Mary Trump says her uncle, Donald Trump, is worsening his legal problems with incendiary social media posts because his “fear of humiliation is so strong that he cannot course-correct.”
“There’s been a really interesting shift over the last few months, or couple of years,” Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner in an interview Wednesday.
“The way in which he is presenting himself in social media, the attacking nature, the aggressiveness. That used to be strategy for him, you know, [he] used to throw temper tantrums strategically to get his way. It’s not strategy anymore.”
Facing four indictments, Trump has doubled down on his usual playbook, lashing out at those working to hold him accountable. Judges, prosecutors and grand jurors involved in his cases have received violent threats.
A woman in Texas was arrested on Wednesday on charges she threatened to kill U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal indictment linked to his push to overturn the 2020 election. “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you,” Abigail Jo Shry allegedly said in a voice message for the judge.
“He is literally doing what he’s done in other contexts, which is pushing the envelope to see how much he can get away with, which obviously, until this time, has been everything,” Mary Trump said.
“But the unconscious fear, terror, and especially fear of humiliation is so strong that he cannot course-correct and realize that doing what he’s always done is this time not going to get him what he wants.”
“In fact, quite the opposite,” she added.
Trump has been indicted on a total of 91 felonies in two federal cases and two state cases. In New York, he’s charged with falsifying business records. In Georgia, he’s expected to be arraigned soon in a sprawling racketeering and conspiracy case over an alleged scheme to change the election results in the state. The federal cases are tied to his handling of classified materials and his 2021 coup attempt.
Trump has raged at people involved in all four cases, largely ignoring judges’ warnings to curb his inflammatory rhetoric.
“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” he wrote in a Truth Social post earlier this month.
Watch Mary Trump’s interview below.