Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Everyone knows her name. Mary Trump grew up in a family divided by its patriarch’s relentless drive for money and power. The daughter of Freddy Trump—the highly accomplished, dashing eldest son of wealthy real estate developer Fred Trump—and Linda Clapp—a flight attendant from a working-class family—Mary lived in the shadow of Freddy’s humiliation at the hands of his father. Fred Trump embodied the ethos of the zero-sum game and among his five children: there could only be one winner. That was supposed to be Freddy, his namesake, but Fred found him wanting―too sensitive, too kind, too interested in pursuits beyond the realm of the real estate empire he was meant to inherit. In Donald, Fred found a kindred spirit, a “killer,” who would stop at nothing to get his own way. Even after Freddy’s short-lived career as a professional pilot for TWA came to an end, he never stopped trying to gain his father’s approval. Finally, at the age of 42, he succumbed to Fred’s lethal contempt and died alone in an emergency r