Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich. last weekend. (Neo Hopkins/The Detroit News/TNS)
by Michelle Diament | July 25, 2024 disabilityscoop
In a new book, Donald Trump’s nephew Fred C. Trump III says that the former president told him that people like his son, who has intellectual and developmental disabilities, “should just die.”
The claim comes in Fred Trump’s memoir “All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got to Be This Way” that is set to be released next week. An excerpt was published by Time on Wednesday.
Fred Trump, the son of Donald Trump’s late brother Fred Trump Jr., said that he saw his uncle being in the White House as an opportunity to advocate for housing support and other needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities like his son William, 25.
After the 45-minute Oval Office meeting concluded, Fred Trump said his uncle asked to see him.
“I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong,” Fred Trump wrote.
“Those people,” Fred Trump said his uncle told him, “the shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”
Not knowing what to say, Fred Trump said he “turned and walked away.”
On another occasion, Fred Trump said he reached out to his uncle to ask for help with a medical fund that the family had set up for his son that was running low. After explaining the situation, Fred Trump recounts that the former president told him “I don’t know,” then let out a sigh and said, “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Disability Scoop about Fred Trump’s claims. Time also said that it asked the former president to respond and received no reply.
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