using them, they’re using him, and it’s all in service of advancing agendas that are fundamentally anathema to American democracy.
At the same time, as you pointed out, Donald is declining in every major category of human functioning. He’s declining cognitively, emotionally, psychologically, and physically. That makes it easier for the people around him to manipulate him for their own malign purposes, and it also makes him far more dangerous.
Wajahat Ali: And for anyone wondering whether that’s really true, let me connect the dots.
Mark Burnett, who helped create Donald Trump’s public image through The Apprentice, married Roma Downey, the creator and star of Touched by an Angel. Together they’ve become prominent Christian media figures, dedicating much of their entertainment empire to high-profile faith-based projects, including The Bible, the ten-hour History Channel miniseries, Son of God, A.D. The Bible Continues, and Resurrection.
For them, supporting Donald is about Christianity, but it’s also about capitalism.
Meanwhile, Donald has made billions through cryptocurrency. He openly brags about it. His sons continue making extraordinary amounts of money. During the trade wars, he publicly boasted that Charles Schwab and other wealthy investors made fortunes because they knew exactly what was happening. They’re profiting from insider knowledge. They’re profiting from this disastrous war with Iran. He’s pardoning fraudsters and money launderers left and right.
The White House has effectively become his personal ATM.
That’s what makes me wonder, Mary. Putting on your psychologist’s hat and knowing your uncle the way you do, he’s dying. He knows he’s dying. We know he’s dying. He has amassed billions through crypto, real estate, foreign deals involving the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and countless other ventures. His sons are wealthy. His family has extraordinary financial protection.
How much more does he actually need before he’s happy?
Mary Trump: I’m sorry to say that there is no such thing as enough.
There never will be.
That’s his tragedy, and unfortunately it’s also our tragedy. It’s the essence of his pathology, and psychologically it’s actually very simple.
It will never be enough because none of it is the thing he truly wants.
Growing up in my family, my grandfather taught us that the only thing that mattered was money. Your value, literally and metaphorically, was measured by how much money he gave you. Most of us received very little. Donald received extraordinary amounts.
That was the lesson all of us absorbed.
Donald understood, on some very deep psychological level, that he wasn’t especially good at anything. He wasn’t particularly smart or talented. So he desperately needed to believe that the money made him special, that it somehow proved he really was exceptional.
Here’s the problem.
Because Donald was profoundly neglected as a child, and if anyone wants the full story they should read my first book because, sadly, it’s even more relevant today than when it was published, he never received the kind of love children need during the most important stages of psychological development.
By constantly preferring Donald over everyone else, my grandfather actually made him incapable of experiencing genuine love.
Donald became what I’ve often described as a black hole of need.
The thing he wants most is love.
It’s also the one thing he will never have.
Nobody truly loves this man.
So he spends his life trying to fill that void with money, more money, unimaginable wealth, power, flattery, putting his name on everything, and covering everything in gold because he believes those things will finally make him feel special.
I think you and I spoke shortly after his birthday celebration, the UFC event that revolved entirely around him. I’m convinced he woke up the following morning feeling emptier than he had ever felt because, somewhere inside him, it’s beginning to break through.
No matter how much money he steals, no matter how much power he accumulates, no matter how much people flatter him or how extravagantly he glorifies himself, he will always remain that empty, broken, terrified little boy.
Wajahat Ali: And that realization, sadly, doesn’t lead to reflection, contrition, or redemption. Instead, it turns into rage and anger. As he’s dying, think about what he’s doing. He attacks his enemies. He obsesses over his grievances. It’s Obama. It’s Fauci. It’s Comey. He insists, “I won. I won big.” Now he’s even talking about running again in 2028.
Can you explain why, as he declines, the rage and the vindictiveness will increase instead of decrease?
Mary Trump: Donald has spent almost all of his psychic energy, beginning in adolescence, protecting himself from the truth about who he really is. He’s devoted an enormous amount of psychological energy to making sure he never has to confront the knowledge that he’s a weak, pathetic loser. At the same time, he’s spent massive amounts of energy trying to ensure that he never experiences humiliation, which is ironic because he’s somebody who is constantly being humiliated. The difference is that he cannot consciously process any of it.
As he declines, however, I think the barrier between his conscious and unconscious mind is beginning to weaken. It’s becoming increasingly permeable. He’s starting to gain flashes of awareness about what other people actually think of him, what he really sounds like, how he really looks, and just how little control he still has. Most importantly, he’s losing control of the narrative.
Wajahat Ali: And the poll numbers that came out today are terrible.
Mary Trump: They’re terrible, and they’re only going to get worse because everything he’s doing right now is a disaster. I’m not exaggerating.
That’s going to make him more desperate, more angry, and more vengeful. It will push him toward increasingly extreme actions as he tries to change the subject and regain control of the narrative.
Unfortunately, he also appears to be experiencing significant cognitive decline. My grandfather developed Alzheimer’s disease, which began in his late seventies. Before the disease fully progressed and before he started forgetting people close to him, before his personality changed so dramatically that the sociopath I had known became almost kitten-like, there were clear warning signs.
One of the biggest was the loss of impulse control.
Ironically, my grandfather had excellent impulse control for most of his life. Then, suddenly, he didn’t.
Donald has never had particularly good impulse control, and now he’s losing what little he had.
My grandfather was also physically much healthier than Donald is, so I think the progression of his illness was slower. Donald’s overall health is much worse, and I believe that’s accelerating the process.
We’re seeing increasing rage. We’re seeing the flailing. Until he reaches the point where the cognitive decline fully overtakes his awareness, he’s still lucid enough to recognize, at least on some level, that he’s becoming debilitated.
That means the impulse control will continue to deteriorate. The paranoia will increase. He’ll lash out even more.
That’s why, despite how pathetic, shambling, and rambling he appears, I think he’s genuinely very dangerous right now.
Wajahat Ali: That’s the key point. He’s at his most dangerous precisely because of everything you just described.
Most of us have encountered difficult people in our lives, but their distorted reality is usually confined to their own family or workplace. Donald Trump isn’t simply another difficult relative. He’s the President of the United States. He’s the leader of a political movement. He has the House, the Senate, right-wing billionaires, Christian nationalists, and a Supreme Court that continues enabling him. We’re watching a real-life version of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
You see Republicans confirming people like John Ratcliffe as Director of National Intelligence, despite the obvious concerns. You see Steven Miller. You see Todd Blanche, Donald’s former personal attorney. More and more, the people surrounding him are retreating into an increasingly isolated inner circle. Others, like Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, seem to be positioning themselves for whatever comes next.
It reminds me of another pop culture reference.
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet features a villain who has everything but discovers he’s dying of an incurable illness. His response isn’t acceptance. His response is, “If I’m going to die, I’ll destroy everything.”
I think about that character whenever I watch Donald because I honestly believe that if he feels he’s going down, he’ll be perfectly willing to burn everything down with him.
Mary Trump: I actually said exactly that in 2020, before the election. I said that if Donald believed he was going down, he would try to take all of us with him.
The interviewer looked at me and said, “You’re not serious.”
I said, “Yes, I absolutely am.”
Then January 6 happened only a few months later.
The danger is even greater now because Donald himself is so much worse than he was then. He’s surrounded by people who are even more dangerous, and he’s more desperate than he’s ever been.
We also have to remember something fundamental about him.
Donald is a nihilist.
He doesn’t believe anybody should outlast him. That’s one of the reasons he’ll never willingly choose a successor.
Wajahat Ali: So you don’t think Marco Rubio or J.D. Vance, who seem convinced they’ll inherit the movement, have any real chance?
Mary Trump: No.
Donald would never willingly acknowledge that somebody else is capable of replacing him because doing so would require him to admit that someone else could be as important as he believes himself to be.
He’ll never accept that.
He talks endlessly about being the greatest president in history because he genuinely needs to believe that nobody else could ever occupy that position.
Recognizing a successor would require him to acknowledge his own mortality.
Psychologically, that’s something he simply cannot do.
Wajahat Ali: That’s exactly what I think too. People keep imagining that once Donald fades away everything will simply return to normal. Meanwhile, the Republican establishment continues enabling him. They keep pretending this is temporary.
I don’t believe it.
Yes, he’s older. Yes, he’s weaker. Yes, his coalition is shrinking.
But that makes him even more dangerous.
The Republican Party has tied itself completely to Donald Trump. They’re going to ride this all the way down, and in the process they’ll burn everything they can.
Mary Trump: Exactly. And we can never allow Republicans to rehabilitate themselves afterward by claiming this was all Donald’s fault.
We cannot allow them to say, “It wasn’t us. We were afraid. We had no choice.”
No.
This belongs to them too.
They enabled him.
They defended him.
They empowered him.
Every destructive policy, every abuse of power, every attack on American democracy belongs around their necks just as much as it belongs around Donald’s.
They have to be held accountable.
We cannot allow these people to simply reinvent themselves and pretend none of this happened.
Wajahat Ali: Amen.
We need fighters.
Mary, before we go, shamelessly promote your work.
Mary Trump: Please check out my Substack, The Good in Us, and our YouTube channel, Mary Trump Media.
If you’re interested in understanding Donald’s psychology more deeply, I also encourage you to read my first book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. I think of it as both the psychological history of a family and, in many ways, the psychological history of a country.
Wajahat Ali: I thought it was fascinating, and I genuinely enjoyed reading it. People constantly ask how Donald can behave the way he does or whether I’m shocked anymore.
I still want to retain the capacity for shock because I never want to become numb.
But I’m no longer surprised.
The evidence has been in front of us for years.
People need to trust what they see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears.
It’s been ten years.
Thank you, Mary, for taking the time to join me.
Mary Trump: Thank you so much. It was great talking with you.
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