Mary Trump said that she thinks her uncle genuinely believes he won the election and that he's the only person she knows 'who can gaslight himself'

Ashley Collman

Dec 3, 2020, 22:30 IST

Mary Trump said that she thinks her uncle genuinely believes he won the election and that he's the only person she knows 'who can gaslight himself'

A composite image of Mary Trump and her uncle, President Donald Trump.AP/Getty

Mary Trump, President Donald Trump's niece, told Vice News last week that she believes her uncle has tricked himself into believing he won the 2020 presidential election.
President-elect Joe Biden won the election last month, and the US government is already transitioning to Biden's team.
But the president has refused to concede and continued to make baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud.
Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, said her uncle was not allowed to show weakness, which is why he won't admit defeat.
"He's the only person I've ever met who can gaslight himself," Mary Trump told Vice, adding, "Probably the most central part of Donald's psychopathology is the need to deny any reality that paints him as a loser or as somebody who is weak."

President Donald Trump's estranged niece, Mary, says her uncle hasn't conceded the 2020 presidential election because he truly believes he won.

"He's the only person I've ever met who can gaslight himself," Mary Trump told Vice News last week. "I don't think he's ever accepted the truth of the loss. I don't think he's psychologically or emotionally capable of that."

Mary Trump, a Democrat and the daughter of Trump's older brother, Fred Trump Jr., has been speaking out against her uncle since she published a book about him this summer called "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."

In her book, she shared details of the president's upbringing and her opinions, based on her expertise as a clinical psychologist, about how it might have affected his personality.

One of the core themes of the book is that the president's father, Fred Trump Sr., trained his son never to show weakness.

Accepting defeat, she said, would be a sign of weakness. She said she was convinced her uncle will never concede to President-elect Joe Biden.

"Donald is a deeply damaged person," Mary Trump told Vice. "Probably the most central part of Donald's psychopathology is the need to deny any reality that paints him as a loser or as somebody who is weak."

Decision Desk HQ called the election for Biden on November 6, and major news networks followed a day later.

Since then, the president has refused to concede, launching lawsuits in swing states to challenge the results - but none have succeeded.

On November 23, the Trump administration officially authorized the presidential transition to Biden's team, but the letter enabling the move did not acknowledge Biden's election victory.

The president has alleged that Biden stole the election through widespread voter fraud, but his own attorney general, Bill Barr, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of such fraud that would change the outcome of the election.

Though he hasn't publicly accepted his loss, the president has hinted at a run in 2024. Mary Trump told Vice she didn't think he'd follow through.

"If he does announce a run, I don't think it should be taken seriously," she said. "I don't think he'd put himself in a position of losing again, which he'd be doing if he ran again."

But she said she worried that her uncle would take his anger at losing out on the American people in his last weeks in office.

"If Donald feels rejected by the American people, he's not going to distinguish people who voted for him from people who didn't," Mary Trump said. "He's going to take all of us down with him."

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