Maryanne Trump Barry has denounced her younger brother Donald as a "cruel" man and a liar with "no principles" in a series of scathing statements about the U.S. president.
The only thing he has accomplished on his own were his bankruptcies, she said.
The comments from Barry, the eldest of the five Trump siblings and a retired senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, were secretly recorded by her niece, Dr. Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist. Dr. Trump is the author of The New York Times bestselling book "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man." It was published July 14.
Dr. Trump revealed this past weekend she had secretly recorded 15 hours of discussions with Barry in 2018 and 2019. She released a number of transcripts and audio excerpts - including content not published in her book.
In the recordings made public by The Washington Post, Barry talks freely - and scathingly- about her younger brother and his character flaws.
Barry, 83, said: "All (Donald) wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principles. None. None...His goddamned tweet(ing) and lying, oh my God. I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit."
She said her brother, 74, doesn't read. She said Donald Trump was astonished she still read books instead of watching Fox News.
Her brother had someone take the SAT, a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the U.S., on his behalf. She condemned "the phoniness of it all. It's the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel."
Barry criticized what her brother was "doing with the kids at the border." She laughed off his suggestion he might send her there to help handle immigration cases. "I guess he hasn't read my immigration opinions."
"What has he read?" asked Dr. Trump. "No, he doesn't read," replied Barry.
Barry also assailed the many bankruptcies of her brother's businesses, saying: "You can't trust him." She said the only things her brother accomplished on his own were those bankruptcies.
Trump reacted to his elder sister's comments saying: "Who cares?"
Barry graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Holyoke College. She became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 1974 and was first appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in 1983.
In 1999, she was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Bill Clinton. She retired from this post in February 2019.
