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Salon
Salon
Politics
Griffin Eckstein

Trump: Disabled people "should just die"

Fred C. Trump III, the nephew of former President Donald Trump, revealed the damning comments his uncle shared on disabled Americans, in an excerpt of an upcoming book. 

In a passage from “All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way,” the son of Donald Trump’s brother, Fred Trump Jr., alleges that his uncle callously suggested that Americans with disabilities, including the former president's grandnephew, should "just die," in two separate conversations.

Fred, who was working with his uncle’s administration’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, detailed an Oval Office meeting during the COVID-19 pandemic he attended in which Donald Trump demonstrated an utter lack of respect for disabled Americans.

“Those people,” Fred recalled then-president Donald Trump saying in the White House, “the shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.” 

But former President Trump’s apathy for the lives of disabled individuals extended even to his own family members, Fred added. Describing a later encounter, when he asked his uncle to support his son William’s medical expenses, Trump wrote that his uncle repeated a similar sentiment. 

“‘I don’t know,’ he finally said, letting out a sigh. ‘He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida,’” the passage read.

Donald Trump, who mocked a reporter with a disability in 2015, launched multiple attacks on legal protections for people with accessibility needs during his presidency, including threatening Social Security benefits for disabled people.

Fred Trump, who in 2020 slammed his sister Mary Trump for her book which was critical of the then-president, shared other bombshell allegations against his uncle in the memoir, including that he had once used the n-word in a racial tirade.

The book, “All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way,” will be released next week.

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