The White House and the Trump campaign on Sunday dismissed a secretly recorded tape in which Trump’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry said the president has “no principles” and “you can’t trust him.”
In an interview Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Trump “has been public with his response — you know, just another day and another attack that we continue to see.”
“I can tell you that I’ve never met the judge,” Meadows said of Maryanne Trump, who retired last year from her job as a federal judge. “I was at the funeral the other day. I was hoping to meet her there. She didn’t show up for her brother’s funeral.”
The president’s brother, Robert, died Aug. 15 at age 71. A private memorial service was held at the White House on Friday.
In one of the secretly recorded conversations, Barry, 83, appeared aghast at how her 74-year-old brother operated as president. “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”
Meadows pushed back against that criticism Sunday — while also taking aim at Mary Trump, who he said was “written out of a will” and “has an ax to grind because she wants Joe Biden to be president.”
“The president that I have the privilege of serving is not the one that’s being described on a 15-hour … secret tape,” Meadows said. “I mean, what family member tapes another family member for 15 hours secretly?”
In 1999, when family patriarch Fred Sr. died, Barry joined with Donald and Robert in a lawsuit to prevent Mary from getting a larger amount of the inheritance. Mary had said in a probate case that she and her brother should have received an amount closer to what would have gone to their father, if he had lived.
In another of the recorded conversations, Barry said of her brother, “He doesn’t read.”
Meadows countered in Sunday’s interview that Trump “reads probably more than anybody I know, which causes me to have to read more because every morning he’s giving me a to-do list. Every evening he’s giving me a to-do list.”
Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller also played down the significance of Maryanne Trump Barry’s comments.
“Sibling rivalries are nothing new in the world,” Miller said in an interview Sunday on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s been going on since the beginning of time.”
He noted that Americans had previously heard “some pretty pointed commentary” from former president Barack Obama’s half brother, Malik Obama. In 2016, Malik Obama announced that he was supporting Trump’s White House bid; Trump later invited him to be a guest at the final presidential debate.
“Unfortunately, when you get to the White House, you have family members who sometimes decide to voice their sibling rivalries or frustrations. Nothing new, but going into next week, it’s not something that’s going to be an issue,” Miller said, adding that it was “shameful” for The Post to have published the story one day after Robert Trump’s funeral.
